Hello friends,
Yesterday (Thursday the 25th of September) I concluded a month of intensive German studies in Salzburg. The classes, which ran from 9 in the morning to 2:30 in the afternoon, crammed a semester-long Goethe Institute German course into less than one month. I passed the course fairly well with an A-, and if I do well in the next German course I will receive the C1 level of competence in German. Thus, I will be able to enroll in UIBK (University of Innsbruck) classes proper, and participate in the full European University experience.
On that same Thursday I left the Heffterhof Hotel in Salzburg and moved to my quarters in the Rössl Studentenwohnheim in Innsbruck, Austria. The dorm is located five minutes’ walk away from the Innsbruck Aldstadt. The rooms are fully furnished, but they don’t support some of the more American amenities such as cable television or ethernet ports. The dorm is currently being upgraded to full wireless capabilities, and these should be online (no pun intended) by October 1. Each floor of Rössl contains around 27 two-person rooms; I live on the fifth floor. Each floor also contains a communal kitchen and dining area, both quite modern with four electric stovetops, two ovens, and four freezer-refrigerator units. As UIBK does not have dining halls in the American sense, I expect to be spending a lot of time in my floor’s kitchen. Fortunately there is a Spar (a cheap grocery store) next door to Rössl.
My schedule is actually quite slow this semester. I will be taking my next level of Geman (Deutsch als Fremdsprache III), as well as my college seminar (“The Age of Reason” about the Enlightenment), a political science course on the history of the EU, and an art history course on European painting. While the courseload is light, UIBK does have a no-skip policy for all of its classes. However, I do expect to have a lot of free time this semester.
Classes will proceed without a break from October 6 until Thanksgiving, which gives me a four-day break (Thursday + Friday + weekend). Then it’s non-stop again until December 17, when classes recess once more for Christmas, resuming on the 1st of January. Fall term officially ends on January 31st.
Now, though, I have my fall break, which lasts from today (Friday the 26th) until October 5. I’m going to spend the first four days in Germany, first in Münster with Dad, and then in Nuremberg for a day. I’m returning late on the night of the 29th to Innsbruck. Afterwards I’m not yet sure how I’ll spend my time. I’ve got a half-idea to go to Vienna for a day as my first visit hardly covered the city (see previous blog posts).
Right now I’m on a train bound for Salzburg, where I’ll change trains for a non-stop overnight train to Düsseldorf, there to meet Dad. I don’t know whether or not I’ll have internet in Münster, although I assume so. If that is the case I’ll put this post up then; if not, then whenever the wireless in Rössl starts functioning.
And so, in the words of Garrison Keillor: “Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.”
-JA
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
A Temporal Note
The time and events described in the last four posts might cause some confusion. To set the order straight, I wrote the first post (which covers my first two weeks in Salzburg) on the 13th of September. The second post concerns the events of the 13th of September, and was written on the evening of September 15th. The third post chronicles the 14th and 15th and was also written on the evening of the 15th. The last post concerning my stolen camera was written on the 16th; the event described therein took place on the night of the 15th and morning of the 16th.
-JA
-JA
EXTRA! EXTRA! John's Camera stolen by Hungarian rapscallions!
I hadn’t intended to write a further post, but Hungary has forced my hand.
So now for a bit of yelling.
I woke up this morning and proceeded to pack. During this process I discovered that I had been burgled during the night. The rapscallion(s) had made off with 5000 forints (about 20 Euros), and my camera. And the cameras of everyone else in my room.
So I am now an amateur photographer without a camera and with a firm conviction never to travel east of Germany unless I’m going to Australia. There is no likelihood of the camera being recovered, the Hungarians be adept at spiriting away their ill-gotten gains. If I want a camera in the near future I’m looking at another $300+ purchase.
So that was Hungary. Wet, cold, and permeated with thieves. I don’t think I’ll be coming back ever, and this post comes with a strong recommendation to anyone planning on traveling in a former Eastern Bloc country: don’t. Unless you enjoy replacing your valuables.
-JA
Update: thank you, dad. Dad will be bringing my new camera with him to Germany, and I'll get it on the 26th.
So now for a bit of yelling.
I woke up this morning and proceeded to pack. During this process I discovered that I had been burgled during the night. The rapscallion(s) had made off with 5000 forints (about 20 Euros), and my camera. And the cameras of everyone else in my room.
So I am now an amateur photographer without a camera and with a firm conviction never to travel east of Germany unless I’m going to Australia. There is no likelihood of the camera being recovered, the Hungarians be adept at spiriting away their ill-gotten gains. If I want a camera in the near future I’m looking at another $300+ purchase.
So that was Hungary. Wet, cold, and permeated with thieves. I don’t think I’ll be coming back ever, and this post comes with a strong recommendation to anyone planning on traveling in a former Eastern Bloc country: don’t. Unless you enjoy replacing your valuables.
-JA
Update: thank you, dad. Dad will be bringing my new camera with him to Germany, and I'll get it on the 26th.
Tour of Budapest
We boarded the train to Budapest on a cold, almost wintry morning in Vienna. The weather didn’t improve during our trip, and the train we took was decidedly older than that which we had been transported in from Salzburg to Vienna. The first car we boarded looked as though it had been built in the 1960s. About five minutes before the train left we were informed that we had to move up from our car (which was at the end of the train) to another car (which was at the front of the train). We were told that the car we had boarded was in fact going to be left in Vienna. The new car looked and felt as though it had been build perhaps two decades after the other one, but it was still nothing like the Austrian train from Salzburg to Vienna.
When we arrived in Budapest, we took a bus tour of the city. I didn’t really enjoy it, especially having come so recently from Vienna. If I were to compare the cities (and I will), I would say that Budapest is at least fifty years behind Vienna in terms of development. A lot of the buildings had a look of fading grandeur about them, accentuated by ever-present graffiti, peeling paint, and occasional bullet holes left over from the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. This, coupled with the less-than pleasant weather of overcast skies and biting wind meant that I was less than pleased with Budapest.
Anyway, our tour took us up to an old Hapsburg fortress on the top of a hill overlooking the Buda part of the city. It was constructed by the Hapsburgs after the Hungarians attempted another revolution. In World War Two it was used by the German Wehrmacht as an anti-aircraft battery against the advancing Red Army. The Russians erected a monument to their success there after the German surrender. The monument is today known as the “Liberty Statue” and now officially commemorates Hungary’s independence from the Soviet Union.
From the hill we traveled down into the Pest part of Budapest. There we went through some of the major historic areas before ending up at the Cathedral of Saint Steven, named after the first king of Hungary. We toured through the church and were able to see the supposed Holy Right Hand of Saint Steven in the cathedral’s reliquary.
From the Cathedral we went up to the Palace Hill, which contains the fortress built after the Mongol invasions and then the Renaissance palace which was built over that fortress in the 15th century. I had coffee at a café in the lee of another church, and then set off with the rest of the group out of Budapest and toward the village of Piliscscaba, which was adjacent to our accommodations at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University.
The University was founded in the 19th century, but was taken over by the Russians after World War Two and used as a military college. Some of the buildings from that period are still there, from the gymnasium (which is still in used), to the tank garage covered in Russian graffiti and vines. The University was refounded in the 1990s and many of the buildings were replaced. I stayed in the Catherineum, a dormitory which I actually quite like.
After arriving tired, hungry, and rather out-of-sorts, we had dinner in the basement of the Stephaneum, one of the University’s main buildings. The food was cooked by a local family from the village of Piliscsaba, and like all Slavic dinners it began with shots of the local liquor. In this case it was a kind of whisky distilled from who-knows-what that packed quite a kick. The food for the evening was a pork goulash, meatballs wrapped in cabbage, and a cabbage and sour cream salad.
The high point of Sunday (for our first day in Hungary was a Sunday) was the dancing and music after dinner. Four of the university students formed a quartet of violin, viola, double bass, and hurdy-gurdy, and they were joined by a pair of Hungarians who proceeded to teach us various kinds of Hungarian folk dancing. We all enjoyed this immensely, although one dance was more than enough to tucker me out for the evening. We went to bed exhausted but pleased, looking forward to the next day.
The next day, however, was not out to fulfill an iota of our expectations. As I write this in my room in the Catherineum, I can still hear the rain that has not let up since I arose this morning. Breakfast we had in a cafeteria in the Stephaneum, and here I must diverge to make a note upon the Hungarian economy.
Can you name the Hungarian currency?
Without using Wikipedia?
Just off the top of your head?
A clue: it is not the Euro.
No?
Well, if you could name the currency off the top of your head then you are a far cleverer person than I and I respect you for it. I certainly couldn’t name the currency when I arrived in Budapest. Like the blinkered, prejudiced American that I am, I thought that since Hungary was in the EU, it used the Euro. Right?
Wrong.
Although Hungary is in the EU, it does not meet the EU’s economic standards for the use of the Euro. Known as the Maasricht Criteria, these state that:
A country’s currency must have a currency to euro rate of plus or minus 15% for 2 years
The country’s budget deficit must be no more than 3% and its state debt no more than 60% for two years
Now, Hungary’s currency (which is incidentally called the forint) is wildly inflated, with the current exchange rate being one Euro to about 240 forints. Thus, it isn’t until at least 2013 that Hungary can have a hope of adopting the Euro.
So I withdrew from an ATM this morning (Monday morning, that is) 5000 forints, which is equivalent to about 20 Euros. Now I still have about 2000 forints, and I’ve no idea what to do with them. Maybe I’ll tape them to my laptop as a decoration or something. I’m open to suggestions.
So I trudged through the rain to breakfast, through the rain to the ATM and back, and through the rain for my tour of the campus (which was cut short due to the rain). After the truncated tour we attended a lecture (in English) about the Hungarian economy where I learned the information I’ve written above. After the lecture it was on to the University’s train station for our trip to Esztergom, a small city on the border of Hungary and Slovakia.
Esztergom was small, crowded, and somewhat poor. We went by bus to the Basilica, which was built in the 19th century in the same general style as St. Stephan’s Cathedral in Budapest. We toured the cathedral, glad to be out of the rain which had pursued us from the university and had by now reached the “pouring” stage.
Part of our tour included a visit to the catheral’s treasury, which contained a slew of relics, ecclesiastical garb, and various liturgical implements fashioned from large quantities of gold and gems. Unfortunately, photography was forbidden except for the relic chamber, so I haven’t any pictures of the treasury proper for you.
Afterwards it was a group photo in front of the cathedral, and then a walk over the Danube and into Slovakia for lunch. This was perhaps the most miserable part, as the rain and wind intensified and my coat, which had by now proved its worth ten times over, began to reach the saturation point.
After a very cheap lunch (60 Slovakian whatevers = 5.8 Euros for drink and entree) we walked back to the train station. Although the rain had lessened a good deal during lunch, the temperature began to drop as the sun set. This coupled with clothing wet from out previous dousings meant that it was hard to tell whether the weather had improved at all or just changed tactics. Oh, and we missed the train, which meant an hour’s wait for the next one.
So that concludes my adventure in Hungary. We leave Budapest Keleti station at 1pm and settle in for a 6-hour train back to Salzburg. Overall, I didn’t like Budapest nearly as much as I did Vienna, but at least the trip’s over and I can start planning my next outing to the Austrian capitol, this one to make up for the scant time I spent this time around.
My schedule’s going to be pretty packed until we finish up in Salzburg on the 24th of September. I’ve got class on Saturday (the 20th) to make up for lost time, but Sunday the 21st is free. Most of the class are training up to Munich for Oktoberfest, but I intend to spend the day in a considerably more peaceful manner, wandering the Aldstadt of Salzburg and practicing photography. Then we leave Salzburg on the morning of the 25th, and I take a night train at 9:30 that same day to meet Dad in Düsseldorf for the start of my ten day’s break.
Until next time,
-JA
When we arrived in Budapest, we took a bus tour of the city. I didn’t really enjoy it, especially having come so recently from Vienna. If I were to compare the cities (and I will), I would say that Budapest is at least fifty years behind Vienna in terms of development. A lot of the buildings had a look of fading grandeur about them, accentuated by ever-present graffiti, peeling paint, and occasional bullet holes left over from the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. This, coupled with the less-than pleasant weather of overcast skies and biting wind meant that I was less than pleased with Budapest.
Anyway, our tour took us up to an old Hapsburg fortress on the top of a hill overlooking the Buda part of the city. It was constructed by the Hapsburgs after the Hungarians attempted another revolution. In World War Two it was used by the German Wehrmacht as an anti-aircraft battery against the advancing Red Army. The Russians erected a monument to their success there after the German surrender. The monument is today known as the “Liberty Statue” and now officially commemorates Hungary’s independence from the Soviet Union.
From the hill we traveled down into the Pest part of Budapest. There we went through some of the major historic areas before ending up at the Cathedral of Saint Steven, named after the first king of Hungary. We toured through the church and were able to see the supposed Holy Right Hand of Saint Steven in the cathedral’s reliquary.
From the Cathedral we went up to the Palace Hill, which contains the fortress built after the Mongol invasions and then the Renaissance palace which was built over that fortress in the 15th century. I had coffee at a café in the lee of another church, and then set off with the rest of the group out of Budapest and toward the village of Piliscscaba, which was adjacent to our accommodations at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University.
The University was founded in the 19th century, but was taken over by the Russians after World War Two and used as a military college. Some of the buildings from that period are still there, from the gymnasium (which is still in used), to the tank garage covered in Russian graffiti and vines. The University was refounded in the 1990s and many of the buildings were replaced. I stayed in the Catherineum, a dormitory which I actually quite like.
After arriving tired, hungry, and rather out-of-sorts, we had dinner in the basement of the Stephaneum, one of the University’s main buildings. The food was cooked by a local family from the village of Piliscsaba, and like all Slavic dinners it began with shots of the local liquor. In this case it was a kind of whisky distilled from who-knows-what that packed quite a kick. The food for the evening was a pork goulash, meatballs wrapped in cabbage, and a cabbage and sour cream salad.
The high point of Sunday (for our first day in Hungary was a Sunday) was the dancing and music after dinner. Four of the university students formed a quartet of violin, viola, double bass, and hurdy-gurdy, and they were joined by a pair of Hungarians who proceeded to teach us various kinds of Hungarian folk dancing. We all enjoyed this immensely, although one dance was more than enough to tucker me out for the evening. We went to bed exhausted but pleased, looking forward to the next day.
The next day, however, was not out to fulfill an iota of our expectations. As I write this in my room in the Catherineum, I can still hear the rain that has not let up since I arose this morning. Breakfast we had in a cafeteria in the Stephaneum, and here I must diverge to make a note upon the Hungarian economy.
Can you name the Hungarian currency?
Without using Wikipedia?
Just off the top of your head?
A clue: it is not the Euro.
No?
Well, if you could name the currency off the top of your head then you are a far cleverer person than I and I respect you for it. I certainly couldn’t name the currency when I arrived in Budapest. Like the blinkered, prejudiced American that I am, I thought that since Hungary was in the EU, it used the Euro. Right?
Wrong.
Although Hungary is in the EU, it does not meet the EU’s economic standards for the use of the Euro. Known as the Maasricht Criteria, these state that:
A country’s currency must have a currency to euro rate of plus or minus 15% for 2 years
The country’s budget deficit must be no more than 3% and its state debt no more than 60% for two years
Now, Hungary’s currency (which is incidentally called the forint) is wildly inflated, with the current exchange rate being one Euro to about 240 forints. Thus, it isn’t until at least 2013 that Hungary can have a hope of adopting the Euro.
So I withdrew from an ATM this morning (Monday morning, that is) 5000 forints, which is equivalent to about 20 Euros. Now I still have about 2000 forints, and I’ve no idea what to do with them. Maybe I’ll tape them to my laptop as a decoration or something. I’m open to suggestions.
So I trudged through the rain to breakfast, through the rain to the ATM and back, and through the rain for my tour of the campus (which was cut short due to the rain). After the truncated tour we attended a lecture (in English) about the Hungarian economy where I learned the information I’ve written above. After the lecture it was on to the University’s train station for our trip to Esztergom, a small city on the border of Hungary and Slovakia.
Esztergom was small, crowded, and somewhat poor. We went by bus to the Basilica, which was built in the 19th century in the same general style as St. Stephan’s Cathedral in Budapest. We toured the cathedral, glad to be out of the rain which had pursued us from the university and had by now reached the “pouring” stage.
Part of our tour included a visit to the catheral’s treasury, which contained a slew of relics, ecclesiastical garb, and various liturgical implements fashioned from large quantities of gold and gems. Unfortunately, photography was forbidden except for the relic chamber, so I haven’t any pictures of the treasury proper for you.
Afterwards it was a group photo in front of the cathedral, and then a walk over the Danube and into Slovakia for lunch. This was perhaps the most miserable part, as the rain and wind intensified and my coat, which had by now proved its worth ten times over, began to reach the saturation point.
After a very cheap lunch (60 Slovakian whatevers = 5.8 Euros for drink and entree) we walked back to the train station. Although the rain had lessened a good deal during lunch, the temperature began to drop as the sun set. This coupled with clothing wet from out previous dousings meant that it was hard to tell whether the weather had improved at all or just changed tactics. Oh, and we missed the train, which meant an hour’s wait for the next one.
So that concludes my adventure in Hungary. We leave Budapest Keleti station at 1pm and settle in for a 6-hour train back to Salzburg. Overall, I didn’t like Budapest nearly as much as I did Vienna, but at least the trip’s over and I can start planning my next outing to the Austrian capitol, this one to make up for the scant time I spent this time around.
My schedule’s going to be pretty packed until we finish up in Salzburg on the 24th of September. I’ve got class on Saturday (the 20th) to make up for lost time, but Sunday the 21st is free. Most of the class are training up to Munich for Oktoberfest, but I intend to spend the day in a considerably more peaceful manner, wandering the Aldstadt of Salzburg and practicing photography. Then we leave Salzburg on the morning of the 25th, and I take a night train at 9:30 that same day to meet Dad in Düsseldorf for the start of my ten day’s break.
Until next time,
-JA
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
The Day in Vienna
So the first leg of our trip is over and done with, sadly enough. I’m writing this post from a location that will be disclosed in the next blog entry, and also with benefit of a couple days’ hindsight. Vienna was by far the best part of the trip.
We arrived around one in the afternoon in the Vienna Westbahnhof, which by the time I post this entry will no longer exist, having been shut down on the 15th of September. We then proceeded by U-Bahn and bus to our accommodations: a youth hostel located on Neustiftgasse, about 30 minutes’ walk from the city center. The hostel was, I have been informed, one of the better examples of its kind, and I have to say that I found our lodgings there quite nice, if rather spartan. All of the guys were in one room which while somewhat narrow had its own shower and toilet. Breakfast was also included, and it was again nice if simple.
After depositing our luggage we traveled by bus into the center of Vienna, the Karl Renner Ring. There we began our tour of Vienna guided by Herr Gürtler. First stop was in front of the Parliament Building, then the Rathaus (“city hall,” literally “advice house”), before proceeding up to the Hofburgtheater. After that we walked through the Volksgarten to a plaza which contained on the left the Imperial Hapsburg Palace and directly in front the jaw-dropping spectacle of the Imperial Library, which is the most impressive building I’ve ever seen.
From there we proceeded to the Opera House, passing by a statue of Goethe where we took a group picture. From the Opera House we went around to the Michaelerplatz, which is at the rear of the Imperial Palace and contains some excavated Roman ruins and the prestigious Spanish Riding School. After that it was on to Stephansplatz, named after Stephansdom, the Cathedral of St. Stephan.
Then our tour ended, and me and a few others had cake at the Café Aida off of Stephansplatz, followed by an hour of wandering. Along the way we saw a chalk artist working on his rendition of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and a wizened old man preaching the virtues of marijuana.
Afterwards we dined in a nice little Austrian restaurant off the beaten path before returning to the hostel to sleep and get ready for the next part of our journey.
Now, I really liked Vienna. The city is beautiful, though not quite as awesome in my eye as Salzburg or any older city. My only regret is that we spent under 20 hours in the city itself, and I would have preferred to stay at least another day if not two. The weather for our brief period could not have been better. Saturday was crisp, pleasant, and a bit windy; the perfect fall day. During our tour my overcoat weighed a bit heavily on me, and a few times I regretted choosing it for my journey. Fortunately the night was cold enough to make up for the heat of the day, and the weather in Hungary... Well, I’ll get to that in the next post.
-JA
We arrived around one in the afternoon in the Vienna Westbahnhof, which by the time I post this entry will no longer exist, having been shut down on the 15th of September. We then proceeded by U-Bahn and bus to our accommodations: a youth hostel located on Neustiftgasse, about 30 minutes’ walk from the city center. The hostel was, I have been informed, one of the better examples of its kind, and I have to say that I found our lodgings there quite nice, if rather spartan. All of the guys were in one room which while somewhat narrow had its own shower and toilet. Breakfast was also included, and it was again nice if simple.
After depositing our luggage we traveled by bus into the center of Vienna, the Karl Renner Ring. There we began our tour of Vienna guided by Herr Gürtler. First stop was in front of the Parliament Building, then the Rathaus (“city hall,” literally “advice house”), before proceeding up to the Hofburgtheater. After that we walked through the Volksgarten to a plaza which contained on the left the Imperial Hapsburg Palace and directly in front the jaw-dropping spectacle of the Imperial Library, which is the most impressive building I’ve ever seen.
From there we proceeded to the Opera House, passing by a statue of Goethe where we took a group picture. From the Opera House we went around to the Michaelerplatz, which is at the rear of the Imperial Palace and contains some excavated Roman ruins and the prestigious Spanish Riding School. After that it was on to Stephansplatz, named after Stephansdom, the Cathedral of St. Stephan.
Then our tour ended, and me and a few others had cake at the Café Aida off of Stephansplatz, followed by an hour of wandering. Along the way we saw a chalk artist working on his rendition of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and a wizened old man preaching the virtues of marijuana.
Afterwards we dined in a nice little Austrian restaurant off the beaten path before returning to the hostel to sleep and get ready for the next part of our journey.
Now, I really liked Vienna. The city is beautiful, though not quite as awesome in my eye as Salzburg or any older city. My only regret is that we spent under 20 hours in the city itself, and I would have preferred to stay at least another day if not two. The weather for our brief period could not have been better. Saturday was crisp, pleasant, and a bit windy; the perfect fall day. During our tour my overcoat weighed a bit heavily on me, and a few times I regretted choosing it for my journey. Fortunately the night was cold enough to make up for the heat of the day, and the weather in Hungary... Well, I’ll get to that in the next post.
-JA
An Apologetic Update
Hello everyone,
I’m sorry that I’ve been so lax with regard to this blog. The last couple weeks have been hectic as all hell, and what with classes and internet issues and living in a foreign country, the blog just slipped my mind.
We arrived just fine way the hell back on the 29th of August at the Innsbruck airport, which is located at the foot of a mountain. The entire flight was excellent, and comprises my first adventure in aerial photography. We took a chartered bus from Innsbruck to Salzburg and arrived at our hotel exhausted and jet-lagged. The next day, Saturday the 30th was filled with wandering around the Aldstadt (“old city” in German) and learning some history and useful facts. Pictures are, of course, up on the webalbum.
Classes started on Monday the 1st of September with a placement test. Fortunately I placed in to the DaF II (“Deutsch als Fremdsprache”, German as a foreign language) class, and, if all goes well, by the end of January I will have the appropriate level of German to take a class at the University of Innsbruck. Class is from 9am to 3:30pm, with a 15-minute break from 10:30-10:45 and a lunch break from 12:15 to 2pm.
Speaking of lunch, the Hotel Heffterhof’s cuisine lives up to its 4-star rating. We have breakfast and lunch free, courtesy of ND, and that’s all you really need. The food is, for the most part, Central European, with staples like Nutella and potato salad readily available. For dinner we have to fend of ourselves, but 7 Euros will buy enough bread, cheese, and cold cuts to make a month of sandwiches. On the weekends there are a number of cheap restaurants available, or you can simple steal food from the breakfast buffet.
Salzburg itself is an excellent city. I could (and have) wander around the city for hours on end taking pictures. Everywhere you go the Festung is not far from sight. The Festung (“fortress”) is Salzburg’s medieval castle, which is perched on top of a small mountain, overwatching the city in all its ancient and brooding glory. The oldest parts of the castle date from the 10th century, and the newest from around the 15th. It has never fallen, despite being besieged for years on end at times.
The city also contains a multiplicity of churches from small chapels perched on mountainsides to the hulking Romanesque Salzburger Dom, the city’s cathedral, which dates from the 17th century. The inside of the church is correspondingly ornate, with a massive painted altar-piece festooned with gilt marble and wood galore. The church’s choir is similarly beautiful. They regularly perform Mozart’s liturgical works, and I was lucky enough to hear them perform Mozart’s “Kronungsmesse” a week ago.
Mozart is, of course, an integral part of Salzburger culture. Both the house where he was born and the one where he lived are open as museums, and a massive bronze statue of him stands in the aptly-named Mozartplatz in the center of the Aldstadt. Street musicians freely perform Mozart’s works adapted for everything from guitar to grand piano, and Mozart’s likeness adorns everything from candy to alcohol.
And I would be remiss if I did not mention the beer. Salzburg has a swarm of breweries about it, each as ancient as the city and each possessed of a unique recipe for its particular brew. Some, such as the Stieglkeller, are built into the monastery. Others occupy their own unique parts of the city. A good example of this is the Augustinerbräu, which occupies a former monastery. The entrance is a small postern door in a wall opposite a Franciscan church, but the brewery proper is huge, comprising multiple halls, scads of kiosks offering wurst, pretzels, and even spare ribs, and the biergarten, which is built on a terrace which has been covered in enough soil to support the growth of healthily-sized oaks. The garten overlooks the river Salz, and is an experience not to be missed. The beer itself is dispensed from oaken barrels which are tapped by hand with large wooden mallets.
As I write this, I’m on a train bound east for Vienna. The entire group is taking a four-day trip to Vienna, and then to Budapest. We’ll be spending all of today (Saturday the 13th) in Vienna, and Sunday and Monday in Budapest before returning on Tuesday. This post will probably go up sometime tonight if I can find Internet. If not, it will go up Tuesday evening when I get back to the Heffterhof at about 7:30 Salzburg time, or perhaps Wednesday if I'm feeling lazy. I’ll also be keeping a record of Vienna and Budapest, which I’ll turn into a post on the way back to Salzburg.
-JA
I’m sorry that I’ve been so lax with regard to this blog. The last couple weeks have been hectic as all hell, and what with classes and internet issues and living in a foreign country, the blog just slipped my mind.
We arrived just fine way the hell back on the 29th of August at the Innsbruck airport, which is located at the foot of a mountain. The entire flight was excellent, and comprises my first adventure in aerial photography. We took a chartered bus from Innsbruck to Salzburg and arrived at our hotel exhausted and jet-lagged. The next day, Saturday the 30th was filled with wandering around the Aldstadt (“old city” in German) and learning some history and useful facts. Pictures are, of course, up on the webalbum.
Classes started on Monday the 1st of September with a placement test. Fortunately I placed in to the DaF II (“Deutsch als Fremdsprache”, German as a foreign language) class, and, if all goes well, by the end of January I will have the appropriate level of German to take a class at the University of Innsbruck. Class is from 9am to 3:30pm, with a 15-minute break from 10:30-10:45 and a lunch break from 12:15 to 2pm.
Speaking of lunch, the Hotel Heffterhof’s cuisine lives up to its 4-star rating. We have breakfast and lunch free, courtesy of ND, and that’s all you really need. The food is, for the most part, Central European, with staples like Nutella and potato salad readily available. For dinner we have to fend of ourselves, but 7 Euros will buy enough bread, cheese, and cold cuts to make a month of sandwiches. On the weekends there are a number of cheap restaurants available, or you can simple steal food from the breakfast buffet.
Salzburg itself is an excellent city. I could (and have) wander around the city for hours on end taking pictures. Everywhere you go the Festung is not far from sight. The Festung (“fortress”) is Salzburg’s medieval castle, which is perched on top of a small mountain, overwatching the city in all its ancient and brooding glory. The oldest parts of the castle date from the 10th century, and the newest from around the 15th. It has never fallen, despite being besieged for years on end at times.
The city also contains a multiplicity of churches from small chapels perched on mountainsides to the hulking Romanesque Salzburger Dom, the city’s cathedral, which dates from the 17th century. The inside of the church is correspondingly ornate, with a massive painted altar-piece festooned with gilt marble and wood galore. The church’s choir is similarly beautiful. They regularly perform Mozart’s liturgical works, and I was lucky enough to hear them perform Mozart’s “Kronungsmesse” a week ago.
Mozart is, of course, an integral part of Salzburger culture. Both the house where he was born and the one where he lived are open as museums, and a massive bronze statue of him stands in the aptly-named Mozartplatz in the center of the Aldstadt. Street musicians freely perform Mozart’s works adapted for everything from guitar to grand piano, and Mozart’s likeness adorns everything from candy to alcohol.
And I would be remiss if I did not mention the beer. Salzburg has a swarm of breweries about it, each as ancient as the city and each possessed of a unique recipe for its particular brew. Some, such as the Stieglkeller, are built into the monastery. Others occupy their own unique parts of the city. A good example of this is the Augustinerbräu, which occupies a former monastery. The entrance is a small postern door in a wall opposite a Franciscan church, but the brewery proper is huge, comprising multiple halls, scads of kiosks offering wurst, pretzels, and even spare ribs, and the biergarten, which is built on a terrace which has been covered in enough soil to support the growth of healthily-sized oaks. The garten overlooks the river Salz, and is an experience not to be missed. The beer itself is dispensed from oaken barrels which are tapped by hand with large wooden mallets.
As I write this, I’m on a train bound east for Vienna. The entire group is taking a four-day trip to Vienna, and then to Budapest. We’ll be spending all of today (Saturday the 13th) in Vienna, and Sunday and Monday in Budapest before returning on Tuesday. This post will probably go up sometime tonight if I can find Internet. If not, it will go up Tuesday evening when I get back to the Heffterhof at about 7:30 Salzburg time, or perhaps Wednesday if I'm feeling lazy. I’ll also be keeping a record of Vienna and Budapest, which I’ll turn into a post on the way back to Salzburg.
-JA
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