Guten Abent! (Good evening in German - it's 6.50pm here)
Before I start, please excuse any odd spelling/punctuation - this German
keyboard is a little odd...
Yesterday was salt mines, freezing time in Salzburg and a concert in a
castle. Hardly uneventful. The salt mines were very cool - located about
20 minutes from Salzburg itself, they've been there for centuries and
only ended commercial production in the 80's. We went on a tour into
them, and aside from Alex licking the walls of the mine to see if the
rock tasted salty (he assures us it just tasted like dirt) was riding
down the slides between levels. The slides are like a pair of wooden
rails that you sit on top of and slide down - quite quickly in the case
of the 44m long one! All up, a very interesting and rather cool morning.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in Salzburg, enduring freezing cold
(it really was the coldest weather we've experienced so far) while the
snow fell heavily. Pretty? Yes. So cold you didn't want to be outside
for more than about five minutes? Definitely. Still, we had a good look
around town, visited the massive cathedral there (we've been at a
cathedral five days out of six so far, but they're all still really
impressive.) and some of us tried ice-skating. I didn't, but I'm
planning on giving it a shot in Paris.
After our day out, we went back to the hostel for dinner and then back
into town for a concert in Hohensalzburg (Salzburg Castle), which is
located quite spectacularly on top of a cliff and can only be reached by
a cute little funicular railway. The concert was a string quartet, and
although we did have to wake Chris up twice, we all enjoyed it a lot.
(Well, aside from Chris. He just enjoyed his nap.)
Today was travelling between Salzburg and Munich. On the way we stopped
at Dachau concentration camp, where we spent two hours or so. It was
pretty amazing in a sad way, but well worth the visit.
Tomorrow we leave for Cologne, and get closer to our next concert at the
Selm school in Selm. Selmgymnasium (its name in German) is our German
sister school, and so we'll be performing there. I'm hoping to play the
latin jazz solo I've got ('One For Mum'), and barbershop quartet is
singing Find the Cost of Freedom. We don't think Selm will be as
enthusiastic as Matzen, but we are excited because Massi from school is
on exchange there and so there's going to be a familiar face in the
audience.
The snow and an Austrian soft drink called Almdudler have become the
staples of the trip; without fail every time either one comes out we're
delighted, especially now that the snow is more frequent and now that
Wolfgang has a whole crate of Almdudler which he sells cheaply.
Yesterday before we went into the salt mines, we were meant to be having
a look around a mock Celtic village that had been built next to the
mines, but we decided we'd rather play in the fresh snow which had
fallen overnight and was perfect when we got there. Shazz is sick of it,
but the rest of us have learnt to throw on an extra layer of thermals
and get out there. It's very pretty and I'm yet to find a sight that's
more jaw-droppingly impressive than an Austrian mountain covered with
snow, with all the trees white. It's very, very pretty.
In other news, food is good at the hostels. Breakfast and dinner are
all-you-can-eat buffets and so I'm having a lot of fruit and yoghurt for
breakfast and seconds every dinner. It's not home-cooked stuff, but
it's pretty good for hostel food and there certainly is a lot of it!
Lunch is varying; some days we buy it in whichever town we're in whilst
out sightseeing, meaning it's anything from one very large pretzel to a
sit-down meal. Today and yesterday Wolfgang made us hot dogs, which was
fine yesterday because Hayhow told me in advance and let me get lunch
from a bakery near the hostel, but today I asked for some and he told me
"I thought vegetarians didn't eat hot dogs", to which I pointed out
that you told me I needed to get some protein because normally at home
I'd be having tofu and soy stuff and lentils which there isn't any of
here and that there didn't seem to be anything else to eat, so there
wasn't much of an option. Hooray for protein bars!
I also seem to be picking up bits of German - I can now buy lunch in
German, as well as greet people and ask if they speak English.
Fortunately 99% of people do, so I don't really even need to know that
much, but it's nice to know it anyway.
I'd post photos, but I'm using an internet cafe terminal at the hostel
and I can't find a USB port anywhere... Hopefully in Cologne I'll be
able to put some up.
Love,
Jo xox
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