The Hills are Alive

Guten Tag wieder (Hello, again)! You should be excited for this blog post because it includes pictures from last weekend's trip to Salzburg, which is, as Matt Gilbert and many others put it, the home of the Sound of Music and Mozart. Strangely enough, Roger and Hammerstein's Sound of Music is largely unknown in Vienna. Austrians who have seen parts of the film (including my Language Buddy, Isabella) consider it too "kitschy." Oh well, more Sound of Music for me (and Lisa, for whom the tour in Salzburg was the best day of her life).
Wednesday: Second day of classes (Politics and Culture of the EU), figure out copy-card situation for printing, go buy books for literature history class, homework (thanks, Professor). I really miss having a printer in my room, or at least in my dorm.
Thursday: More class (EU, Business German), buy train tickets to Salzburg. I'm a big fan of my Business German class; the professor is awesome and we're reviewing a lot of grammar as well as more business-related topics. The train tickets to Salzburg worked out very nicely because for 28 Euro a group of up to five people can go on any of the regional trains in Austria for 24 hours. We had a group of 10, so we bought two "Einfach Raus" tickets for Saturday and two to get us home on Sunday (4*28/10 per person if you want to do the math). The regional trains are slower than what we could have otherwise taken, but the cost savings was worth it and we had plenty of time to chill on the train.
Friday: Literature course, lunch with language buddy, go shopping with Jess and buy a 1-Euro pullover-thingy and a green-striped sweater from New Yorker (finally, I got one!), work on application for fall Global Studies Internship, chill at Duke's Pub, pack for Salzburg, get very very little sleep. The Global Studies Intership gets you a position as a pseudo-TA running a 1-credit freshman class about global awareness/issues. The position sounds right up my alley and after this trip I will be wanting some new moneys. We didn't stay at Duke's too long because most of us who were there had to get up for a 5:00am train to Salzburg, but I still got hardly any sleep.
Saturday: Early train, arrive in Salzburg, find Hotel Turnerwirt (which I am 99 percent sure I had stayed in before, crazily enough), realize we don't have time to ski, go downtown and meander through streets, churches, and up into the largest standing fortress in modern Europe (Hohensalzburg), lovely dinner at an Austrian/Italian/Indian restaurant (where I discover I am in love with raspberry water), cards and such at the hotel with the German version of American Idol followed by funky music videos in the background. Did you know that a nickname for people from Salzburg is "cow washers?" Way back when an foreign enemy was attacking and after some time in the fortress Salzburgers were down to their last cow. However, to make the attackers believe that the Salzburgers had plenty of food left and would not soon give up, they let the cow trot around outside for the enemy to see. The next day they painted her and sent her outside again. The next day they washed the cow and painted her a new color. The attackers, now believing that Salzburg had plenty of meat and other resources left, retreated. Yay, Salzburg!
Sunday: Austrian continental breakfast (which turned out to be 7 Euro...so I wish I'd snuck out some nutella or something), four hour SOUND OF MUSIC TOUR!, debacle at hotel trying to figure out what we have left to pay, revisit downtown Salzburg and walk around, train home (where I get literature reading done with Heej and a occasional translational help from her Berlin-friend Nina), sleep. The SoMT included not only places from the movie (the gazebo, the Van Trapp houses,...) but also historical Mozart family-related stops and general Salzburg beauty. I think Erhard, our fabulous guide, enjoyed our enthusiasm for the movie. There was singing involved.
Monday: Sleep in, get groceries, finish and send in internship application, do some homework. This day did not end up being as productive as I'd hoped, but what can you do.
Tuesday: Class again, first "Termine" with Prof. Murray to supplement Literature History course at the University of Vienna (Uni Wien). Meet a couple cool people in my kitchen, but I still don't know their names.
Wednesday: School, first day of Austrian History class and supplemental meeting with Prof. Murray, read for EU class, mini-Strozzigasse party to welcome in the new semester. I am now able to list off all the countries of the EU in alphabetical order, but I think I need to memorize them in chronological order (when they joined). Unfortunately the Strozzi party was just a smoked-filled room and I had a horrible headache so I did not stay long, instead choosing to sleep.
Thursday: EU class, lunch, go buy books for history and more for literature class, Business German (still love it), sit in on a math class, Duke's. There is a math lecture at the Business University that I am not registering for (I wouldn't get any useful credit out of it anyway), but I'm going to sit in on Thursday evenings to learn math-talk in German and maybe refresh some math skills. This week they were discussing basic financial mathematics (interest/growth/exponentials), but from the course description I think they will get to some calculus eventually! Yeah, I'm a nerd.
Friday: Lit class, go return a book because I'd accidentally bought it twice, laundry, see "Der Vorleser" film (The Reader with Kate Winslet) in German, short nap, U4 club, night bus home. I was proud of myself for speaking in German to return the book (sadly I could only get store credit back and not cash) and also understanding almost all of the dialog in the movie. Granted, I've read the book so I knew what was going on. And I really like U4; it's smaller than Praterdom and drinks are pricey, but girls got in free before 11pm and one of the two rooms was playing 80s music all night. Also, I ordered a Radler at the bar, but the guy heard "water," so all I had all night was a glass bottle of sparkling water!

Posaunezahl: 4! I saw a itsy-bitsy soprano trombone in a store window in Salzburg. I was highly amused.

I know I'm in Europe because...
1) I saw this car/go-kart/something parked on the street. And you see smart cars here.
2) they don't sell dryer sheets. Liquid fabric softener, yes, but not dryer sheets. (Fortunately I brought some from home, but I have friends that are in laundry-limbo without them.)
3) Chapman's coming to Italy in May and I'm going to hopefully be able to visit here there!
4) I have no idea how the Cubs have been doing in pre-season play. I could look it up with the wondrous internet, but if I was at home I would just know.
5) before movies, rather than just playing advertisements for other movies, they show intense public announcements like a grafic "More Humanity for Animals" spot.
6) there are so many colorful buildings!

Can anyone tell me what this is? It was in a jewelry display in Salzburg and looks furry. Please post any ideas as a comment.