Star Wars and Salzburg

As promised, the first part of this post is about the free Philharmonic Summer Night's Concert (Sommernachtskonzert) at the Schonbrunn palace that was on June 8th.
"But wait Hannah," you might say "there was a promise of Star Wars and no mention of concerts. Where is the Star Wars?"
Well, the majority of the concert that evening was in fact associated with those famous films and thusly featured music such as The Imperial March, Princess Leia's Theme, Emperor's Theme, and Star Wars (the main theme) all originally composed by the glorious John Williams.
To celebrate this theme, some awesome individuals decided to go the extra mile (or kilometer since I'm in Europe) and make my day a little better.

Behold the glory

Oh, but it got better since it was apparently a group of people all dressing up together.

Darth Vader is coming for yoooooooooooooooooooou

Boba Fett giving orders

Since this sucker was free, a whole horde of people showed up. Novi and I got there only an hour early and already there were TONS of people who had claimed places.

All those little dots on the hill, those are people.

During the concert the orchestra also played Mars from the Planets (one of my favorites), Träumerei by Robert Schumann (since it was his 200th birthday on June 8th (well not really since he's dead, but you know what I mean)), as well as Wiener Blut, the unofficial anthem of Vienna, and finally Josef Strauss' polka Auf Ferienreisen.

Intense light show going on during the Imperial March

Also, during the grand finale there were fireworks!

Boom!

Despite having to stand for the whole time (and being a bit of a sicky then) it was totally rad to be able to go to something like this. Afterwards there were even extra buses to take the massive crowd of people home, which I greatly appreciated as I was tired and the soothing music increased my tiredness immensely.
The following Saturday (12th) Novi and I met for a quick day trip to Salzburg (though we missed the first train because I missed my tram to the station). We got in around 10:00 and quickly realized that Salzburg was just as hot as Vienna, if not more so. We also realized that finding our way into the city from the train station was much easier that we made it (i.e. there were signs, which we didn't follow at first). Our first destination was the Mirabell Gardens and Palace, where some scenes from the Sound of Music take place (since the whole thing was pretty much shot in Salzburg). Because of the sweltering heat (did I mention it was hot :-P) we chilled around in the gardens a while, smelling all the pretty flowers and watching a wedding party take photos (I would have hated to be them, because of the heat thing).

Probably the most beautiful picture ever

Make sure to remember that castle thing up on the top of the hill, that's where we eventually wandered to but that's the only photo I have of the castle itself.
The gardens were very organized and had many statues which were both awesome and funny. For example

The lion on the right got its feelings hurt, or is distracted by a butterfly

As we were wandering through the gardens there....may have been some singing. But really, who would blame us? It was the Sound of Music gardens (so yes, all the music was from that movie).

Dance Novi, dance!

More of the gardens

Only 30 minutes into our walk and we already had to cool off

Those two people are strangers, but I thought they were framed nice. Also, SO MANY STATUES

Leaving the gardens we walked along the river before cutting over to a market of sorts (never figured out what it was for).

Salzburg has the most picturesque skyline (and oops, guess I did snap more than one photo of the castle)

In case I've never mentioned it before, I really like markets and they will probably be one of the biggest things I miss (other than friends). Besides the everyday food markets (mmmm grape leaves) I've also gotten to enjoy the handcraft markets. Unfortunately, these seem to only come around on holidays (Christmas and Easter) or for some random reason (there was one when Mom and Dad were here, apparently for some kind of Church week). Needless to say (but I'm gonna write it anyways) we spend a slow, leisurely time wandering through this market.

Worm or dragon or snake? You choose

Leaving the river we cut into town and one thing struck me immediately (cue jokes about something actually hittine me here). Salzburg is way more touristy than Vienna. I don't mean negative things by that, it just makes me giggle that Vienna is the captial of the coutnry, but it's other towns that are crammed full of souvenir shops (although I guess more people go to NYC than Washington D.C). The Old Town was pretty nice, cobblestone streets, old looking buildings (with a McDonald's in the bottom of course :-P), and a random street band (they were wearing lederhosen and those spiffy hats). Since we were kinda on a budget we opted to not go into many things, but we did still take photos of said things.

Mozart's birth house, so very yellow

Clearly he is red from blushing

Awesome fountain with a refreshing mist

I have no idea what this is, other than it's in a main square in town

Eventually, we decided to splurge and pay to go up to the castle since, hey, it's a friggin' castle. To get up there were either the stairs, or a trolley thing. We chose....

trolley thing whheeeeeeeeeee!!!

Up at the top there was a quick audio tour that didn't leave much time for photos, but I managed to get a few when we were on the roof of one of the towers.

Ooooooo

Aaaahhhhhh

Back in the castle there were several museums, such as a history of the castle, a war museum, a puppet museum, and museum for artifacts from the oldie times.

I found this both beautiful and terrifying. Ghost army!!!

They won all their fights because the enemies were too busy laughing at them.

In the courtyard of the castle there were the obvious cafes and souvenir shops, but also a play area for the little ones. Novi and I decided little ones included us so we proceeded to build a glorious, bad-ass castle out of building bricks.

Then, Novizilla came. Oh no!!

That poor, poor castle.
The puppet museum was pretty cool, except for these strange holes in the floor with a clear glass cover. When looking into the hole we could see this doll figure lying on a pile of money, dressed like a robber (in one), trying to escape (in another), and being teased by a devil (in the final). I don't know what the message of this was, but if it was "creep Hannah out" then they succeeded.

All the evil scary dolls used in shows

Leaving the castle we arrived back in town just in time for it to start raining hardcore. On the one hand this was most welcome since it had been both super hot and humid. On the other hand we were stuck under an archway since I didn't have an umbrella. Luckily, it was the kind of super intense rain that only lasts a little while and afterwards it was much cooler.
Since we came on Saturday things were starting to close by 19:00 so we figured now was the best time to get some dinner.

We didn't get dinner here, this is just fantastic

One of the streets in Old Town

After our dinner we just kinda walked around until it was time to go back to the train station so we could get the last express train. Wandering back we got yelled at by some (I'm assuming) drunk Austrians which may have been because we were singing Beatle's tunes. But, since the Austrians were stationary and we were walking, it was no big thang.
Oh, but we did wander by this American family buying ice cream and for some reason the mother asked the kid to order for her and this little 9-year-old girl ordered in German. I can't decide if the kid was in one of those advanced schools where they learn languages early, or if a parent spoke German but wanted her to practice or what. Either way it was mighty adorable since she ordered in an ultra polite manner.

At the station, Novi working on her puzzle that she still hasn't figured out

Just wouldn't be Salzburg without a load of guys in lederhosen and carrying beer.

Hokay so, I've got about 8 days left here (yikes!) and the odds of me posting another post are slim since my track record for making on-time posts is bad enough to begin with. I'll most likely eventually make a post when I return home, though I'm assuming most of you will have seen me by then (and by most of you I mean the ones who arn't lame and living in Florida :-P).

Visiting Times: Various People in Vienna (a.k.a Aaron, Kristen, and Elise)

So on Wednesday while I while I was sitting in class Aaron managed to navigate successfully to a nearby cafe and get a strudel (a necessary thing to do in Vienna) and we even met up after class without any uh-ohs. From there, we went back to my place so I could drop off my bag and got lunch at a nearby Asian restaurant. Then it was into the Inner City and pretty much just wandered around, seeing the two Jewish museums (which were kinda disappointing, not much there) and attempting to go into the synagogue (turns out you can only enter with a tour and they're only available on Mon-Thurs which I didn't know so in the end we weren't able to go). I also showed him this big nifty clock and the Bermuda Triangle (an area with a plethora of bars that sadly, is not actually triangle shaped). Then we went to Stephanskirche which is one of the big main churchs in Vienna. And it was getting all snazzed up for Easter or some such holidy. This meant they were installing video screens so people waaaay in the back could see. VIDEO SCREENS!!! What madness.
We also went up in one of the bell towers (not the highest one, but the one with a still functioning bell).

Us at the top of the tower

After the church was more general wandering and I took him to the Manner store so he could buy many tasty wafer cookies and walked him past the Lipizzaner stables to marvel at the ultra classy horses (I don't know if the horses themselves are classy, but their genes must be). Of course, this led to much amusement of Aaron when he saw a store that stated Lipizzaner: the Better Taste. We also saw Hero's Square and Michael's Gate before I had us hop on a tram to go out to a Soho. Here there were cocktails and kareoke (not by any of us) and Aaron got to meet some of my buds, which was nice.
However, time was cut short as we then had to go pick up Kristen and Elise and take them to Dominik's. Dominik would be one of my totally awesome friends who didn't even hesitate when I asked if the girls could sleep at his place and just answered "yes," which I greatly appreciated. This was also despite the fact that he was doing field work. Anyways, he was too sleepy to go out with us that night so we just all went to Tunnel for the weekly BOKU international meeting.
This....was not a good plan. Being in that I got us horribly horribly lost and it took twice as long to get there as it should have, oops. On the bright side, we were all prety hungry so I'm sure all our pizzas were extra tasty. Although, our waiter was a little strange in that once she heard us speaking English she kinda refused to speak German, even though her German was better than her English. But oh well. We didn't stay out too late, and the return home was uneventful with the only significant thing being Aaron vowing to get a kebab from the (supposidly) best kebab stand in town.
The next day I have many more classes (yucky) so during my break I met up with Aaron to show him where our grandpa had lived. Then we swung by a cafe for a quick coffee and another apple strudel before I stuck Aaron on a tram and sent him to find Kristen and Elise (which he did with no problem). Apparently they went to Museum's Quarter where there were some....interesting statues of various parts of anatomy.
After my classes I met up with them to go to a tasty Pakastani place and then we dashed over to the State's Opera to get some standing tickets for The Flying Dutchman. Our places were not ideal as we got there a bit late and poor Aaron had to stand in the aisle where he couldn't read on the translation of the singing on the screen. But we filled him in later. As two hours of standing (with no break) left our feet a bit sore we left to find a place to sit for a bit and ended up going to Loos. This is a bar that is supposidly the birthplace of the cocktail. However, I was just amazed at how freakin' tiny the place was!! I'm guessing 20 people could fit in there, and that's pushing it. The drinks themselves were ok, but nothing spectacular so we left after our first drink.
And then I got us lost again.
But hey, in the process we got to see the Sacher Hotel (where the Sacher Torte comes from) and a lovely student protest/drum dancing party that was protesting tuition. I have trouble feeling sympathetic for these students though, as their tuition is still not 1/4th of what ours is.
On the way back Aaron did manage to get his kebab of legend, which I believe he said was ok.

Friday was the day of markets, since I took them to both Brunnenmarkt and Naschmarkt. First was breakfast at Tunnel and then we quickly wandered through Brunnenmarkt so they could see all the yummy foodstuff and complete randomness of the vendors who were selling clothes. Sadly, the market itself was a little sparse in the number of vendors. I guess they won't really return in full strength till the warm weather is here to stay.
After Brunnenmarkt we went off to Prater, which is Vienna's amusement park. Since the park was pretty much closed we just wandered around a not at all creepy deserted amusement park. There were some of these nifty, victorian-ish games to play though, all games of strength.

One involved punching things

The other involved getting this little rocket around the wheel as many times as possible

After Prater I took them to Naschmarkt to wander around a bit but the weather outside was getting frightful so we ducked into a cafe for some food and coffee before returning to my place. Here we simply chilled for a bit and watched some ski jumping on tv (not suprising, they're playing it like ALL THE TIME). After that was another cafe where not only did we get apple strudel, but also sacher torte (I have a hard time disliking a city where it's part of the cultural experience to eat lots of pastries :-D).
Then, we went to Dominik's and we all decided to make dinner. It got down pretty close to the wire, since the grocery stores close at seven and it was already five to seven, but we managed to get all the food we wanted and Aaron even broke out some fancy cheese he had bought earlier.

This is the fanciest (and only) appetizers I've had all year

Elise and Aaron did all the cooking. Look at them go!

Aaron explains what exactally we're eating (Nunu is the girl on the far left)

See what practial knowledge we learn

This face.....I have no words

On Saturday Aaron had to depart to return to his stupid life in Boston :-P, so we grabbed dinner at a cafe near Brunnenmarkt. It was pretty tasty but I think we scared the waiter because after he took our original order (and heard us speaking English) a different waiter came to take our food order. Also it was super crowded so service was kinda slow and I was getting worried about catching Aaron's flight, but it all worked out.
Also, Aaron got to see Brunnenmarkt on Saturday, when a lot more people are there and there's much more hand-made things. I got some lovely pussy willow branches (they sell them everywhere here around Easter) and walking back we ducked down a street that turned out to be an Easter market. It was rather small compared to the others here, but Aaron got to get a schaumroll (like a pastry dough hollow log filled with marshmallow cream) and I'm wondering if he's actually eaten that yet.
The transportation to and from the airport was very smooth, though I did get a little saddened when I had to hug him goodbye, but I'm ultra glad he visited as it was super fun.
In the evening I met up with Kristen and Elise again at a Turkish restaurant where I ate way too much delicious food. Which was a tasty mistake. Then we went back to Dominik's to chill for a bit before going out again.

He had glogi (Mulled wine)!! I was so happy!!

The brief chilling kinda led to some people falling asleep and others deciding to dogpile upon sleeping person.

I'm not nameing names here

Eventually, we went for a walk around the neighborhood to scavenge some food, and we did eventually find a kebab stand though the quality was less than good. At this point the wind had really picked up and I had definitaly missed my last tram so I just crashed on the floor, choosing a slightly uncomfortable floor to freezing, strong winds.

Gooooooooood morning ladies!!

Sunday was Sigmund day!! Sigmund Freud that is, as we went to the Freud museum.

Guess where it is!

It was actually pretty cool and had several rooms full of Freud's stuff and writings. One of the rooms was even re-created to look like it had originally with Freud, furniture and all.

Elise looking at Freud stuff

Kristen also looking at Freud stuff

After that I decided they should try some of the lovely gelato we have here so it was off to a place near Stephansplatz. However, what I didn't remember was how many flavors there are and since we were getting a style that is 3 different flavors, it took us a while to choose. I think the ice cream guys were getting a little impatient, but I feel like all Viennese vendors are. The minute you enter a store it's "Wie bitte? Wie bitte?" Which is kind of like "how can I help you?" This is kind of annoying because even if you tell them you're just looking they give you the most confused face.

Mmmmmm Gelato

As it turns out we kinda all forgot about Elise's lactose intolerance (it's not super bad) so I ended up finishing off her ice cream, which turned out to be a mistake. I was STUFFED!!!
We ducked back to Dominik's so they could pick up their stuff and he was nice enough to make lunch for everyone, proving he is still awesome even when even more tired from doing field work all week.
Getting to the train was kind of interesting as we got there essentialy JUST in time, but they boarded and I returned back to my room to recover from a week of pretty much walking all day long.
All in all, fantastically wonderful visits from both parties and hopefully despite all my mistakes they had an ok time.
Anyone else want to visit? Eh?? Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehh??