The Hills are Alive...

It's really hard to NOT be a tourist in Salzburg, especially when you realize how beautiful things are... or when you realize that where you are standing is where they filmed the Do-Re-Mi song for The Sound of Music.

I have been intensively studying the German language (the Austrian dialect) for the past week (and by the past week, I mean Wed-Fri) and it has definitely helped my German language skills (I think). I had a really wonderful conversation with Katherine and Hillary when we went out to eat at a fancy Italian restaurant all in German... until our food came. For some reason, eating made us speak English (probably because we were so distracted by the amazing-ness of our food!).

We started off the weekend by going to the fair that is going for St. Rupert (the patron saint of Salzburg whose feast day is on Wednesday). We had some good food, drink, and fun. We went on one of those spin-around swing things & got nice and dizzy! On Saturday we wandered around the Mirabell gardens (also where they filmed some of The Sound of Music). We had a lot of fun there, taking pictures and playing on the AWESOME playground. I tell you- those Austrian kids have it made! That was probably one of the more unsafe playgrounds that I have seen... (before all of the stupid "safe playgrounds" in the US).

We were treated to an amazing hike today by Andreas, one of the AIFS program people. He is not only an official city tour guide, but he's also just really awesome. We went up to the top of the Gaisberg, hiked down a little, walked around the whole mountain (great panoramic view of teh city/some of Bavaria), and then walked down the rest of the way into Salzburg. It was soooo beautiful! After that nice hike, we wandered around the city, trying to find somewhere that was open to get food and/or drinks (with quite a bit of difficulty- they take Sunday very seriously...). We went up to Kate/Taryn/Samantha's room & wathced The Office & Friends for a while.

When I got home, my Hausfrau was making some Pumpkin soup... and she let me try it. OMG that stuff is GOOOOOD. I don't really like soup... but it made me want to have soup ALL THE TIME. It was soooo goooood. I'll have to get the recepie from her before I leave. Yesterday she gave me Apfelstrudel too... that stuff was goood! I think I'll just bring her back to America with me and she can be my personal chef (haha... jk).

The only one inconvenience with living here is that my family doesn't have a dryer... so when I did laundry yesterday, I had to let all of my clothes air dry... :( But whatever. They still dryed. Tomorrow we have some more orientation, but afterwards we are going to tour a fortress and then (hopefully) watch a birds-of-prey show! And, my family should be getting the bike fixed, so I can start biking to class/people's houses instead of taking the bus!

:)

Pictures:
On the Swings at the Fair
The Do-Re-Mi steps (from TSOM)
The Alps (from Gaisberg)
Kelley & Kelly (at the top of Gaisberg)
Taryn, Kate, Kelley, Samantha, Katherine w/ the Alps in the background!