Schnitzel with Noodles

Salzburg, Austria

The last city on my tour de Europe was Salzburg. I took the midnight train from Prague to Salzburg. This was NOT a main line. I had four changes to make to get to my final destination, and at 1:30 AM we stopped in the tiniest train station in the middle of the Czech Republic. I got off unknowingly, thinking that I'd have to wait at that station until my train came at 4:00 AM.

I stepped into the freezing cold of a little Czech mountain town. No one around. Little puddles of rain filled the street's potholes, reflecting the light from flickering street lamps. A taxi driver smoked a cigarette, waiting for absolutely no one. I shuffled around for a bit, walking through empty streets, and made my way back to the train station when I saw that the same train was still sitting there, with its engine now shut off. I decided that this train was probably the same one that was leaving at 4:00 AM, so I opened the door, climbed aboard, found an open sleeper car, and fell asleep.

When I woke up we were in České Budějovice, a city in southern Czech Republic. I got off there and waited in the station for a couple hours, watching as the day began and people began to fill up the train station, on their way to work. No where else in the world can you see a businessman get off a train at 6:30 AM, walk over to a kiosk, buy a beer, chug it, and buy another beer for the road. Several people did that.

I was on my second-to-last train, about to get off the train in Linz, where I'd transfer to Salzburg... but I got off a stop too early! I heard "Linz" announced on the train in German and thought, oh, time to get off, but I was just in the suburbs. Big whoops. I knew I made the mistake right away, and watched helplessly as my train disappeared out of sight.

Do you know how hard it is to ask people on the street where "Südbahnhof" (southern railway station) is? I kept forgetting the name. What is it... hoff... Hasselhoff? Hofbrauhaus? Häagen-Dazs? I couldn't remember for the life of me, and people I asked were just as confused.

Luckily I asked this one guy, and I must have seemed so pathetic that his wife took pity and asked him to drive me to the place. It was only a mile or two away, but I had no idea where anything was. They didn't speak a word of English, and I could only lean up to the front seat and point at myself and say, "Deutsch nein." Which isn't how you say that anyway, but they laughed. "English no," she said smiling. At least they got the idea. "Danke danke danke," I repeated, getting out of the car at my train station, and then for good measure, "Thank you very much," which is the universal Americanism everyone on Earth knows and imitates. They laughed again and waved. Wundervoll!

Salzburg is a little town, way more famous than you'd imagine for how tiny it is. It sits on the border of southern Germany and the Austrian Alps. The city runs along the Salzach river, and it's surrounded by mountains, green farmland, and above everything, a mountain with a castle and the abbey from the Sound of Music.

I don't have to tell you how beautiful it was. Actually, if you've seen the Sound of Music, you know. I know that sounds lame, but it's true. That movie depicts the city and the surrounding area very well.

So what better way to see the city than to go on a Sound of Music tour? Yes, that's right. It wasn't my idea. I've heard from friends, if you go to Salzburg, do the Sound of Music tour. They were right.

I ended up in a van with 7 other people and our tour guide, and we drove around Salzburg, the Alps, and the countryside, for four hours, listening to the Sound of Music CD. (Ok, that was a tad much.) But I got to see so much of that part of Austria, including all of Salzburg and the surrounding villages. I heard the history of the Nazi annexation of Austria, heard about the creation, reception and unbelievable success of the Sound of Music (it is the 3rd highest-grossing movie ever, at $1.022 billion), and heard the real story of the von Trapps, which is actually quite fascinating - minus Gretl.











Mozart was born in Salzburg too, and the guy who wrote Silent Night.

Interestingly, Austrians hate the Sound of Music. Probably because it brings a flood of camera-strapped tourists who think that it's the cleverest idea in the world to sing Do a Deer dancing down the street. I only saw that happen once, luckily.

After the tour, the nine of us drove back to the city center and started to say our goodbyes. But a few of us got to talking with our tour guide, asking her about her background. Turns out she was an American who had lived in Austria for the last 17 years. She had so many stories to tell kind of off the record about Austrians, their response to the 20-year anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and also where to find the best schnitzel in the city. After awhile, she told us that she had missed her bus anyway, so why don't we just go to a restaurant and try the wienerschnitzel!

We had a blast. There was an American girl my age who was couch-surfing (that's my next goal), an Australian girl who was hiking around Europe with some friends after high school (which is very common for Australians), and a couple from Phoenix who were celebrating their anniversary. I got to talking with the guy and he had lived in Pittsburgh for awhile and loved it!

The food was delicious. By the end of the night, several beers later, the 6 of us were listening to our tour guide tell stories about her travels around Europe and what it was like to live away from home for 17 years. There's no way I could do it.

The next morning I took a train back to Vienna, where I spent the day walking everywhere to see the things I missed the first time around, which was a lot. I hung out with a Norwegian PhD student I met at the hostel. He was studying in Austria and wanted to go get kielbasi and bratwursts, so we did.

I'd love to do a trip like this again, maybe in eastern Eastern Europe. It didn't cost me that much, actually. It's amazing how much money you can save when you pay pennies for airfare, stay in youth hostels, and sleep on trains.