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Published: September 13th 2008
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A train ride without incident? What? Come on, what's going on? Your kiding arn't ya?
No, no joke we got on the train. Sat down, rode to Salzburg and got off. Great. Now we just need to get bus number one to some stop and walk a bit to the hostel.
The bus was easy enough to find. It was sitting in the depot waiting to leave. We walked up to the bus driver, one pack on our back and one on our stomach, fully loaded and ready to get to a place we could call home. "Can we get two tickets" I asked. "Waiting waiting!" Um right ok, we gathered from the commotion around us that we had to wait. The buses are all 'Trolley Buses', so they rely on the power lines above, and it looked like one of them had broken down right outside the bus depot. Effectively stopping all buses entering and exiting the depot, right in the middle of peak hour. Left with no other option we dumped our bags in the bus and joined the rest of the commuters willing to wait. People would hop on, sit down for a couple of minutes,
Our Tour Guide
Our tour guide with the Gazebo from the Sound of Music. Though this is not it's original location (rip off) it was moved from the University because the tours interupted important meetings and such at the Uni. The gazebo is also locked (rip off) no ones allowd inside because too many people were getting injured, imitating the movie. (And we thought Jack-Ass was the problem) until they realised the bus wasn't about to leave, go and speak to the driver, and then walk off. The rest of us just waited. Forty-five minutes later we were im the middle of Salzburg in peak hour traffic. For some reason i hadn't thought of Salzburg being busy and congested, i guess because Vienna ran so smoothly, but it was as bad as Spit Road on any given peak hour.
The bus came to a halt at what looked like our stop. We quickly grabbed our bags and headed for the door. As we were about to exit, the doors closed and the bus started to drive off! "Helloooo", i yelled. Nothing, "Oi"! He finally got the idea and stopped the bus. Kell and I got off, along with another couple who had not had time to get off. They were almost certainly going to the same place, so we struck up a conversation and walked with them to the hostel.
The Muffin Hostel, was an old school turned hostel, at the end of a leafy laneway. Our room had old school desks at one end, buit into the wall. Quite bizarre. We were staying there overnight
The Sound Of Music
The lane at the start of the film. Maria gets off the bus and sings I Have Confidence (i think), anyway she sings something before meeting the family fore the first time. before heading to 'The Strawberry Hostel' across town. Salzburg hostels have interesting names and the whole town was booked up because of 'The Salzburg Festival', which included many nights to do with Mozart. As a result we had to split up our stay which was quite annoying but 'The Strawberry Hostel' was much nicer than the Muffin so we were glad to move.
Salzburg was beautiful but the center was packed with old fogies with their Mercedes, and classical music on display. What better way to seperate ourselves from the Mozart crowd then going on The Sound Of Music tour, we thought.
We took the afternoon tour on our first day and got told the story of the real family and shown some of the actual locations and buildings along with the ones used in the film. The tour seemed a bit strange but took us way out of town to some beautiful alpine lakes, all of which contain potable water. The strangest part of the tour was when we got taken to a tobogan track so we could 'Feel the wind in our hair, like Maria'. Um, ok. It resembled the tobogans at Jambaroo Recreation Park and
The University
What is now the Uni, this is where the boat scene was. The artificial lake is only a metre deep so it was safe for the children to be out on the boats, and easy to film. neither Kell nor I felt compelled to take part. All in all the tour was interesting, our group was small and not very vocal so im sure it could be alot more fun on a busy day.
The next day it rained and rained and we just relaxed and enjoyed it. It hadn't rained since our first day in Cape Town so it was nice and the temperature dropped so we got to wear some of our warm clothes again. The next day was rain again but we managed to explore a bit more when it eased.
The following evening we headed to the train station to leave for Rome. We decided to walk to the station because 'The Strawberry' wasn't too far from it. Kell was tired and starting to struggle with her bags, when, metres from the train station door, she tripped. Her left thong fell off, she dropped her small bag infront of her and stumbled forward under the weight of her pack. Like Superman in the sky she flew forward, though unlike Superman, fell flat on her face infront of a group of teenage boys who were doing their best to contain their laughter.
Alpine Lake
The view out the coach window, on our tour. I helped Kell, who was horrifically embarressed, to her feet and we rushed into the station so she could recover. Scraped knees and a shattered ego was all the damage done, and it wasn't long before we were laughing about it.
NB: Im sure there must have been more to Salzburg but i'm so far behind that i can't really remember. We are currently in Berlin and have been to many places in between. We are thinking of staying here a while because we are in a good place at a good price and have some time on our hands. Hopefully this means i will catch up on the blog. We will see.
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HA
ahhahahhahaha. kell falling over. so funny. it reminds of your farewell at the Oaks when KA fell down the stairs. hahahahahahahahahahahha. LOL. ok i am done.