Obama on a Golden Ball

I had a nice time, after traveling for two weekends in a row, staying home in Salzburg. We were also having to think about planning our spring break, which me and Beth were avoiding with a vengeance. It is a miracle that we ended up with any hostels, train and plane tickets at all. I really have Beth to thank for everything, she was the travel queen.

We had an assignment for German class to research a statue in Salzburg, go visit it, and then write a paper about it. I chose a very interesting and unusual statue of a man standing on top of a giant gold ball. The only way I can describe it is "random". The man also has a very tiny wife carved out of wood who is set into a cove in the Mönchsberg above the tunnel entrance. When we were in London we saw another pair of statues by the same artist. My host mom said she thought the statue was fitting for the city of Salzburg because it looks like a man standing on a giant Mozart Kugel. My friend Hannah said it looked like President Obama standing on a giant gold ball. Both are apt descriptions.

Hannah was a student at Salzburg college last year, and after traveling around Europe for a while, and having a terrible failed experience as an Au-Pair, it was time for her to go back to the US. We were sad to see her go, but we decided to send her off with a fancy cocktail party on the terrace of the Hotel Stein, where you can see a beautiful view of the old city of Salzburg and the Hohensalzburg fortress. The cocktails were 9 Euros each. That is like 75 cents a sip! Still they were delicious and worth it for the special occasion. Afterwords we went for a cheeper drink to meet Hannah's Austrian friend at an Irish Pub. Here in Austria, instead of doing Tequila shots with limes and salt, they do them with oranges and cinnamon. It is a revelation.

By the end of the week, I had caught the "case of Communism" illness from Will, and was very feverish and shaky. It took about two hours to get out of bed, walk two feet to the bathroom, and get a drink of water. Needless to say I didn't go with the group to Upper Austria the next day. I missed a lot of beautiful scenery and St. Florian's church which people are still talking about. I also missed the trip to the concentration camp Mauthausen which I was partially disappointed about missing and partially relived not have to see.

I made sure that I made a point of using my sick time to watch the very educational "Barbie Meerjungfrau" movie in German, where a surfing Barbie finds out she is actually a mermaid princess. The mermaid city bore a striking resemblance to Los Angeles, but I think that may have gone over the head of the two year old Austrian Beatrix.