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Travel Blog: I have lost count of the Days: Salzburg
Back on the train headed south into the Med to see Croatia. Its an awful day of travel… Croatia is becoming a tourist destination because of its beautiful beaches but they need a better way to get around before they will get there. We are taking the train from Salzburg to Zagreb for about 7 hours, and then in Zagreb we will be taking a flight from Zagreb to Dubrovnik where hopefully a shuttle will be waiting to take us to Mlini where we are staying. We started out today at 8am to take a cab to the train station and we won’t be getting into Dubrovnik until probably 11pm tonight….long day. Today is Saturday, so it should be the day that many of you are probably arriving at the beach in Emerald Isle… sorry I can’t be there but dip those toes in the Ocean and know that I am doing the same, just far away.
Alright, so I’ve got 2 days of Salzburg to update, but not too much really happened because these other two bums slept all day. On Thursday we headed to the train station to book our seats for this trip… the guy said that we didn’t need to (there are only 3 trains going to Zagreb all day and if we missed this one, we’d miss our flight later), but we trusted him. He was right that we didn’t need to reserve, but man I wish we would have reserved one of the private rooms, we are all 3 spread out in the car and bored as can be. A little 3 man Euchre or just someone to chat with would help to pass the time, but oh well. After that we grabbed some dinner, I had Italian for the 2nd time in Europe and again it was really good. Lasagna this time around, which was pretty good. Russia and Spain were playing to see who would make it to the finals to face Germany, so we went down to the ‘fan zone’ that they had since they were a host city during group play. It was really cool and put the other large fan gathers to shame in its size, but there weren’t as many people as I expected (1500-2000), I guess not too bad considering who was playing, but the place could have held 20,000 I think.
We started to walk home, unsure what we would do with our lives for the night (oh yea, Spain won), when it hit us out of the corner of our eye… parlor games… darts pool and foosball. Finally some universal fun. We headed in and played a few games of darts when I started to get annoyed with how cheap the plastic darts were. So I decided to put my skills at the foosball table to the test. Foosball is my game and I enjoyed it. We played for a while when a group of Austrians (these people are German no matter what they may tell you) came in. They wanted to play too and spoke excellent English, so we got a game together with myself and one of them against Josh and this kids sister. Well, we beat ‘em up pretty bad, but these guys got really excited about it, the guy hugged me after every point, a little weird, but they all kiss each other when they meet here too, so sometimes you just gotta roll with the dice you are given.
After they closed (early), these guys took us to another club that they like to go to and we just hung out for a while. The really cool part about this trip has been meeting a new set of people every night and instantly making very good friends with them. Josh has gotten a lot of their information written down and always offered to show them around if they ever came to Indy, but even if that never happens, it always shocks me how friendly they are with us… maybe we’re just those kind of guys that attract fun and good times, maybe its all the people here, but I do like it. It doesn’t bother them that we are American, in fact it makes them want to talk and ask questions (they absolutely love our movies and can quote them better than I can). Its been a very rich experience indeed, maybe one day I’ll write a sociology book based on it because it has taught me a lot about the human condition and the nature with which people act… but then again I am lazy.
So the next day the guys slept pretty late again (I slept later… finally got some sleep). We headed down to the Stiegel beer museum, it’s the largest beer exhibition in Europe. It showed the process and the history, it was really neat and I was able to explain the way everything worked for the other 2, which I enjoy being a free tour guide, so it all worked. They actually built the museum on top of their old brewery, so we saw the old cellar, the malting floor, an original copper cooker, everything. We also got to sample 3 of the ones that they made. 2 were very good, but the one that they called their beer of the month… well lets just say that the people from Salzburg are probably glad it’s the end of the month, because it tasted like someone poured a bottle of lemon pledge into a Budweiser and smiled at you as you were served.
We also ate there, and this was one of the funnier things I have eaten here. I tried to get goulash, which I know that I like. He said that they were out for the day but said that the beef soup was very good… I figure it’d be like vegetable beef soup, sounded good to me at the time. Well, he said it’d be 2 minutes, I wandered the courtyard and when I get back he hands me a bowl of what is literally some vegetable broth (very weak) with a massive meatball in the middle of it. I couldn’t help but laugh, it was the strangest thing I’d ever seen. When I get back to the table the other 2 are having a good time laughing at me for it, but it actually didn’t taste too bad. I would have really rather had goulash, but I was able to stomach it down.
After that, we headed home, we were gonna go to the beergarden for a couple of beers and then turn in at 9 to 10. On the way though, we ran into one of the guys that we had hung around before, and we sat on the street talking to him for about 2 or 3 hours. Well, plans washed out, we decided to pack it up and call it an early night. Unfortunately no one slept last night, lots of trucks and such kept waking us up and I think we were all worried about oversleeping. That brings us to right about here, gonna be traveling all day, but ready to get to the final destination, spread out a bit and reconnect to the world (ie the internet). The book that I am reading is all about globalization and he speaks about how we need to catch up to Japan with the amount of wi-fi and cell coverage that they have. Well, we have been in the biggest cities in Europe and we haven’t been able to get online… we may be behind Japan, but it seems like the middle ages over here they are so far behind. We are supposed to have internet and AC in Croatia, but the guys said that they said the same about France (and that was not true).
One last funny anecdote for you before I power down and do my Sudoku puzzle (which are also different here). We were staying at a bed and breakfast. We got up for breakfast this morning, took our bags down and were going to have breakfast while we waited for our cab. Breakfast consisted of what was basically stale bread with various spreads and preserves. I’ve been dreaming of eggs and bacon with a side of French toast at night… I’m not really sure that’s mentally healthy, but we roll with the punches. Alrighty, I saw in the paper today that my Cubs have the best record in baseball… I know that you can’t believe it either, so I’m going to go ahead and write that again, its June 28th and the Chicago CUBS have the best record in baseball. No June swoon for this year, lets hope they keep the energy up for the tough summer months. Talk to you all soon.
Ryan
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Grandma
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Great travelblogging
Hi Ryan These letters are just awesome. You are a wonderful writer. You make it seem like I am right there with you. I have a web site for Medjugorje in Croatia that I am sending you. I am sure you will try to go there if you can when you read about it and see the maps. Love, Grandma http://www.medjugorje/ws/en/appartitions/docs-medjugorje