Germany 2015 - June 18

Thursday was our trip to Salzburg! Our German hosts also went with us, which made them happy, since they missed a day of school. It was a long bus ride, as usual. But finally we arrived.

Our first stop was Schloss Hellbrunn. We went on the Wasserspiele tour - in other words, the noble who built the place built it basically as a joke for his (drunk) guests and there are water surprises all over the place. It would've been fun if it was a hot day and I was in the mood to get wet, but I totally wasn't. Oh well, I dried off fairly quickly. Then we got to play on the most amazing playground I've ever seen. I didn't go close to see it, but I got a distant picture of the gazebo there that they used in The Sound of Music (it was originally at the Leopoldskron Palace, where much of the back patio part of The Sound of Music was filmed, and later was moved to Hellbrunn).

Then we parked in Salzburg and walked around and saw a bunch of stuff. We saw a bunch of statues and sculptures, including some of those people-pretending-to-be-statues like in Guatemala. We went into another cathedral, the Dome. It was so high and very beautiful.

We walked across a bridge that had locks on it , a miniature of the bridge in France with all the locks. We went to a garden area, Mirabell Gardens, where a lot of the Do-Re-Mi Sound of Music song took place - so the fountain they walked around, the angel-like statues they walked between, the steps they sang on, the weird little statues they patted on the head....yup, I was there! It was pretty cool, and had a great view.

Then we got time to walk around and eat and shop. Jake bought a lock and wrote GAPP 2015 on it, and he and Kenny walked back to the bridge and put it on and threw the keys into the river. Meanwhile, I walked with Cassandra, Allison, Alex, David, and Ben. I only bought a post card, because the souvenir stuff is just ridiculously expensive at places like that. I did get ice cream, though. I love German ice cream, it is so much yummier than even homemade American ice cream.

Finally it was time to walk around Hohensalzburg. It was a crazy steep climb up to the fortress (as usual, since everything in Germany is UP!) and we only had 30 minutes to walk around. The view from there, looking out over Salzburg, was AMAZING! It started to rain, then, so we walked in the rain all the way to our bus. I was so tired, and so was basically everyone, so a lot of us slept on the way back.

Once home, we did whatever for 20 minutes, and then Elli and I and her parents went out to eat at a restaurant. I had Spezi, Schnitzel, french fries, and salad. It was so much fod, though, so we took home the rest of the schnitzel for later. And on the way home, I saw my very first stop sign! (Since basically all they have are yield signs.) It was very strange to see an American-looking stop sign in Germany. Going to bed that night felt wonderful!