Salzburg at last

I've only been in Salzburg for a week, but it already feels like I'm been living here for months.  Salzburg is absolutely amazing.  The flight over was very long, but I was asleep for most of it.  I think the longest I stayed awake was for two hours to watch the movie on the flight from SF to D.C.  On one of the lay overs a bunch of us played cards, so that was a really fun to get to know the others.  Landing in Salzburg was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.   The view was incredible, we were surrounded by the Alps and the land was just so green.  Landing in San Jose or Oakland is nothing compared to this.  On the bus we were given chocolate Mozart balls, which the driver joked about an called them our bus tickets.  When we first got to the center we had a short orientation meeting with the director, Rene Horcicka.  He told us a few general rules of the center and then gave us our rooms.  My roommate for this year is Jamie Jakstis.  She was in my german class last year and she's super nice.  Jamie and I have a room on the 3rd floor of the main building.  We have our own little balcony that looks over the courtyard.  The room is the same set up as everyone else's, but it's still really cute.  I really feel like I did not bring enough clothes though because my closet and shelves have tons of empty space.  It's also really hard to decide what to wear because I only have about eight choices.   

(9/08/2010) Lunch at the cafeteria, Scavenger hunt in the city, and karaoke night at O’Malley’s

The second day we ate lunch at the Salzburg AG, which is a big cafeteria that serves all these Austrian business people who work there.  I ate the schnitzel and soup for lunch and it was really good, way better than the commons ever was.  After lunch we went on a scavenger hunt throughout the city.  That was our first opportunity to really explore Salzburg.  We walked all around the old town taking pictures of places like Mozart’s Geburtshaus (birthplace) and the old churches.  We walked everywhere around the city and after about 3 hours of walking my feet really hurt.  But in the end it was all worth it because my group won and we got chocolate balls.  That night was also the first night the whole group went out together.  We all went to O’Malley’s, an Irish pub across the river, for karaoke night.  The non-smoking section was mostly filled with UP students, but we did also meet a couple students from Redlands too.  Karaoke night was really fun; everyone was singing and dancing.  They even played a Spice Girls song, which was awesome.  It was just a great night because all of us were there together.