Austria...The Hills are Alive With The Sound of Music...NOT!

This Hills are alive with the sound of music...

Just kidding! I didn't get to sing the song. Nor did I even get to go on that hill. The Sound of Music Tour in Salzburg, Austria was incredibly disappointing. We boarded a bus, drove past the house, and a couple of other minor film locations before heading about an hour outside of town to the church where the 2-minute wedding scene was filmed. They left us there for an hour before picking us up and dropping us back in Salzburg. Highly disappointing. I had more fun walking around Salzburg after the tour was over finding film locations for myself...and we found several. I have a picture of me by the gazeebo, jumping up and down the steps when the kids are singing the do-re-mi song! Check all of my fun Sound of Music pictures out on facebook... And on a side note, the hill is actually a fortress (which you didn't see in the movie). Now it is used for private residences so I doubt I could have gotten up there anyway. Sorry to disappoint all who were looking for the video of me singing on fb. I 'll figure out a way to make it up to you all...

Vienne on the other hand, I LOVED! It was like a cultural treasure trove! Ale and I arrived early Thursday morning completely exhausted from the stupid train ride I mentioned in my last blog post. After walking around and seeing most of what the city has to offer that morning, we returned to our hotel room and took a looooong nap. We stayed at Le Meridien which was a flipping awesome hotel. We walked around some more later in the afternoon after we caught up on sleep. The city is full of castles, old museums, gardens, and statues...tons of historical monuments left over from the Habsburge dynasty...things I learned in my Senior AP European History class and never thought I'd actually appreciate! Almost everywhere you look there is some sort of tribute to the classical music history that is so ingrained in the history of that city. I really liked Vienna because of its beauty...both the city and the people...and yes, there are very good-looking men in Vienna : ) The people were very nice as well. We heard that if you tell people you are from California (because Arnold Schwartzenager is from Austria), you can get people to buy you a beer. We didn't get a chance to test that suggestion, but Ale and I had dinner the first night at a little Viennese cafe where a man played us a bunch of American show tunes on his piano.

On day 2, we got up early to catch a train to Salzburg for the day to go on the Original "Sound of Music" Tour. As I said before, it was completely disappointing, but we did meet some cool gay guys, one of which just happened to be from Kankakee. His name was Nick. He and his partner worked for Norwegian Cruise Lines and had an impressive reseme of places they've visitied. They made my life seem boring! The city of Salzburg itself was beautiful even though it was cold and raining most of the day. It is everything I imagined from my impressions from "The Sound of Music." I think I'd like to have a summer villa there or something one day.

We headed back to Vienna later that afternoon. Ale and I had planned to take a short nap before getting ready to go out for a night on the town. At 11pm, we both woke up, looked at each other and asked if we should go out. I believe my reply in my exhausted delierium was "God NO!" and I rolled back over and fell back asleep. I kind of feel bad that I didn't get to experience Vienna nightlife...I mean, when will be the next time I ever go back??? But I needed to the rest. I was exhausted!

Saturday morning we headed to Spain...Ale's home in Bilboa...where the plan was to party at the city carnivals all night and lay on the beach all day til I caught a plane to Rome!