Austria

I spent 2 days in Salzburg, Austria. My 1st day I wandered around and got lost. Then bought tickets to a marionette puppet show of "The Magic Flute" I didn't get a choice what show to see, I would have chosen the Sound of Music puppet show, but this is the city of Mozart's birth and he is pretty big here so I think the show was from his music. It was interesting. I wasn't allowed to take pictures...but I'm sure I have a few. 

I spent the night in a really nice hostel. One that showed the Sound of Music every morning. I went on two tours my second day. 1st was the Sound of Music tour, 2nd was a tour of the Salzburg salt mines. (Salz means salt.) The Sound of Music was ok, but I loved the salt mines, I even got to lick the wall of the mine and taste salt! (Yes, there is a picture.)

Ok so 1st the highlights from the Sound of Music tour:

This is one of the places the Sound of Music was filmed in Mirabell Gardens with Maria and the children running through this tunnel singing "Do-Re-Mi"

This is the gazebo where Liesl and Rolf sang "16 going on 17" It looks smaller than the one in the movie b/c when they were dancing inside, that was a sound stage in Hollywood. Also the gazebo was built next to the house used in the film and the people liked it so much they jokingly said you should leave it here, and they did. But then they had to move it the house is now used for seminars and people were climbing over the wall day and night to see the gazebo and it was disturbing the seminars and they had to move it. Also we couldn't go inside the gazebo because a few years ago an 80 year old woman fell and broke her hip leaping from bench to bench singing I am 16 going on 17. This is where the children and Maria fell in the water while talking to Capt. Von Trapp but this is not the back of the house used for filming because the Austria authorities freaked out when they saw how many people were in the house for the filming and kicked them all out, so they had to use a different house. This is the inside of the church where Maria and the Captain were married. This is the little statue that Gretel pats on the head while they are singing "Do-Re-Mi"

Also I'd like to blog about the saltmines but once again the library is going to kick me out soon so you will just have to check out the captions on the facebook album.

Click here

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2354402&id=12604326&l=217d5d676d

Oh and a few videos. We had a very "interesting" tour guide. Oh and get this! He grew up in Aiken, SC. He asked me where I was from and I said SC. And he said "What part?" (When you are in Europe and someone wants to know what city in SC, they are clearly very familiar with SC.) Anyway, when I told him, he then began to talk in a very hick accent. I asked him "Which accent is fake?" He spoke German with an Austrian accent and he also spoke perfect hick. But I think both were legit. 

That's right, I asked a stranger to take this picture of me in the saltmines. Enjoy!

Seriously, you have to check out the facebook album of the rest of the saltmine pictures it was one of my favorite parts of the trip.