The Sound of Salzburg.

(November 7th)
Good morning from Salzburg! How is everybody? It's 10:30am and we've already been up for three hours, hiking around and then showering and getting checked out. We've eaten too much breakfast and packed stolen sandwiches for lunch. We've explored every inch of the city we could get to with our wandering feet and curious noses.We've met amazing people and had a ton of laughs. What else is new? Life is goooood.

(continued, November 8th)
Salzburg was my favourite city so far. Pub crawls in Ireland were a blast, Germany was homey and calming, Halloween in Prague was unforgettable. It's all been unreal, we are so lucky to be here. But Salzburg has a certain charm that stole our hearts as soon as we arrived. It's outrageously beautiful. The city itself has a small-town feel, loads of bakeries and little restaurants and people who know every backstreet and shortcut. The souvenir shop people are local and friendly, instead of foreign and sneaky. The Austrians here are so proud to be Austrian, without being mad that we're not Austrian. My experience with the people here was nothing but positive.
The bigger buildings are the visual highlights of the town. Beautiful old churches and cathedrals ring their bells daily, as they have been for centuries. The residence and museum buildings are even majestic; there wasn't one eyesore in the whole city. In one of the main squares horse and carriages are lined up waiting to complete the authentic oldtown experience.
Of course there's a river that runs through the town, complete with quaint foot bridges and speckled with local fisherman to complete Salzburg's aesthetic perfection.
And if this wasn't breathtaking enough already, the city is surrounded by hills and mountains. I'm not sure if I can do it descriptive justice, but I can try: on one side of the city, rolling green grass with little houses nestled into the hills, and trees that are turning for fall making colourful splashes amongst the green. On the other side, tall, rocky mountains that cast a sort of blueish light over the city come dusk. I went running to the top of the fortress on one of our days there and felt like the luckiest person alive looking down over that view. And it stays there of course, day after day, never becoming unnoticed or taken for granted. It was just beautiful.

(Continued, yet again, November 12th)
As you've all probably noticed, I'm having a hard time keeping up with the times...please refer to Ashley's blog at kashleylewis.tumblr.com for a full and different account of our expeditions. She's got much more Prague and Salzburg in there. Since it's November 12th and I'm sitting in our hostel in Nice and we've already done Barcelona, I'll have to just take you through the highlights of Salzburg.

1. It was beautiful. Gorgeous. Stunning. Breathtaking. Did I say we loved it there? We loved it there.

2. Sound of Music tour. For anyone who knows me well enough, who saw the show I did with the SOM medley, who knows that every waking moment that I'm not eating or talking I'm SINGING, I don't have to go into detail. It was unreal. There was singing. And a little dancing. And tons of cheesy photo taking. And all other embarrassing touristy moves you can think of...a dream day overseas you could say. We laughed a lot.

3. Our hostel mates. From Canada, the US, Australia, England, we loved them all. We went out for dinner to a local Austrian bar with Elizabeth from Pittsburgh and ate the most delicious schnitzel, sauerkraut, sausage and strudel ever. EVER. It was sooo soo good. One of the nights we just sat around drinking beer and playing cards with everybody and laughing until our sides hurt. Always a good way to end the day.

4. The self tour of the fortress. Quite a climb, quite a view, ancient and historically alluring and altogether wonderful.

5. The panorama museum featuring the true story of the Von Trapp family and a massive panoramic painting of the city of Salzburg as seen from the top of the fortress.

Salzburg was easy living. We finally took some time to breathe and really take in the city and its sights. Ashley went hiking and I went for jogs. It was wonderful on many levels.

The day that we left Salzburg we knew we had a long day of travel ahead of us. We had, however, booked a sleeper car on a train from Bern to Barcelona so the long rides through Austria and Switzerland weren't so bad, with the sweet thought in mind of our cozy little beds on the overnight train.

We get to Bern and eat dinner and laze around the train station, waiting for our beauuutiful sleeper car. Excited to stretch out, have a little room all to ourselves, be rocked to sleep by the gentle chug of the train. Looking forward to waking up fresh and bright-eyed, fully prepared for a cheerful day in Barcelona. ... HA.

A strike in France +  AUSFAIL + a swiss translator = no sleeper car for Ashley and Sam.

No need to go into details here. I was grumpy. That is all.

Barcelona awaited us though, and it was hard to be grumpy in the hot, bright sunshine on the coast of Spain, or as we later learned to call it, Catalonia. We spent the whole day lazing about the pier, soaking up the sun and laughing unbelievably at the previous night.

A good sense of humour for the win. More to come!

xsk.