Week 5: The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Class Registration

Hi everyone! Welcome back to my (punctual) adventures!

This week has been full of travels, museums and scheduling classes. Let's get into it.

So when we last left off, it was my first day in Salzburg. Because we got there a little later, there wasn't anything good open, so we scheduled a Sound of Music Tour for the following morning, because as you may or may not know, the Sound of Music was mostly filmed in Salzburg.

Then, we journeyed into the city to get some dinner. It was surprisingly really hard to find a restaurant because everything was pretty much packed, which was surprising for a Tuesday night!

We finally found a restaurant and I impulsively picked a beef goulash with a dumpling. I have never had that before in my life but I absolutely made the right decision.



This was actually one of the best meals I've ever had. Like, in my entire life. It was absolutely incredible and thinking about it now is making me hungry...it's also almost dinner time anyway so there's my excuse.

So like I said, the Sound of Music Tour!!! This was so much fun. It was a 5 hour long bus tour that took us around to the different filming locations in Salzburg and slightly outside of Salzburg where the movie was filmed. This was SO much fun and I was so excited. I want to share a lot of this because I know a lot of my friends and family absolutely love this movie.



Our first stop was the back of the Von Trapp house. There isn't one house where it was filmed, there were actually three different ones! For this one, the grounds were used including the lake. If you remember the part where Maria and the kids fall into the lake, that was this lake!

As for the other two places where the house scenes were filmed, I'll get to one but the interior was filmed in a studio unfortunately.

Even the bus ride in between stops was incredibly beautiful. Here is a fortress I ended up going to later from a distance. It's the castle on top of the mountain!



So our next stop was Schloss Hellbrunn. This was not a filming site but is where the gazebo from Sixteen Going on Seventeen was located. It had to be moved multiple times because it was not kept under a watchful eye and was often vandalized. But here it is!


More sad news, they lock it because someone tripped and hurt themselves in the gazebo. You know I would have done the song and dance right?



There were an incredibly large amount of tourists crowding this thing so getting this picture took a lot of waiting and a miracle. I'm still hurt that I couldn't sing inside of it.

Next, we drove past the house where the outside scenes were filmed for the movie. So this house was used just as the outside! Unfortunately, it was owned by someone else and we didn't have time to go see it AND I couldn't get a good picture of it! I was pretty mad.

I did get a good picture of the Abbey. And they did film here too! They just didn't use the interior of the building.



and by "good picture" I really mean "pretty passable". Anyway, the abbey is that building on the right side with the red roof.

Next, we drove out to the beautiful town of Mondsee where the wedding scene was filmed. I'll get to the church in a second but wow this town is incredibly beautiful.



So we went into town, but first: FOOD. This was the fanciest (and probably best) salami sandwich I have ever had.



Next, I wandered around Mondsee and stopped at the church first.



I also bought some post cards because of my wall of post cards that I need to add to.

After that, I bought an ice cream cone and looked out over the lake. I have to go back to that town!!


Our final stop was Schloss Mirabell, where parts of Do Re Mi were filmed.



Recognize these stairs?



After that, the tour was officially over, but we wandered around the gardens. Here's some of the pictures I took!







Next I went into the palace for a little. It's now a concert hall so I didn't go in many rooms, just walked around! Here is what it looks like from the outside.



And then the inside!






I also stumbled upon a room that I was allowed to be in so here's that!





Next, we went to the fortress in Salzburg, which was where the ruling class would sometimes stay. It was a good place for them to have, because they could see all of Salzburg from there and they could see potential attackers coming as well.

The walk there was so nice! I noticed a lot of figures from Greek mythology in their sculptures and monuments. This fountain of what I assume to be Poseidon was my favorite.



So we bought our tickets and took a train up the mountain to get to the fortress.

Inside of the fortress, it was like a tiny town! There were little restaurants there, but we went to the Museum first. It was about the people who used to defend the fortress and their experiences in different wars throughout history. It also had a few rooms dedicated to the Archbishop who expanded the fortress.



Also being up so high allowed me to get some excellent pictures of Salzburg.



And we went to a restaurant on top of the fortress (food pic to follow) and I got probably my favorite picture so far.



At the restaurant I got spinach dumplings. There was a lot of cheese on them. 



So after we left, we took a little walk through Salzburg and I found a door that Batman must have JUST punched.



Salzburg is also the birthplace of Mozart, so there was tons of stuff in his honor.


It's still crazy how that was just one day. Felt eventful enough to be 5.

So we left Salzburg Thursday morning and headed back to Graz.



It was the last few days of class registration. Let me tell you something, that has not been fun.
Classes work so completely different. First of all, my classes haven't started yet! They start this week. Also classes generally just meet once a week and the amount of credits per class varies. Where in America it's 3 credits per class, I have some 6 credit classes, some 3, some 4. It's measured in ECTS which is the European credits system and to convert, 2 ECTS is 1 American credit. I will be taking 31 ECTS which is 15.5 American credits BUT I have 8 classes!

Wish me luck.

I am taking a class in German called Introduction to Glaciology because pretty much everything else was closed and I needed more credits! Should be interesting.

I decompressed from all the travelling and class registration disasters by putting up my postcards



AND by watching a lot of Batman: The Animated Series.



I'm a little addicted.

Have a great week everyone and if you ever have any questions or comments, always feel free to comment or message me directly. I would love to answer any questions you may have!