So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu...

Instead of a 10,000 word novel, I've decided to highlight a few of the best parts of my last weeks in Salzburg.

I. Over one of Austria's ubiquitous Catholic holiday weekends early in May, my friend Liva and I traveled to Krakow, Poland.

Best thing about Eastern Europe? CHEAP CHIC. Totally worth the sketchy communist era overnight train we took to get there.

Krakow is known for beautiful architecture, Jewish history, and its massive town square, one of the largest in Europe. The rulers of Poland intertwined themselves pretty heavily with the Hapsburgs (through marriage and by force). It's easy to see the Hapsburg's hand everywhere. Krakow could be a more homey and run-down version of Vienna.

Krakow is full of street side cafes, bars, and restaurants. Everything we ate was seriously amazing, not to mention cheap.

Most interesting thing about Krakow? Despite being full of of synagogues, Jewish cemeteries, a Jewish quarter, and other signs of Jewish history, there aren't actually any Jews. Prewar, they were a significant part of the city's population. Today, there's a few hundred left.

II. Krakow draws lots of visitors for another big reason. It's about an hours drive from Auschwitz, the scene of some of the worst crimes ever committed by humankind. Let me say firsthand I was not at all looking forward to this part of the trip. Maybe I was even dreading it, after years of going out of my way to actively avoid any kind of Holocaust literature or history.

As much as I was dreading it, there was no way I was going all the way to Krakow without going to Auschwitz. Even though going was non-negotiable for Liva and I, the day we actually decided to go was spur of the moment. Which worked out for the best. We had no time to dwell on it, and the next day was rainy and I was feverish.

We spent a long, long time at Auschwitz-Birkenau. It's absolutely massive.  Our guided tour, unfortunately, was a little bit lacking. There was not a cloud in the sky and the birds were chirping, and yet here we were, walking into the worst of humanity. It was hard to reconcile.

The full impact of Auschwitz didn't hit me until the day after. We were in the Jewish quarter and had just stumbled across the an cafe-library. This place might have been the best establishment of eating I've ever been in. Wonderful coffee and food, decor, and a relaxed vibe. Not to mention the shelves full of books on Judaism.

The first book that caught my eye was Women in the Holocaust. Exactly the kind of thing I've avoided for many years. But now I grabbed it, and began to read. The stories were absolutely horrible and mind-numbing. Many of them took place at Auschwitz. Having just been there the day before, it felt horribly, intensely real. Nevertheless, for the next hour I poured over the book and took everything in, something I never would have ever done before visiting Auschwitz.

Afterwards I had to pretty much wipe my brain of everything I had just read if I wanted to stand a chance of functioning for the rest of the day.

III. Since I left for Austria in September, Lina, Casey, and I have long dreamed about them coming to Austria to visit me. I can hardly believe that this did in fact become reality. After countless emails, itineraries, bookings, and months of waiting, I was on my way to Munich one gray morning late in May. We had a joyous, loud, and extremely long awaited reunion in the lobby of a Sheraton in Munich.  After a day spent together in Munich, I went back to Salzburg for my last day of teaching (more below).

Over the months spent dreaming about our week in Salzburg, all three of us had imagined sunny skies and chirping birds. The reality was the worst rain and floods Central Europe has seen in 100 years.

And it rained. And rained, rained, and rained some more. For our entire week in Salzburg, it rained pretty much 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Never in my entire life have I experienced rain like this. The first of June rolled around and I was in my pea coat and winter boots. The Salzach, usually a shallow and clear blue river, had turned into a roiling and boiling muddy stew.

All the rain put a serious damper on our plans. But, the three of us together have an amazing time pretty much anywhere we go. The huge amounts of rain caused some serious damage to the Austrian railroads, further restricting us to the confines of the city. So instead of scenic views and pristine lakes, we got to know all the cafes in Salzburg really, really well.

After a week in rainy Salzburg, we were off to Vienna. Where the weather, I am glad to say, brightened up significantly. Despite one or two quick trips to the city over the past few years, I really don't know Vienna well at all. But I was only too happy to play tourist in this beautiful, fascinating place.

One of the highlights of our time in Vienna was getting to see Cindy, an old friend of all three of us who is spending the year in Vienna. In addition to knowing her extensive knowledge of the city, she is also in possession of a car (That's right, she drives in Vienna.  Like a pro. Just the thought of getting behind the wheel there gives me have heart palpitations). Which meant that on our last night there, we left city limits and drove up the mountain to one of the heuringen.

Heurigen are small, country taverns in Eastern Austria that serve local wines. This particular one was perched near a panoramic view of Vienna and also had amazing food to boot. Take that, Rick Steves! We had a wonderful and hilarious evening reliving our elementary, middle, and high school days, not to mention getting caught up on all the latest Oakton gossip. 

In addition to lots of cafe visits, brunch, the Staatsoper, Schönbrunn, and the Naschmarkt, to name just a few things we saw, what might be one of the more memorable memories of this trip would be our visit to the Secession building. Lina had wanted to see some Klimt, which led us to the Secession. So we saw the Kilmt, which was fine and dandy. The next part of the museum is what I will call Modern Art at its, um, finest.

I don't know where it was the video of blood and guts, the random assortment of non-nonsensical objects, or the real live women rolling around the floor in front of us but pretty soon Casey and I were clutching each other, somewhat terrified. Even worse, we couldn't seem to find a way out of the exhibit and kept walking in circles. Soon after, we stumbled onto an equally terrified Lina. The three of use managed to finally find our way OUTTA that Modern Little Shop of Artistic Horrors.

If my life in Austria were Eurotrip, this exhibit would have been it.

IV.  It was hard to believe, but my last day of teaching was soon upon the horizon. Two of my schools in particular, the HAK and HLW,  had a very nice little send off for me (my last day at the gymnasium turned out to be early in May, which was totally inadvertent. Which was fine with me. For those who can't remember, this was my frustration school.)

In Austrian school faculty conference rooms, birthdays, babies, retirements, and any number of celebratory occasions involves cracking open some sekt and orange juice and toasting the honoree.

It's hard to pick a favorite school out of my three. At some point, all of them (even the gym, however briefly) where at the top of my list. But out of all three schools, the one I no doubt bonded with and had the closest connection to was the HLW (with the HAK coming in at a close second).  They loved having me, and I in return loved working there. I can only hope that I have the chance to see my wonderful colleagues at both the HAK and HLW again sometime next year.

On the other hand, being facebook friends with my students (now that I'm no longer their teacher, I've eased up on my rule) means that my newsfeed is full of pictures of my students standing on the school threshold and flipping the bird at the school.

And with that,  I've concluded the chronicle of my wonderful, amazing, fantastic year in Salzburg. Stay tuned for next fall when we return: But this time, to Vienna .

Venice: The Beaten Track

You would think that spending a year in Austria with its rather central location would mean that I'd be off every school holiday and weekend hopping all through the continent...you'd also be wrong.

This past weekend's trip to Venice was actually the first time since arriving here in September that I'd traveled out of German speaking land. Well, I did go to Thailand over Christmas so I shouldn't be complaining too much. Through bad luck, felled plans, and financial constraints I feel as I have not been able to do nearly as much travel as I would like. Just another reason why I'm really, really glad to be in Austria for at least one more year.

To be fair, I've seen a lot of Europe on previous trips here. This year, I've been to Berlin, Vienna, Munich, and many other places in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany. To all of which I was extremely happy to return to! But still, I won't lie, my lack of new  inter-European travel on this tour was seriously grating a nerve.

Rachel and I had long talked about a weekend in Venice only to see our plans fall through several times. This time, we resolved, we shall prevail!

Friday afternoon, we packed up and hopped on the train to Villach. Liva and her kitchen full of amazing foods and smells were ready to meet us. A quick round of grocery shopping and it was back to Liva's to get ready for dinner which would also included several TAs from Klagenfurt and other neighboring towns. We had vegetable lasagna, salad, too many nutella cupcakes, and too much wine while playing Apples to Apples for hours. As soon as every one had left Rachel and I went straight to bed to prepare for the our 4:00am wake up call.

One Euro nightline later, we arrived in Venice at about 9:00am. We thought about taking the water taxi into town but decided to just walk and get a sense of bearings. 

Venice was once the seat of a powerful maritime republic that lasted for over a millennium. It is an  ornate and spectacular city with stunning architecture. It's also a place where I would really have liked nothing more than to turn back the dial on tourism by about 500 years.

Rachel and I got our tickets for the water taxi and after spending some time trying to figure out the rather complicated system, hopped on the next boat for San Marco. The weather that day was far from the sunny blue skies we'd be experiencing all week but it wasn't all bad, the horizon was streaky blue gray color which gave everything a bit of a moody and intense glow. Even with the rain, it was warm. It was just enough for us to be able to look beyond that signature rainy-smelly-European-city stink.

First up was a picnic lunch that we'd assembled the night before in Villach. After poking around San Marco, we joined a very very long ticket line for the Ducal Palace. The Palazzo was both the center of the Republic's administration in addition to the Dodge's, the ruler of Venice, home. We saw state rooms, courtyards, ornately decorated ceilings, sea and plaza views, and prisons.

After our palace tour we decided we needed a coffee break. I had heard from quite a few friends that the food in Venice was mostly horrible tourist fare. The more we walked around the city, the more I feared we would never be able to find a menu in less than five languages.

Finally, and to our supreme luck, we found a tucked away little place with a mostly Italian menu and in which actual Italians were eating. Rachel and I had both had the mussels, which were beyond amazing. Mussels + lemon buttery sauce + bread + prosecco = Heaven On Earth.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around the city, getting lost and walking in circles, drinking cappuccino and having gelato, and trying to figure out the supremely complicated water taxi system.

The more I travel, the more I find myself having a very low tolerance for the hordes and masses. Venice is pretty but I really could not have dealt with an additional day of crowds of people in San Marco. I don't even want to think about how bad it could get in the summer. We caught the Euronightlight at 9:00pm and made it back to Villach by 1:00.

Venice in 24 hours.....not bad!

After a wonderful and rejuvenating weekend of friends, fun, and new places it was back to Salzburg on Sunday evening. It's weekends like this that keep me going and are the supreme reward for dealing with teenagers all week.

Next up in my travel diary: Krakow!

I Finally Crack the Code: The Slim Europeans-Pain au Chocolate Paradox.

It's one of the age old ironies of life: How are Austrians (actually we can extend this to Europeans) so slim and fit despite the seemingly never ending cake, knödel, heavy food, chocolate, pain au chocolate?

I think I have the answer...

So before hopping across the pond to Salzbug I spent a good chunk of the last few years eating the college diet. Which meant everything from lowry biscuits to 2am taco bell runs. Do that times four years and by the end the dreaded freshman fifteen had set in and didn't seem to be going anywhere.

And I pretty much drove everywhere. Seriously, everywhere (that is, whenever I went off-campus or was home). I wasn't a total couch potato during these years but I wasn't exactly training for the next olympics either.

Here in Salzburg, I walk. A lot. Downtown, to and from the bus stop to school, along the river,  it adds up. In terms of diet, I guess I do eat healthier. Well, there is A LOT of supplemental cake and chocolate that finds its way in there. But mostly, what I cook for myself is not bad in terms of variety and healthiness.

So between the walking and the somewhat improved diet I found that most of the college weight pretty much just slid off without me having to make any major adjustments whatsoever. And believe me, I was extremely happy to see it go.

Then there's the fitness factor. I have had, shall we say, a rather tumultuous relationship with hiking a for most of my life. Making your way up the mountain while the rest of your family is marching up the summit like a herd of in-step mountain goats is not exactly my idea of a good time.

Sometime around the age of 15 I vowed that I was never, ever, ever, ever, going to go on a hike again. 

And then when visiting the parentals last weekend we went on a few hikes that, when done previously, I pretty much wanted to die. Except this time I didn't want to die, no, it was almost easy. And enjoyable! That's not the only time that I have been very aware of my sudden increased physical prowess.

Today a friend and I went on a 12 mile hike in Berchtesgaden, Germany and...it was great! I could have easily gone on longer.

So there's your answer to the question. It's pretty easy to say slim and in shape when your back yard overlooks a mountain range and half the grocery store isn't made up of the chips and candy aisle. Even if you supplement with apple strudel and cake on a weekly basis.

Some pictures from Berchtesgaden, Germany. Berchtesgaden is a little slice of Bavaria about 45 minutes from Salzburg with beautiful mountain views and a crystal clear lake, the Königssee. It was also a very popular Nazi hangout back in the day.

Finally....some sun!!