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