The school organizes a day outing to Salzburg, so we had to get up at the crack of dawn to get on the buses in time. I slept quite well on the bus, and I'll be able to sleep in (finally!) tomorrow, so no biggie.
We got to Salzburg, where the weather was gloomy and rainy for the entire day. We had Mass at the Franciscan Church, and it was celebrated by the auxiliary bishop of Salzburg, who is the uncle of Gaming director's wife.
That Mass would have been a good example of an argument for the Mass in Latin and with fixed rubrics, because this Mass was a prime example of people not knowing what to do because of language/culture confusions. I'm just sayin'.
After Mass, we got divied up into groups of 40, and though I tried hard to get in Mr. Pipps group since he's really funny and doesn't have a foreign accent, Krista and I ended up in the group led by the Gaming director (Mr. Wolter)'s wife.
That actually was pretty interesting; Mrs. Wolter showed us two churches, a cemetery, and the garden that the people run through in the Sound of Music.
Mrs. Wolter gave us some background info of Salzburg - salz means salt, which was a super snazzy (read: profitable) export back in the day, and burg means city.
A lot of Salzburg's history has to do with this dude; I missed the first part of this story so I'm missing pieces (story of every story I've heard in Europe so far), but apparently he loved Italy and hated Austria, but was made bishop and prince of Salzburg. He was forced (I think?) to become a cleric, but he did his darndest not to act like it. He made a piazza in Salzbug (several, I think), one with a fountain supposed to rival a famous fountain in Italy that I can't remember the name of.
He had a mistress, made a palace for her, and had fifteen children with her. He also had his own private palace.
He didn't like the original cathedral that was built in 774, so when the people came running to him one day telling him that the church was burning down, he said "Let it burn." Some people even believe that he started the fire.
Anyways, he built a SUPER nice church in it's place, and that church has a couple really cool things about it. First, it looks awesome.
Secondly, it was the first church to try to incorporate "surround sound"; Mozart had four organs installed at the corners of these pillars, and the organists would have someone nod to them when it was time to play, so they could all play in synchronization.
Thirdly, there are a bunch of bishops skulls with miters on them in the church (sorry, I forgot to take pictures), so when Mrs. Wolter's uncle was being made bishop, apparently her little brother started to cry, because he made the connection between becoming a bishop and dying. The auxiliary bishop has received a lot of death threats, because he's apparently one of the most outspoken European bishops against abortion.
Fourthly, a funny story concerning that stinker archbishop mentioned above; when he built the church, he placed two angels holding a golden crown near the top of the front of the church, to signify his princeship. The people of Salzburg then built a statue of Mary in the piazza/square outside of the church, placing it so that if you stood in the correct spot, it would appear the angels are crowning the Mary statue. Pretty clever, if I do say so myself.
Finally, the church was accidentally bombed by Americans during WWII (they missed the train station by twelve kilometers), but the general that made the mistake raised enough funds for the rebuilding of the church, and wow, they did a pretty good job!
The other church we visited was also very pretty, but I loved the cathedral most, so if I have time to upload pictures of the second church later, I will, but no promises.
Anyways, back to the story of the archbishop prince. He was eventually put in prison, but not because of his immoral behavior - nope, it was because he was taxing Salzburg's salt exports too much! While he was in prison, he had a conversion, and then wrote a beautiful letter to all future priests of Salzburg to offer Mass for his soul. Mrs. Wolter mentioned they had that letter in a particular church, but I didn't get to see it.
It was cool how Mrs. Wolter explained the animosity of Europeans towards the Church (the faith is struggling big time here) by showing how they had to see a ton of filthy stuff like the bishop-prince happen, and they didn't always know about the redemptive part (if there was ever one)
Mrs. Wolter led us through a super old cemetery - there's a bunch of cool facts about it, but here are just two.
- The makers of the Sound of Music were inspired by it - they recreated the cemetery, and used it in the scene where the Von Trapp family is hiding behind the graves. At the actual graveyard though, there wasn't any space behind the tombs.
- Also, even though the cemetery is very old (7th century, I think), there aren't many people buried there that died before the 20th century. The reason being, the families/friends of every person buried there have to pay rent for the grave - once they stop paying rent, the remains get sent to some church outside of Salzburg. One (if not the only) exception to this rule is the American general that accidentally bombed the Cathedral, but then rebuilt it. The city of Salzburg made him and honorary citizen, and promised to pay rent for him so that his remains could always remain there (see what I did there? ;))
After the cemetery visit, we walked to the Mirabel gardens, where the kids and Maria run through in the Sound of Music. They were really pretty, but I kinda felt bad for the gardens, because there were signs everywhere for tourists so it didn't look quite as pretty.
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| I'll try to upload my non-iPhone pictures later |
We spent about ten minutes there, then walked Stiegskeller for lunch provided by the university. It was a super big room (dang, I should've taken a picture...) and dinner was very delicious and fun. The other groups had already arrived, so Krista, Maria (an LCI student I was talking with) and I had to squeeze ourselves into the middle of an already full table.
We had soup first (mostly broth, with some sort of potato shavings/noodles), then the main course, which was chicken, some vegetables, and really yummy dumpling noodle like things. I talked with Maria most of the time - she's from Slovakia, and she's very funny and extraverted. We talked about weird American things, weird European things, and funny words.
After dinner, everyone had free time, so we joined the other LCI students to spend our last six hours in Salzburg.
So far, I really like the LCI students. They're more mature (the youngest is 19, and the oldest is at least 26), more open and helping them with their English is super fun/ny. We also had two FUS girls, Jessica and Christine in our group, and they're both super sweet. They're the ones that sing the pretty music at Mass (though Jessica was going a little crazy with the organ at Mass today - I think she was just really excited/nervous to be playing in such an old, cool church)
One of the students, David (a Hungarian), has been in Salzburg before, so he was our "guide" (I use the term very loosely - he didn't know exactly where he was leading us most of the time). He led us up and up and up a side of the mountain - tiring, but it was fun to talk to the girls. David was also pretty goofy and reminded me of David. He also reminded me of an Indian tour guide, the way he would say things like "Come this way!" and "We are in the city now!"
Maria is the most fluent with English, and also very opinionated - if she didn't like the path we were taking, she would let us know (most of the time I agreed with her.) It was nice talking to her, since she's also been in the states, and it's easy to understand her. She REALLY doesn't like the idea of selfies, and that was super funny.
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| Maria and I |
Then there is Monika and Veronica - they're both very shy and not very good at English, but they are super sweet and once you get them talking, they get very excited. Veronica asked me to sing the national anthem for them (and I sung it too, Dad!), and then they both sang their anthems - it was super sweet and awesome. We also discussed the happy birthday song, and their versions of it - apparently they just sing happy birthday in English when it's someones birthday. They thought the monkey version of the song was super funny, but they didn't quite get the humor in the St. Greg's doom and sadness birthday song. ;)
We basically ambled around the city for the six hours - my feet are tired now, but it was the most fun I've had in Austria so far.
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| Selfy with Mozart! And a random family in the background! |
Most stores in Austria (and I think general Europe) close around dinner time, so we had some problems trying to find somewhere to eat. The McDonald's was too expensive (can you believe it?), but we found a cheaper Burger King, got some shakes (yes, I know, that's kinda pathetic, but like I said, the market stalls were closed!), and sat there for awhile figuring out how to get back to the meeting place.
It was kinda funny, because everyone, including Maria, was freaking out a little bit about it and wanted to give us a ton of time to walk a little ways to the place. I wasn't too worried, since I actually had a pretty good idea of where to go, but I didn't want them to count on me in case I messed up, so I just relaxed while they planned. I think I'll be more comfortable giving a little directions next time we're out - I just didn't want to make that leap of faith in myself on the first outing.
After chilling at Burger King for awhile, we left to get to the buses, and right next door, we found a little bakery that was just closing, but had some cheap and super yummy looking food. I got these donut ball things - Maria said they were sweet cheese ball things, but I don't think so, because I didn't taste any cheese. It was still very good though.
We made our way to the buses (it was super easy), then got bussed back to Gaming, and here I am! This is definitely the most fun I've had, so I'm really hoping Krista and I can do more things with the LCI students, and branch out from there. (hahahahahhahahahaha, who am I kidding?!)
Anyways, I'll (hopefully) upload more pictures later.
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