Long Weekend Part 3

We made it to Salzburg in seemingly no time at all. We found a place to park the car and started exploring. Travis had already been here before so I was a lot more excited about the whole thing. There were a lot of things I hadn’t seen before. Even the little gift/souvenir shops caught my eye.

One of the first ones we went into had a bunch of what I guess you could call “conversation pieces”. The walls were lined with Steins, huge mugs, glass dolls, and …..medieval weaponry. Ever since I was a child I have wanted to have a sword. Something about a sword to me is just incredibly cool. The Samurai for the most part shunned guns in lieu of the sword, so if that’s not proof enough that Sword > Gun in cool factor, then I don’t know what is. So most of the swords were like 300 Euro. There was no way I could afford that at this point , and I didn’t really want to deal with carrying a sword around Salzburg and then getting it through customs at the airport. When one of our group in Japan tried to bring back wooden swords on our trip last year he had a lot of trouble. Anyway, I decided that this just wasn’t the right juncture in my life to purchase one of those lovely pieces of weaponry, and opted to get a Stein instead, of which there were many varieties to choose. I was torn between a Salzburg Stein with a nice painting of the castle and surrounding area of the city, and one with the crest and flag of Austria. I ended up choosing the Austria Stein because I liked the color scheme better, and the emblem is really cool. My third option was a Harley Davidson Stein, which I thought was hilarious, but it cost 150 Euro(because of it’s massive size). My Austria Stein cost me 50 Euro and I was and still am very happy with the purchase. I am not sure if you’re actually supposed to drink out of these or just use them as decoration, but I paid 50 Euros for a big cup, and by god I am going to use it. I am drinking out of it right now. It really is nice. I especially like engraved metal top that opens and closes with an elbow joint.

Anyway, before I even ended up buying my Stein we had seen pretty much all the important sites in the main area of town. Mozart’s Geburtshaus(Birth House) was cool to see, but we didn’t go in because we just didn’t have time to wait in the line. We found it quite comical that right next to Mozart’s Geburtshaus was a “Nordsee”, which is basically a fast food restaurant that is like Chick-Fil-A except instead of almost everything being chicken, almost everything is fish.

We got hungry and decided we were going to eat before we left. As we were looking for something to eat I noticed what looked to me like an old married couple, but there was a twist. They were speaking Japanese---Because they were Japanese. Now, I know it is ridiculous to believe that any white person could ever possibly speak Japanese(not really, but most people think this way), and Travis was no different than most people in this regard. He simply didn’t believe me when I told him that I am pretty good at Japanese, and have a trophy to prove it. So I took this opportunity to defend my honor. I asked the couple a couple of questions(in the most polite way I know how), and told them to have a good time. They seemed startled at first, but smiled when I told them to have fun. Travis conceded afterwards.

We ate a tiny little restaurant on the side of one of the busier streets. We had to wait a couple minutes to get a table, but we got one. The old waitress came out and asked us what we wanted to drink. Travis got his usual Apfel Chorle(I think I spelled it right….but it’s basically carbonated apple juice), and I got a water. Now, if you haven’t been to Germany before you might think oh okay, he got water, whatever, but here you have to pay for it---Even if it is tap water. It’s not like the states where you are basically required by law to provide water. Now, people that know me know that I drink a lot of water, which makes being here a big pain in the butt sometimes. You order water and they charge you 2 Euros and come out with a tiny bottle of carbonated water(Germans don’t typically drink normal water, if you order water here and don’t specify, it’s carbonated). So yeah, I try to drink as much water as I can before I leave my dorm now. Anyway, I don’t remember what Travis ordered, but I ordered the Wiener Schnitzel---And they gave me a HUGE schnitzel, basically the size of a large dinner plate. Now here is some trivia for you. Wiener Schnitzel is not made from wieners(i.e. hot dogs), the Wiener preceding Schnitzel just notes that the Schnitzel is in the style that originated out of Wien, or Vienna in English.

After we ate dinner it was time for dessert. And what better place to get dessert than at the famous Sacher Hotel. We walked over to the hotel and went inside one of the many doors to the places associated with it. It was sort of a gift shop completely dedicated to Sacher chocolate(apparently it’s pretty special stuff). Anyway, this wasn’t what we were looking for, and Travis knew(he’s been here before), and asked the smiling shopkeeper “Haben sie ein Café…..oder etwas??” which basically translates into “Do you have a café or something?”, we had a good laugh about it after we went outside and around the corner, heeding the directions of the shopkeeper.

We entered the café and it was probably one of the fanciest places I had ever walked into for service. Ornately decorated rooms full of ornately decorated people from all over the world. I resisted the urge to talk to more Japanese people. Needless to say, Travis and I were a little underdressed, but nobody seemed to care. We sat down in the smoking section because that was the only area with seats. Nobody was smoking. We had a menu but only used it to choose a special coffee, because Travis already assured me that the Sacher Torte is what I wanted. And he was right. We ordered two pieces of Sacher Torte. 4 Euros is a little steep for a piece of cake, but according to the menu, this cake recipe has been around for 175+ years and is enjoyed by the most famous of the famous and almost 400,000 slices are exported every year. The recipe of the original Sacher Torte is exclusive to the Sacher Hotel. There are three of these hotels throughout Austria. The walls of the area where we sat were lined with photos of famous people that had stayed at the hotel, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they too had eaten Sacher Torte.

Our coffee and cake came to us and was presented fantastically. It was a perfect slice of cake with a huge scoop of heavy whipped cream sitting tantalizingly on the side. My coffee, which came with the usual cream and sugar also came with a small, but tall, shot class of cherry liqour to mix in. I mixed my coffee, which was delicious and started to eat the cake. It was absolutely delicious. The top and back side of the slice was a layer of thick, somewhat firm, Sacher Chocolate. There was a coin shaped piece of chocolate on the broad side of the top of the piece, which was the Sacher Seal--It isn’t an original Sacher Torte without the seal afterall--and the meat of the cake was two layers of chocoalte cake with a fruity filling between the two layers. It was a much more complex flavor then the typical sugar overload of everyday cakes. Sacher Torte is quite distinct, and I highly recommend it.

After we finished our Torte we decided to head to Rauris. We went back to the garage, paid for our parking, and hit the road.

TBContinued!

Bis bald,

Beau


P.S. Sorry about the lack of pictures. Most of them are on Travis' laptop b/c my tiny netbook simply doesn't have enough space for them all. Will try to post some tomorrow after class!