Goodbye Salzburg

It's crazy that this semester is coming to an end. I "hiked" up Untersberg mountain yesterday with a few friends.  We wanted to hike it from the bottom to the top but we were convinced by a maintenance guy to take the cable car up because there is still a lot of snow on the mountain. We weren't really prepared to hike through a foot of snow up a massive mountain.  But we did hike from the cable car to the summit of Untersberg, and the view was breathtaking.  When we looked south we saw snow covered alps, and when we looked north we saw beautiful Salzburg with the green fields surrounding it.  

What a way to end a great semester.  I will miss a lot of the people I met on this trip, as well as the schnitzel, goulash soup, hiking, skiing, magners, and speaking a little bit of Deutsch.  I couldn't be happier with my choice of Salzburg. Even the pool at my dorm is open now, so a lot of us got together for a cookout the other night.  Everyone is so friendly in this program.  Salzburg will always be a special place to me!

 almost to the summit

hiking around lake como

Rachel, Courtney and I met at the train station Saturday morning, hopped on a 2 hour ferry, and got off at Menaggio.

 Hello Menaggio!

 The beginning of our hike to St. Martino church, located on the side of a cliff.

Innsbruck

Last weekend our group had a day trip to Innsbruck, which is a ski town surrounded by the alps, located about 2 hours from Salzburg.  This town is any skiers dream.  It would have been great if we had a chance to spend a weekend here during ski season.  

When we arrived we walked around and saw Ambras Castle, the Goldenes Dachl, Hofkirche, the Bergisel Ski Jump, and the Hofgarten.

It was truly a beautiful place to experience.  After the group left at 5, a few of my friends and I stayed since we made plans to take a night train to Como Italy.  We walked around and relaxed by the river, grabbed some hot chocolate, then made our way to the train station. Innsbruck greeted us with great weather, and we were able to bring it to Como, Italy with us too.

 Ambras Castle

 view of Innsbruck!

 fascinating Austrian architecture

 Bergisel ski jump that was used in the 1964 Olympics

 Goldenes Dachl

Until next time Innsbruck

First European Fußball game!

My first European soccer game was SO much fun!  We picked a great game to go to because it was Red Bull Salzburg's last home game of the season, one of their goalies was retiring, they held the ceremony on this day for a tournament they won awhile back, and they won 4-0!

For the entire game we felt so much excitement coming from the stadium.  We were standing in the best section too, there were two guys standing on a pedestal chanting to keep the crowd riled up.  Most of the chants were in Deutsch so I couldn't really understand what they were saying. At one point a massive sign came floating up in our direction, so we took part in holding it up as it covered our crowd.  The pride that comes from the fans I saw that day blows away any other pride I've seen.  Red flares were lit right before the second half started completely blocking our view for a good 5 minutes!

Organic farm field trip

My folk art class went on a field trip to an organic cheese farm on Cinco de Mayo.  I can't even describe how beautiful it was to walk around the farm, and how simple it was to make our own cheese to take home that day.

 Making cheese is simple:  gather 3 pints of milk, heat it up, add one small cup of raw milk, and some drops of a liquid that comes from a part of a baby cow, let it sit for 25 minutes, cut it up, drain it into cups, let it sit for 12 hours, salt it, and it's ready.

Amazing cheese spread samples that we devoured!