The Hills are Alive

Saturday, July 8, 2006

I really regret that Beth talked me into seeing "The Sound of Music" before we left for our trip. Now I can't get Julie Andrews out of my head whenever I look to the hills surrounding the city. "The Hills are Alive" indeed.

Salzberg is a quaint and proper city. The Old Town is made up of at least a dozen churches, connected by meandering streets chock full of high-end name-brand clothing shops for tourists with a few gems and attractions sprinkled in for good measure.

We've had some interesting experiences in this town. I'll probably flesh this post out later, but a list will have to do for now:

1. I burnt Beth's hair. Badly. I plugged her hair straightener into the wall without the voltage converter, which means that the iron had 230 volts pumping through it rather than the 110-120 volts it prefers. As a result, we figure that it was running at nearly 375° C (roughly 700° F) when she applied it to her hair. Smoke and the smell of burnt hair immediately ensued. Beth will survive, but with a slight iron mark on the top of her hair. She'll be parting it differently now, so you may not see it in the pictures.


2. Beth & I attended a dinner and concert in the Salzberg Fortress. Beth managed to sleep through half of the second set, so make sure to ask her what she thought of the show.

3. If you ever have a chance to order beef aspic, don't. The best I can surmise is that it's a fancy name for beef Jello. That's beef in neutral tasting gelatin. I'm not a picky eater, but I cringe as I recall the taste. Perhaps my palate just isn't sophisticated enough.

4. After the show, we headed down to Augustiner Brewery. Unfortunately, it was closed, but we met a delightfully drunken Austrian who filled us in on how excited he was that Italy beat the Germans in the World Cup. I had assumed that Austrian's would be supporting their neighbors to the north. I was very, very wrong.


We then headed out to an Irish pub down the street and enjoyed a Guinness or two as we watched an Austrian duo sing the first verse of the Pixie's "Where is My Mind?" three times in English before resorting to German. Soon after, there was a lot of commotion at the door. A number of police came in and ordered everyone out of the bar. That's nearly 300 people. The Polizei checked ID's and passports as we shuffled out the front door. As I got to the door, I found out that they were conducting a spontaneous "age control" check of the bar. Apparently, this is not very common here, so Salzberg TV was there to cover the event. As I got through the doorway, I was blinded by TV lights and had a large microphone stuck in my face. From what I could tell, the woman behind the mic was looking for comment. The best I could muster was "sprechen sie englisch?"

It seemed as good a sign as any that we should call it a night. Augustiner will have to wait for another day (which will hopefully be tomorrow).


Update: Added pictures!