Schloss Hohenwerfen

This was a day trip that we took, about 40 km south of Salzburg. We traveled by bus and then proceeded to climb up to the fortress.

We got a tour of the fortress, learned a lot of history. Not only was this fortress the setting for the 1960s movie Where Eagles Dare (which I have never even heard of) but it was also in the background of the Do-Re-Mi song in The Sound of Music.

It was built starting in 1075, and over the many years it was greatly expanded. Originally meant just as a fortress, it was later used as personal residences and a hunting residence. The main personal residences were burnt down in the beginning of the 20th century, and have not been as lavishly rebuilt.

Currently the main use of the Fortress is as an adventure castle, with an amazing Birds of Flight show. We got to see it, and it was so amazing! And the bird trainer's outfits were pretty neat too.

On the right is a fun picture of our AIFS cultural director, Andreas, in his lederhosen.

All the birds were extremely well trained, which meant that they could get so close to us during the show. At one point I thought one of them might take out my camera, but it was just amazing.

As always, check facebook for all the pictures that I took at the fortress or follow this link:

http://on.fb.me/acpUXd

Oktoberfest

Regardless of what it's called, Oktoberfest doesn't really take place in October. The last three weeks of September as well as the first week of October makes up this crazy festival. We jumped on a train at 7am, because we had heard just how crowded it can get throughout the day. When we arrived at the festival at 9am it was already packed enough to rival the Iowa State Fair.


photo c/o: Kendal

The first "tent" we went into was the Hippodrom, since their tables were unreserved until noon. However, "tent" is definitely the wrong word to describe these buildings. These structures must be there year round. Most seat upwards of six to eight thousand people, and many, like the Hippodrom have two levels for seating. 

photo c/o: Heather

A band, located behind the floating pony in the photo above, plays traditional music all day starting at 11. So our band surprised us by all chugging an entire beer before beginning to start playing. Now, this one beer may sound doable to some people but these Oktoberfest beers are not normal beers. Each beer is one whole Liter. And it comes in a large glass stein, which is heavy enough without any alcohol in it.

photo c/o: Jess

Outside of the tents I was surprised to find that there were a lot of fair-like rides at the festival. I never got around to riding any of the rides, even though I had really meant to.

 A few of the people who came in our group did end up going on the swing ride. And since it was such a sunny day (unlike what the pictures show) they said it was lovely.
Throughout the day we wandered through 6+ tents, but ended up getting a table at only one more. This was because it was just as crowded as everyone said it would be. We searched and searched for a seat at a table, because you couldn't get a beer without a table, and finally we found one in the Augustiner tent.



Both photo's c/o: Kathryn

Once we did find this table we enjoyed being able to sit down, and two of the girls I was with ordered half a chicken for lunch. Now, at this point I must say that I went from zero to decently intoxicated in about a minute, so I am very thankful and apologetic to those who were with me and looked out for me.
As some of you may know "Prost" is the German version of "Cheers", and so at many times throughout the day the band would play a song which was "Ein Prosit". The song itself isn't that original, basically the same phrase over and over again with mugs raised.

Though the best part of it was that a lot of people got up onto the table benches and sang along. 

We decided to end the day around 5pm and got on the two hour train ride home. But, about an hour and a half into the trip the train stopped at a station and didn't start moving again. We were thankful that there was a family where the father spoke English in our train car and he explained what happened. Apparently we were supposed to get off the train and onto a bus that would take us to Salzburg. But, because it took so long for us to figure this out the bus had already left. This left us stranded in rural Bavaria in some small town called Traunstein. And now that I've wikipedia-ed it, turns out it's not oh so tiny a town as I though it was. But still not a city.

We waited over an hour for the next train from Munich to come, and luckily did end up safely back in Salzburg at the end of the day. So overall, Oktoberfest was crazy awesome. And I'm definitely glad I went, though I think it may be too much of an extravaganza to make a tradition out of it.

München

It's about time I started backtracking because I've really done a lot since coming here. On the Second of October the whole AIFS group had an outing to Munich. We took the train there, which was about a 2 hour ride. Had a small walking tour of the center of the city. And then we were left to our own devices.

On the right is the glockenspiel. We weren't lucky enough to see it in action, but our tour guide told us the story of what goes on. The top tier depicts a wedding scene, while the bottom is a battle between Bavarian and Anglo-Saxon knights.

We next wandered into the Englischer Garten, which is huge. I think we were told it's larger than Central Park in New York City. This was the first time I noticed that it's actually becoming fall here! But it made everything so much prettier. We stopped for refreshments at one of the many beer gardens within the park called Chinesischer Turm. Which is the lovely tower in the picture on the right. Since Oktoberfest was still going on I think everything was a little more over the top and crowded than it may be normally.

After that we headed over towards the Olympic stadium and I was surprised to find the BMW museum located right outside of the subway stop. Didn't get to spend much time there but they had the neatest blobs that moved around completely independent of each other. They also had scrolling messages on them, in German and English.

The Olympic stadium was kinda lackluster since we couldn't find a way to see more than what was left over of the swimming building. But it was still neat to be near it.

Some of the highlights of the day included getting to "ride" an expensive BMW motorcycle, a beautiful old Merry-Go-Round, and Call-A-Bikes.

For all Munich pictures head to Facebook or this link:
http://on.fb.me/ced12q

Budapest is the Best

For my first weekend trip (and the first out of the program excluding Oktoberfest) me and 6 other girls got together and traveled to Budapest, Hungary.

We took a train, which was about a five or six hour ride. It was awesome, mostly because it was my first experience with European trains. We went on the OBB, which is Austria's train system, for the trip there. It was nice and clean and not too full, thankfully. Though it did arrive 10 mins late, and through the travel and after a 20 min "breakdown" we arrived just over an hour late in Budapest.

Since we pulled in so late (10pm) we just dealt with heading to and checking in at the hostel, showers, and sleep.
This was my delicious meal that I got made to order on the train ride. So delicious!
On or first full day in Budapest we grabbed a breakfast of pastries at a bakery nearby. We tried to go to the Synagogue, but it was the Sabbath, so only Hungarians were let in.

We then opted for a Hop-on Hop-off bus tour which we used for the entire day. It was great because it ran us by and let of get off at all the main tourist things to see in the city. With our ticket we also got an hour long boat tour on the Danube which we did at the end of the day.

Fisherman's Bastian was build in 1901 and was named because that part of the city was historically defended by the fisherman's guild. It was my favorite piece of architecture that we saw in Budapest.

 On our second day in the city we went to the great Synagogue, which happened to be just a few blocks from our hostel. It was beautiful. Some neat features were that inside there were a few details that usually only show up in Christian churches, like the cupola above the bema. And there was a pulpit on either side of the main floor area. These were added because of one of the local sects of Jews which only developed in the Hungary area were trying to slightly assimilate with the Catholics.

 Another feature was the number of holocaust memorials in the synagogue. The "garden" was filled with mass graves of the dead from the ghetto who were storied there until Budapest was liberated and then were buried there. All the headstones around the mass graves mark those that are buried there, and later those locals that were known to have died during the Holocaust. For the 20th anniversary of the liberation of the ghetto they planted the trees and ivy over the graves.

This Tree of Life is a memorial to all Hungarian Jews who died in the Holocaust. Each of their names are engraved on a leaf. It was such a moving place. The also had memorials to those non-Jews who risked their lives to help save their Jewish neighbors, friends, or even complete strangers.

 I also dragged the whole group to this super cool "ruin" bar that was in one of the girl's guidebooks. We went on Sunday at 5pm so it was pretty empty, but that just meant it was easier to get good pictures. I really loved it, so unique. If it wasn't such a rainy day I would have sat in the outside back courtyard, but instead I wandered through the two inside levels.

 Overall the city was Amazing! I really loved it. I'm hoping that at some point in my life I'll have the opportunity to return and live there for an extended period of time.

For all of  the pictures I took while in Budapest find them on Facebook or through this link: http://bit.ly/b1OoXV