Krampus lauf...



Christmas market in St Leonard - town at the base of Untersberg






So much snow



ok, I know this is my second post about this but, this time it was to the extreme...

We went to St Leomard today a small village at the base of Untersberg to go to the Christmas market and the krampus lauf. It was freezing. Well anyways we walked around this tiny market for a bit then it was time for the krampuses. I wasn't sure what to expect becuase the last one we saw there were police controling the krampuses so they didn't hit people (or very many people).... That was not the case at todays event.



St Nikolas!!



We got wipped so many times and there were soo many krapuses... The whole top half of my right leg is covered in welts right now and it is super painful. But the thing is you can't fun from them cause they will chase you and wip you harder and longer... so you had to just stand there and take it... needless to say I was done with that after being wipped once really hard, I went inside this cafè nearby and sat there with most of the rest of the group until the krampuses went away.





here they come...



I think this one is the cause of many of my welts...



you say good bye and I say hello

This is just one of the things we learned while in Budapest. To say hello in Hungarian is something like "seeya" and to say goodbye is "hello".

castle hill... the buda side of budapest

We got up this morning, and it was snowing... the good stuff, at least for playing in - the kind that makes snowballs/snowmen well :). It was not so good after we had been walking 20 minutes and our feet were soaking wet and cold, not to mention the rest of us... but we sucked it up and braved the cold and wetness to go explore the city. And what a beautiful city it is.

one of my favorite pics from the trip, from the love lock tree

In the morning we went on this walking tour. It was led by a native Hungarian, but she spoke English. Joining us were 5 boys from London. We saw lots of sites from the city, both halves (the city of Budapest is actually split into 2 parts by the Danube - Buda and Pest). Parlament, was way cool, it is modeled after the British Parlament building. Other cool sites was St Stevan's basilica (the first King of Hunagry) and St Matthias church.

The architecture and buildings of the city are so different - becuase 2/3 of the city was destroyed by bombing during WWII. And since it was part of the eastern block during the cold war, it had alot of communist influence in the rebuilding of the city.

It was also interesting to hear the Hungarian view of the Hampsburgs. They were the monarchy that ruled Austria-Hungary empire for over 300 years, up until the end of WWI (when they lost). We have heard they Austrian view, actully some of the rulers are engraved in our brains we have heard about them so much. But hte Hungarian view is different, becuase Hunagry has been seiged and ruled by many monarchs since the middle ages, they aren't too much of a fan of the Hapsburgs, with one exception, the beloved Queen Elisabeth "Sisi". They love her, probably about as much as she loved Hungary (which was more than Austria).



me with pest in the background... you can see the parlament



We ended our tour after 2.5 hours of walking around the main sites of the city and ate lunch at this cafeteria style restraunt that served typical Hungarian food. I had lamb stew and dumplings... it was, alright I suppose. After lunch we headed to the Christmas market to look around until our next tour started... the communist tour. This was a very interesting tour. We learned what it was like in Hungary during the Cold War. Hungary was on the "lucky" side as their freedom during Soviet rule became a little more relaxed after the 1956 revolution and through the 1980's up until the collapse of the USSR.

The next day was pretty relaxed. We woke up to sunshine, but it was decieving becuase it was freezing outside. But we braved the cold and were off. We went to this market and walked around, then went to the christmas market and walked around some more. To warm up we headed inside St Steven's Basilica. Very gorgeous inside. We sat there and stared for a while, then we went into the back and saw the mummified hand of St Steven, that was pretty cool. After that we headed back to our hostel, got our stuff and started the treck towards the train station, stopping in places along the way to get warm, and do a bit of homework (cause it has to get done...). Then the long train ride back and our long cold walk back to the dorms from the train station becuase the busses quit running (cause it was 1:30 by the time we got there).

Most spontaneous adventure EVER!!!

Definetly the craziest thing I have ever done! oh how I will miss this... I know I will probably be scolded for this...
So, Wed at 5pm Kate asked me if I wanted to go to Budapest, Hangary with her the next day... I though about it and a few hours I told her I would...no planning, just a chat with her roomate who is from Hungary, less than 24 hours later we headed to the train station to hop on a train. Little glitch at the train station, didn't get the ticket we planned on getting but it all worked out in the end. Then we had to sprint to catch our train... that was fun... not, especially since it is all icy outside. But we made it, and we were off to Budapest! We watched Harry Potter pretty much the whole train ride - it was a 6 hour train ride. We started off doing homework, but that didn't last long...

When we arrived at our destination, the next adventure was finding a place to sleep. Since we were not 100% positive that we would be able to get to Budapest for the price we wanted, we decided to not book a hostel in case we didn't go. Well the train station was really sketchy... especially since it was dark and it was the two of us girls, and the language barrier, never have I been to a place where the language is so unfamiliar. We tried asking a guy that looked like he worked at the train station if he spoke English... no luck. SO... we booked it out of there as fast as we could, cause we were creeped out by some of the sketchy people in the station trying to sell us stuff.

We wandered the streets for a while, found an ATM (the exchange rate is GREAT for the Forint) and then continued trying to find a hostel. We walked for a while, with 2 failed attempts at ringing a bell for what was advertised as a hostel. Then we wandered into a Best Western and asked the guy where a hostel was and he pointed us in a direction, but didn't know what it was called.

Looking around at the city lights and the Christmas decorations is pretty cool, but we were done wandering. Eventually we stopped at a KFC to break out a map, we were not about to break out a map in the middle of the side walk - that would make us look even more like tourists and attract attention. Finally with a good idea as to where we were headed we were off again. And we found our hostel! The Broadway Express, nice place and cheap too!

If nothing else from this trip, so far I have learned to take risks, they might just turn out better than expected...

It's physical abuse, but in this country they call it tradition

Krampus... Let me tell you they are VERY creepy. For those of you who don't know what a Krampus is, he is the evil side of St Nicholas. He warns and punishes the bad children while St Nikolas gives the good children candy and such (St Nikolas Day is Dec 6). These characters dress up and run around the streets scaring and wipping people during the early parts of December, but especially on the night of Dec 5th.
They wear bells on their butts so you can here them coming. But if you run... they will chase you... and if you seem afraid, they will wip you harder and not leave you alone...I think I'll stay inside on Sunday night :)

adventures in ice skating

So last weekend,the snow was beckoning us to go outside and play in it, whil we were supposed to be doing homework... Of course we decided to go out. We went out into the altstadt where one of the Christkindl markts are and went ice skating at this little ice rink. It was so much fun. We skated, a few people, not so well and had a snow ball fight with these 2 little Austrian kids, one of which could speak english  (and of course the video that I want to upload of them throwing snowballs at the boys wont...). And we came up with skating routines, which was hilarious, at one point we had quite an audience watching us skate/throw snowballs.

I can't even express how much I love snow... and then it snowing and us skating and the Christmas market!! And the children playing with us... it was great. A great way to avoid doing homework, a great way to spend a snowy afternoon. And the city looks so beautiful blanketed in snow. It was the first time I was able to enjoy it, the last time it snowed in Salzburg, we were heading out (to Rome).



the girls





 



the boys with the polar bear



the two little Austrian kids planning their attack...

Kate and the bear

Christkindl markt

me teaching Brady how to skate backwards

A different kind of Thanksgiving...

Matthew with the Trukey...

So... Thanksgiving isn't celebrated here in Austria (Obviously, cause it's and American holiday) and so we had class ... and of course with my luck I had a test in the one class I had that day, German. It wasn't too bad. After class my German conversation group met with our Austrian girl and had lunch at Haci's kebap (it's a Turkish food, kind of like a greek guerro only not...) then came back to our rooms.

Well finally it was dinner time. We headed over the the restraunt where we were to meet our teachers and some other guests. I sat next to this 92 year old woman (who only spoke german)and her daughter, the woman used to host students in her home which would have been way cool, as well as some of my classmates. To start off the night the upper german class put on a skit about the first Thanksgiving in America... SO FUNNY.

Pumpkin soup

the other German class

my chocolate muffin

 Then came a German thank you song and a prayer then time to eat. First we had pumpkin soup. Then we had turkey and mashed potatoes and stuffing and some mixed vegetables. Not bad for the Austrian version :). We ate and talked for a long time. Then they brought out dessert... chocolate muffins, some other kind of muffin, topfin strudel (not quite sure what this is...) and apple strudel. NO PIE :(, I dont think they have pie here... our conversation partner was appalled when we said we normally eat pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, she couldn't believe we eat pumpkin sweet.

After dinner it was time for more entertainment... We all sang 99 Luftballoons, pretty funny cause all you can really understand is "99 luftballoons" the rest is kind of a jumble.

After that we had a little trivia quiz about Austria, it was supposed to be a self quiz but the old lady and her daughter helped me and I won second place so I gave them the prize, which was a pretzle on a string made into a necklace. After that the boys in our group sang The Weight. And then the picture frenzy started.

old lady and her pretzle medallion

our group

Never thought I would miss this soo much (until i had it in Great Britian)...

English!! being understood/understanding others without even trying was such a great feeling! Though I did catch myself a few times trying to speak German to some English folks, that might be a problem when I first get home...

American pizza ... the last night to get out of the cold we decided to eat dinner at Pizza Hut... European pizza is ver good (WAY less cheese, and it is a thin crust) but not the same.

pepperoni ... I don't think they know what peperoni is here in Austria... They are definetly missing out.

Hamburgers!!! I don't even remember the last time I had a real hamburger... the one I had when I was stuck in Canada was AWFUL... it was like a sausage patty on a bun, nicht gut! We went out to dinner the second night at this restraunt, and you could tell we were Americans, and that we hadn't had a burger in a REALLY long time (except those who cheat and go to McDonalds or Burger King down by the train station). All 7 of us ordered a burger and fries.

free unlimited refills ... the greatest! not a luxury that we have here in Austria

Soda ... Ok so I have soda in Austria (the cheap off brand kind... its not that bad, but not the same), but the soda over here is WAY different... I can't even explain it. It is really sweet. I had a diet coke at the movie theater, and I couldnt even tell it was diet... When I took the first sip I was like WHOAH ... I am not sure I like it. And when we got to Munich we found a place that sold Mountain Dew! We were all shocked, the boys totally cleaned that place out of Mt Dew.

movies... in English. HP7 was the first movie I have seen since I left. Even just having the opportunity to go to a movie that we could understand was great let alone it being Harry Potter!

TV... havent watched a television show from a TV in three months... at the hostel they had friends on and we all just kind of sat and stared (even thoguh I have never really watched friends before).

you know you're in Austria when...

you are told that you speak American. This really happened. In philosophy class, our professor was listing of languages (i don't remember why) and he said: German, Italian, Spanish, French, English, American... without even wavering. Then asked us why we were giggling. We thought it was hilarious, but SO true.

mountain dew is illegal... something about the caffiene content being too high...

the legal drinking age is 16. These people love to drink. In all of Europe, Austria is the second leading country in beer consumption (like 150 L per person per year) behind the Czech Republic.

there are about a billion coins to the money system. ok not a billion but ALOT. there are: 1 cent, 2 cent, 5 cent, 10 cent, 20 cent, 50 cent, 1 euro and 2 euro coins... a bit excesive I think.

you have to pay to go to the bathroom (it's a European thing)... seriously!? Everyone has to go to the bathroom, why do they make us pay to go in public restrooms? It means you really have to plan ahead (and makes it hard to travel with children).

there are NO water fountains... in Vienna, one might find this spout thing that has a constant stream of water, but there are no water fountains to be found, anywhere... I have noticed that in all the European countries I have visited...

you can hear the church bells ringing from miles around. Especially at noon and 7am and 7 pm. This is a very Catholic country. There is both a monestary and a convent in the altstadt area, and they ring bells before mass and prayers, as well as noon. Bells also are rung during the concecration, which I find interesting.

the public transportation is EXCELLENT. Here in Salzburg there are buses that go all over the city, and even to the surrounding countryside. And then there are the trains... the train system here is very extensive and good. You can go pretty much anywhere on a train (for a lot cheaper too).

every student has to go to a concentration camp as a field trip (in thier version of high school)...

everyone dresses so nice (ok thats a European thing). Jeans and a t-shirt are not typical. It is an unwritten rule that sweatpants or pajamas is not acceptable in public.

the dates are written backwards... I get so confused sometimes. instead of 11-16-10 they write 16-11-10, which is ok if the date is greater than 12, but gets really confusing if it is not.

the hill are alive with the sound of music :). 62% of Austria is mountainous...Enough said.

How can such a beautiful country have such a horrible past...

Entrance gates into the main camp





Today we visited one of Austria's main concentration camps, Mauthausen. I learned alot on this trip, in a different way. Dachau was more like the history of the camp, though there was alot of what the camp was like sprinkled in. This camp isn't as well known in the states, but it held about 200,000 prisoners and over 105,000 of these prisoners died there. Our tour guide was very good at relaying to us what it was like for the prisoners in the camp (though unless you have experienced the horrors yourself, you will never truely understand).



barracks



beds...
at one point they were sleeping
8 people per bunk..



In preperation for this trip, and since we were missing German class to go, we had to watch a video of a survivor, and then present it to the class. My video was on this lady Maria Catharina Van Büren. She was from Holland and was a political prisoner, basically. In her interview she describes having to strip and shower once they arrived. She discribes the hunger they faced, only being given 2 slices of bread and 1 bowl of soup (more like water) a day. She talks about the stairs of death that lead up from the quarries that they were forced to work at and how the Jews were just pushed off the edge of cliffs. It was interesting listening to her describe the things she went through. And how death was an every day part of life.



"execution site"
where the gas chamber, giant
fridge and crematorium is



Well in the beginning of our tour, our guide took us up to the outer wall of the camp, the part that was visible to the surrounding countryside (it is up on this big hill). He told about how people knew what was going on up here, but were scared to do anything about it. Seeing these prisoners walk through town, emaciated, dying on the streets just became everyday life for the residents and they thought nothing of it. Then he showed us an aerial shot of the camp just before it was liberated. And there was a soccer field on the other side of the wall! and right next to that was the barracks where they took the sick and just let them starve and dye there. The people watching the game could see into this small little compound and see these people, but did nothing.



one of the many memorials



Inside the camp, he took us to the first place the prisoners went once they walked throught the enterance gates. The place where they stood and were stripped of all their belongings, and some of them were beaten. They stood their naked, in all weather for hours (it was kind of chilly today, and I can't even imagine having to stand in that place naked for hours). We next walked into the showers (where the soldiers would play with the temp, so it would be scalding and/or freezing) and where they were shaven of all their body hair. The barracks was another story. barracks that were built to fit like 300 people, were at one point packed full of 800 people! We were then taken down to the crematorium and the gas chambers... such an eerie feeling. 



"Monument for the European youth
and young people who
here or in other places
lost their childhood, youth and lives
Never Again!"



After our tour we were allowed to wander. Naturally we wandered through the many different memorials and then we made our way down to the Totesstiege - stairs of death. A set of 186 stairs, very steep, leading down into a rock quarry. Prisoners were forced to carry 50kg (over 100lbs!) slabs of rock up these stairs multiple times a day. Our guide said that people set on this detail only lived 4-6 weeks, and that the average healthy male that would carry these slabs was only like 94 lbs. We walked down cobblestone path to the stairs - which was very uneven which made it a bit difficult - then walked down the stairs into the quarry. The stairs were super steep and not even at all, I can't even imagine how hard that was to carry 50kg on our back, weak from hunger, up those 186 stairs multiple times a day!We wandered around the quarry for a while, which was breathtaking by the way, but in a somber way, and then it was time to go back.



cobblestone path...



place where they threw Jews over the cliff...
memorial says parachute site...



Totesstiege, stairs of death...

Perfect Fall Weekend!

So after a rough morning in German class, and receiving 4 hours of homework all having to do with the Mauthausen concentration camp that we are visiting next week, I realy needed a good afternoon. We are done with classes for the week because it is a free weekend, and most of us are sticking to the general area this weekend (maybe a day trip to Munich, but nothing big - though in the beginning of the week we were thinking about going to Budapest, but we all needed a rest).



view of some of the mountains from the football park

Since the whole group was still in town, and the weather is BEAUTIFUL, we decided a football game was in order (American football, not soccer). Oh my goodness is Salzburg beautiful in the fall, well not just in the fall, but the leaves make me appreciate fall. We went to a park that is near our normal playing spot, but bigger. From this park we could see the surrounding mountains without the obstruction of buildings. OMG, soooo beautiful. And with the colors of the trees and the ground being covered with leaves... sehr schön! Some of us were more interested in playing in the leaves and staring at the scenery than playing football, but we eventually got the game going and played through sunset.

Watching the sun set over the mountains was also beautiful. It is definetly something I miss when I am at school. You forget how much better the mountains make the sunset.



oldest restraunt in Europe by
St Peters abbey church (built in 803 i believe)



Friday, I got to sleep in and it felt wonderful! In the afternoon we decided to get outside becuase it was another beautiful day! We walked around the altstadt, something I haven't done in a while. We went inside this cute little Christmas store, and that got me really excited for Christmas. The Christ-Kindl markt is going to be set up soon and I am sooo excited! I LOVE Christmas!





Salzburg (well a piece of it)



Anyways... We walked around the altstadt and we were realizing how much of Salzburg we still haven't explored. We are gone alot of the weekends and during the week we have class and homework and play football, so we don't get to the parts of town that we aren't familiar with.





After altstadt we decided to walk along the river towards our rooms for a while. It was so calming. I love that even though we are in the middle of a city that there is still a small town feel. Not like any of the other big cities I've visited here. Definetly unique and I love it.

 

altstadt - with the festung on top of the hill

Today we decided to go to what is known as the "salzburg lake district" a place with 4 pretty good sized lakes about an hour away from Salzburg. We were alittle dissapointed that it was cloudy, but at least it wasn't raining :). We walked around the largest lake in the area Mattsee. It was quite a walk. We spent about 3-3.5 hours walking around the lake. It was gorgeous. I love the Austrian countryside :). We walked next to the lake, through the forest (oh the colors), through cute little villages and even by some farms (got some funny looks from some Austrian dairy cows).


Mattsee





unsere Kuh Freund!







sehr schön! (very beautiful!)



Oh and before we walked around the lake we played at this park. It was so much fun. And quite a sight, 3 20 year old girls and a 21 year old guy playing at this park. Austrain parks are so much better than those in the US we have decided. Their structures are way cooler. The net swings... so much fun. And all the parks we have seen have zip lines! SOOO much fun. And this park had this cool little contraption, it was like a tetter totter mixed with swings on steriods, we had a BLAST!







our fun new toy at the park, it swings up and down and around all at the same time if you push correctly!



European Education....

The education system is ... different here, that is for sure.

Addicted to chocolate

WOW, chocolate was harder to spell than it should have been... the German is growing on me. (chocolate - Schokolade, close enough right?)

Anyways... so atleast for like the past 2 weeks I have been on a sugar/caffeine high and it is NOT good. It all started when midterms came around (ok it started before that but I don't have a good excuse as to why)... they kind of just snuck up on us. We were all busy planning our break when all of a sudden the profs were telling us what to study (vaguely of course... not a fan of this European way of schooling, grades based on 2 tests - and they dont really give you a good study guide, especially the German proff). Of course our program leader prof Ohm decided that the weekend before midterms was a great weekend to go to Vienne... NOT. Well, midterms came and went... they were ok i guess, as good as can be expected when studying the night before.

Back to the addiction. Well, I had taken up eating chocolate and drinking diet coke (well the austrian version anyways) to stay up and study, but I didnt quit after midterms... bad choice. After midterms came break, and the first few days involoved getting up early to catch a train or plane and staying up late, so I needed the caffeine. Well, some time in Rome, where I didn't have chocolate, I got a huge headache... NOT GOOD. SO I had to go to the grocery store and get some coke - that and we were soo exhausted from walking around all day that we needed caffeine so we didnt crash at 7 o'clock.

Now, somehow I have to ween myself off this caffeine addiction before the chaos starts again... NO FUN.

Vatican City



Pope Benedict XVI



The second full day we were there was dedicated to Vatican City. We made our way over there to see the Pope and hear him speak in St Peter's Square at 1030. There was quite a crowd (though prob not as big as it would be during the main tourist season). The pope drove in a vehicle around the crowd then up to his place on the stair of St Peter's Basilica and then there was a reading from Matthew in 7 different languages and then the Pope spoke.

After we heard him speak in English we headed over to the Vatican Museum (otherwise we wouldn't have accomplished what we wanted to for the day cause he usually talks for like 2 hrs and it was like 1130 by the time we got out). We stood in line for a while for the museum, but then we finally got in. We wandered around inside and eventaully made it to our destination, the Sistine Chapel. We sat and stared at the paintings (done by Michealangelo - we learned about them/were tested on them in Art History class) for a while.

After the chapel, we wandered our way through the museum and found a room dedicated to the aborginal people of Australia, that was interesting. By then we were tired and hungry so we made our way out. We decided on gelato for lunch, very good choice (it is going to be hard going from gelato back to ice cream... gelato is so much better, and the chocolate gelato that I had in Rome was EXTREMELY good). Then we headed back over to St Peter's Basilica.



me in front of St Peters



Boy was there a line to get in, it stretched almost all the way around the square. But it went relatively fast, took about half and hour to get in. All I have to say about the inside is WOW. I can't even discribe it. The art was beautiful! And the Sacrasty... oh my goodness! We walked around and admired for quite some time. After the inside of the basilica, we went down to the grottoes (under the basilica). There we saw graves of many dead Popes, and 2 queens. The highlights we definetly seeing Pope John Paul II grave and the gave of St Peter. John Paul's gave was quite simple, which made it stand out. St Peter's grave was just the oposite, really elaborate. It was beautiful. We were eventually rushed out becuase they were closing, we had gotten to the grottoes just in time.



swiss guards at St Peters



After the grottoes, it was getting dark, and we were hungry so we decided to go back. We took the metro back and went to the store and got some pasta and pasta sauce and made that for dinner, we invited Ali to eat with us, because he was there. We ate, Ali wasn't a fan but he was polite about it, and then we went back to our room to relax for a bit. After a while, Ali came back and told us not to go to sleep, cause he was cooking us dinner... and he wouldnt take no for an answer.


We ate a second dinner of hot dogs and sat around with Ali and Amin (from Iran) and the Italian guy staying there. The conversations got alittle more interesting that night. They told us that facebook and most email are illegal in Iran, and what is not is filtered by the government. They have to use a portal in order to get on facebook. We also learned that the Iranian people like Americans, its the government who doesn't. Also Amin said that he would like to one day come to America, but doesn't think the American government would let him (he is an Art professor back in Iran).



After dinner the Italian guy gave us some fruit to eat... it was like nothing I had seen before. It was orange on the outside, but on the inside it looked weird. He didn't know the name of it in English, and I don't remember what he called it in Italian, and if I couldn't spell it. I looked it up though and I think it was a Persimmon. It was pretty good, different but good. After that though, it was time to hit the sack because we had a long day of traveling ahead of us.