Tuesday June 19, 2007
Less than a week to be Viennese

I am absolutely floored my time here in Vienna is almost over! Part of me is so ready to move on to new places to explore, but at the same time I’m going to miss all the things I’ve grown accustomed to here.

Well I better get down to business because I have a lot to update everyone on!

Amazing trip to Salzburg
Friday
We all took the train to Salzburg, and this time there was no drama getting seats because I wasn’t having to lead the way, it was all taken care of for us! We had a reserved cabin and I read and slept the whole way there. Once we got there we went to our Hostel, which was really like an economical hotel. We got our lunch at the hostel, which was like Austrian cafeteria food, but we were so hungry we scarfed it all down, but it wasn’t too bad. After that we took a three hour, not boat tour, but a three hour WALKING tour of Salzburg. I’m really hoping all this walking will counteract some of those pastries! So we walked a ton, and got to see a few of the sites from the Sound of Music, which basically consisted of me making random arm gestures and being awkward in front of the camera for lack of anything better to do at the sites you feel so obligated to take pictures of.

At one of the places we went, excuse me for not knowing the name, but it is the place were they have the steps they sang “do a deer” on and a fountain they danced on, the gardens also had this dwarf garden of about 20 dwarfs statues. Apparently they don’t know why they are there, but it was unusual to say the least. There were both men and women, and they were just doing random things. All of us picked a favorite.

Salzburg, while very touristy, had a really quant feel to its city center. We got to go by the house were Mozart was born, and I’m serious, Mozart has a larger than life presence here in Austria. They even have a special Mozart chocolate that has marzipan in it, most of the other kids didn’t like it, but I thought it had a really nice texture, but it definitely best when kept in the refrigerator.

This whole trip was included in our program fee, so the only money I spent all weekend was on souvenirs and a few other things. For dinner they took us to the historic Stiegelkeller 15th century brewery. And yes, I had a beer. I actually enjoyed it, although I did have a small one. Our view from the brewery was amazing because it was up on the hill that led to the enormous castle. We got to look out over all of the city and lower alps and ate a feast of Austrian food, which again, isn’t that notable, but still good.

I was finally over my cold, but there is something in Austria that I am allergic to, because I think between that and possibly the beer I did not sleep well at all. I tossed and turned, wheezed, heard people walking up and down the hostel, so that was no fun.

But the next morning breakfast was good! Tons of bread and jams, and I’m totally back on a milk and cereal kick for the first time in years.

Side note: I have come to the realization on this trip that the inevitable has happened. I’ve turned into my parents. Being around other people has made this blatantly apparent. I get up early to go exploring more, I allow more than enough time for the train, I now prefer breads that have lots of grain and seeds, and I’m the go go go traveler. I used to really grumble when my parents got up early on vacation to “allow extra time” but now I totally do that. This is one of the reasons why I’m looking forward to being with my dad this upcoming week. I get to finally be with my own kind!

So back to Salzburg. I got up early with Laura, one of two adults on the trip who went back to school and came with us. Laura is in her 30’s and has a daughter back at home, but is an Art History major and went back to school to get a degree, so I’ve found that she is the one on this trip willing to go to an extra museum or two, or get up early to go do things with, so we got up early and met up with two of the boys and went to explore and look for souvenirs. Most places weren’t open, but we came upon this cute shop and the shopkeeper was so nice and talked to us about where he’s been in the US and about Texas. This was a first, soon to be followed. He said, “oh everyone knows Texas because of Bush” and we all groaned and frankly braced ourselves, but he laughed and said “eh I don’t mind him.” We all enjoyed talking to him.

So we loaded up the bus and went to Hellbrunn, a hunting lodge built by the bishop of Salzburg (wasn’t a part of the Habsburg empire) hundreds of years ago. Apparently he had a sense of humor. The entire place was filled with water works that sprayed you as you walked by. We had a young tourguide, so as you were walking around looking at all the mechanical fountains and figures run by the water she would turn on the spouts in the doorways etc. and get you all wet. It was SOOOOOOOO much fun. At one point, Katie (one of my 5 roommates and I) went and stood out in the center because we wanted to get wet, and the girl absolutely let us have it! She didn’t just turn it on, she turned it on and left it on until we were drenched! We asked for it. Check me out, all wet.

To show us generally around we had a “professional Austrian” tourguide, who wasn’t allowing actually in Hellbrunn because of her status, but she showed us around everywhere else. This tourguide was nothing like the one I HATED from Krems. She spoke perfect English (she could have been mistaken for an American) and was full of sarcasm (unusual here, Austrians definitely are not known for their humor) and she would randomly break into Sound of Music songs when we would go and see somewhere from the movie. She was full of spunk, and told us stories of how she almost married an American but decided she couldn’t move to California and stayed here. I liked her.

So after that we looked around the hunting “lodge” or rather mansion, and then had this wonderful three course lunch at the place.

After that we had time to walk around Salzburg again. This time I was able to actually go buy souvenirs since more stores were open, and then I began the trek up to go see the castle. That consisted of steps, more steps, and then a really, really steep climb up a hill. If I had been invading that castle I would have seriously been like “screw it I’m going for strudel, see you at the bottom.” I could have been not cheap and taken the train up there, but alas I didn’t. My calves I’m sure thank me.

Once we finally got the top, there was a medieval festival going on. The views were great, and the castle was really old, but most of the actual castle was closed, or it cost more to go inside, so I just walked around and listened to the music, one of the only free things, at the top! About the time I was up there to sit down, this female punk bagpipe (continental bagpipes, not Scottish) group of women over 40 started playing. They put on this big show and made all these faces at each other and got really into it. It was so entertaining.

After that we went back, and got ready for dinner. I felt like I was back in my USSYP days. We were treated like kings, or queens in my case. They had gotten us tickets for a Mozart quartet dinner concert at St. Peter Stiftkeller, which is really old obviously and cut into the side of the mountain with the castle on it. We went into this big grand room and in between all the courses they placed selections from Mozart’s operas and symphonies. The music was amazing, and so was the food, except we didn’t really eat until 9 which totally sucked since I hiked up to the mountain and all. The dessert was so good, it was this semi frozen custard with caramel and strawberries. Wow. I mean wow. Our waiter at this place was apparently Italian, very opinionated, and liked to talk and just keep talking. He told us how he loves Americans, he likes Bush, he apparently loved Kennedy and Reagan, blah blah blah. It got to the point we were like “um, thank you, bye.” And he would keep talking. Funny guy.

Sunday was a big day. We left Salzburg, traveled to Linz, and then took a bus to Mauthausen Concentration Camp, one of only two camps in all of Europe labeled as Grade III by the Nazis, meaning it was the worst of the worst. Mauthausen was a labor camp especially made for “incorrigible political enemies of the reich,” made specifically for the intelligent and educated members of the higher social class. This included more than just Jews, but any political prisoner, members of the Catholic clergy, homosexuals, “asexual people” or basically anyone who just didn’t look right. Mauthausen is estimated to have killed between 122,000 - 300,000 people, and had around 85,000 prisoners at the time it was liberated.

We arrived and got a tour of the camp by a young Austrian completing his year of civil service. Mauthausen was built beside a huge quarry. The prisoners used to have to climb the “stairs of death” with stones that weighed over twice their weight and were often times either pushed off the cliff or pushed down the stairs, resulting in multiple people getting crushed to death.

None of us wanted to talk or look at each other while we were there. We all silently went through the various medical experiment labs, incinerators, and gas chambers in complete silence. I don’t think there was a single person who made it through without crying. Some people had to go off by themselves for awhile because the stories of evil torture these people went through was so bad it made physically sick. I have never been so sick at humanity. People were burned alive here, left out in the cold to stand naked until they froze, tested for how long it takes to starve people on a piece of bread a day, given various types of euthanasia to “see how it works”, just horrid, horrid, horrid suffering. One of the cruelest ironies of all is that Mauthausen is placed in the middle of some of the most beautiful Austrian farmland. I really didn't take that many pictures of the camp because I just didn't feel right doing that.

While we all know how horrible the Nazis were, there are so many jokes about them anymore it’s easy to forget just how maliciously evil they were. I guess this is how we all cope with living with such a memory. I’ll give you a for instance that really struck me. At the beginning of the war the Nazis wanted to test how to make a gas chamber, so they stormed a convent in I believe northern Austria where the nuns took care of handicapped and mentally retarded children. They took all of the children and probably young adults who couldn’t care for themselves and used them test death by a gas chamber. Can anyone say Satan?

The part that got me the most was at the end of the day, after walking the stairs to the quarry and back, and looking at all the memorials they had set up, a group of us congregated and went to watch the movie they had showing about Mauthausen. The movie was made in the early 80’s. The whole film was in German and has been translated except for the last part, when a man in his 60’s who had silver hair and a beer belly started talking. Mauthausen was liberated by Americans. The 11th Armored Division, 3rd US Army to be exact. This man started talking about the day they walked in, and suddenly broke into gasping sobs and started talking about how horrible it was, and how all of these grown men were walking skeletons, and people died right in front of them. He continued to sob and kept saying “we buried over 2,000 people in two days, it was horrible, it was hell on Earth.”

I looked around the theater and not one of us had a dry eye. It was so emotional. On the way back to the train station our bus didn’t have air conditioning and the windows didn’t open, but nobody dared complain.

So on a lighter note, on Monday I went rafting down the Danube River. UT got a special tour of the Danube National Park by a group of both working and retired biologists and geologists. We rafted down the river, stopped and had lunch, took a hike, came back, and rafted down the way to dinner. We stopped right on the edge of the Austria/Slovakia boarder and went up to a hill top this fabulous view of everything. We were so close I could see Bratislava just on the other side. After that we went to another wine tasting. There aren't any pictures because I didn't take my camera for fear it would get wet. I realize this means some of you may not actually believe I did it, but you'll just have to take my word.

Hopefully this story is an uplifter after Mauthausen. Well we were all ravenous with hunger. We sat down and drank a bunch of water because I knew I was dehydrated. Well they brought out the wine, and so far on this trip the most I’ve been has been maybe buzzed, so I think I got a little over cocky on my alcohol handling abilities. I wasn’t feeling anything from the wine, so I suppose I was drinking pretty fast.

Lesson learned. Drinking anything on an empty and dehydrated stomach hits you pretty fast after about 5 minutes. Someone pointed at a tree and I turned to look and all at once the outside landscape “wobbled.” So I was like, “oh jeez.” Next thing I knew I couldn’t look anything straight in the eye, and there were about 5 conversations going on at once and I could only focus on one with a 10 second delay on all the words. What’s worse, is everyone else can handle their alcohol. They all know me pretty well, and were laughing, and tried to put wine in my now water, and laughed as I just slightly slurred my words. Thanks guys. lol All I kept thinking was “oh crap, I have to go get on a bus in a little bit. This may not be pleasant.”

Luckily, the food started to set in, and 5 trips to the bathroom later and a 20 min nap on the bus ride home I was fine. Never falling for that again.

UGH, now Tuesday.

Ok today we went to Freud park, and the Freud Museum. It blew my mind. They even had a very primitive brain slicing machine, which looks nothing like the one in the lab today, but it got me pretty excited. After that, went to the funeral museum, it was cool but the temperature was hot, and then after that I can home and rested before going grocery shopping and writing this.

Ok, finally done.
*Elaine