the williams go to europe: * S A L Z B U R G *

The night of the wedding (they had a morning/afternoon wedding) we left Prague and took an overnight train to Salzburg. As soon as we got on the train, the steward for our cabin came up to us and said, “Now, let me warn you. There are these “brown-colored” people, “gypsies”, that will come on the train and take your money.” We were confused, because the door locks seemed to be pretty strong, but he said it didn’t matter and that they would still try to take your money. At this point, Matt started freaking out because of the thought of someone coming into our room to steal our stuff. He asked the guy, “Well, what do we do if we see one?” and the guy told us that they didn’t “want violence” and that if they saw you looking at them, they would just leave. Well, Matt’s thinking was if you see someone coming into your house to steal your stuff, you either beat them up or kill them! You don’t just look at them to make them go away! Anyway, Matt set up all these other “alarms” and attached the hangers from the closets to the door and the closet door. Needless to say, we didn’t sleep well that trip.

We arrived in Salzburg early in the morning and checked into our hotel. That morning, we decided to just walk around downtown Salzburg. This place is so beautiful and clean! If you ever go to Europe, you’ll have to go to Salzburg. We just walked around downtown, ate lunch, saw a couple buildings, but everything was pretty much closed because it was Sunday. That afternoon, we went on the Sound of Music Tour, which sounds really cheesy, but it’s really cool. We went to the front and back of the house in the movie (which were two different houses). We also went to the hellbrun castle, which houses the gazeebo where "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" was shot, but we can't find the picture of us there! Matt did not understand the feelings a girl feels towards this scene in the movie! As a child, I remember running around our room, pretending that we were liesel! We went to an area on the outskirts of town where they make all the lace for Salzburg. In the movie, the scenery is shot here. We went to a bunch of places in between there, just basically driving around the country. Then we went to Mondsee Cathedral, which is the church that they got married in (in the movie). Then the tour ended at Mirabell Gardens, which was a few blocks from our hotel. This is the garden in the movie that the kids are running around in and singing “do re mi”. That night, we just went back and crashed and slept for about twelve hours! We were so tired.

On the tour, the tour guide had mentioned being able to go up on the top of Untersberg, which is the mountain that Julie Andrews is dancing around in front of in the beginning of the movie. Now, seeing the Alps was the thing that Matt wanted to do the most while in Europe. We had no idea you could actually go to the TOP of them! So, we took a bus to the bottom of Untersberg and took a cable car up! When we went to buy our tickets, the guy asked us if we knew how cold it was, which was 2 degrees farernheight. But, including the windchill, it was SO MUCH COLDER. I mean, obviously, we were not prepared to hike this mountain because we didn’t even know we could! Anyway, we went up top and had an AWESOME view of Salzburg. Again, it was so cold!! And the snow on top of the mountain was so deep. Matt took video of him climbing the mountain that is hilarious. He held the camera like a football and just tried to walk! The mountain does not really have anything to keep you from flying off, so of course I was very cautious and only walked a little bit around the mountain because that wind was so strong it probably could’ve knocked you over the edge if it wanted. To give you an idea of how clean Salzburg is, when we were at the bus station to return to the center of Salzburg, it had just rained. A little bit after the light rain storm blew through, there was a gentleman that came outside in full rain gear - hat, jacket, pants, and boots - who swept all the sticks, leaves, and other falling debris that the storm had left!

Anyway, that day, we left Salzburg and felt like we wished we had more time to spend there. We didn’t even get to see Hohensalzburg Fortress, which is the castle of Salzburg.