A Welcome Return to Humidity

Editors Note: The title of this post is now Salzburg.

As most of you know, I grew up in Kamloops--A city and region not known for moisture. It only took eight years for me to become totally and completely acclimatized to the Vancouver air. Fortunately, Manchester is only about 40 km from the ocean and is damp and cool, like a mouldy Vancouver basement (you all know that smell). After spending eight days in the high elevation mountains of Austria and Germany, I was dry, dry, dry. Drier even than a Asahi super dry beer. My cuticles were cracking, I had hangnails, and a constant thirst. It is now over and we are "home."

A recap of our Austrian adventure.

We flew out of Manny on Jet2 airlines to Salzburg. I was still feeling the effects of my cold, but was on the mend. Unfortunately, in my delirious state of fever I didn't notice that I had a bit of an ear infection and my sinuses were totally plugged. Oh well, I like flying right? Hmmmmm.

So many things are just a little bit different than home. Security at the airport was quite strange. Each person goes through individually. The screener holds a tub up and you deposit all of your contents into it. My guy kept putting it down on the conveyor belt and I kept pulling things out and he had to keep grabbing the box back from the x-ray machine. I'm not too sure why it just couldn't be pushed on to the belt when finished? I got dressed back up and Heather called me over because she needed a pound coin (a poundie? a queenie? a fattie? a one-y?) to buy the correct size of plastic bag for liquids and gels to go in, which they happen to sell from a vending machine for a poundie. She received quite the lecture from the screener about the correct size of plastic bags. When Heather informed her she was using the same bag that had just been through security checkpoints in Vancouver, Seattle, and Reykjavik, the woman promptly informed us all of those airports are breaking international law. One thing the UK (and Europe) does really well are the airports post-security. They are set up like shopping malls. There are clothing stores, shoe stores, drug stores, and other stores beyond duty-free and Hudson News. I appreciate them.

Jet2 kind of sucks, but our flight (one-way) was only 100 pounds for both of us.  The ride was smooth and filled with me shaking my head and swearing I would never fly again.

In Salzburg, we were set up in a hotel about six blocks from the Alstadt (old town). It was around minus 10, so the first thing we did was head to a cafe for warm-you-up-beer. I love the little trays they always use to serve you in Austria.

arrrgghttt!! I'm having formatting issues. Whatever. I'm cold in this one.

I was still continuing to have troubles sleeping at night and was waking up around 4 in the morning. We got a good start to the day with a nice spread at the hotel. A woman laughed at me and said something in German when she saw me toasting the rye bread. What can I say? I like the butter melted.

I think I'll just post a bunch of pics with little comments.......

The Salzach River

Boozy Orange Punche. Made with schnapps, sugar, and hot water.

The Fortress. We decided not to pay and go in, but walked from the base of it over to the Museum of Modern Art along the cliff line. Good choice.

We went for a throw-down lunch at the cafe in the museum. It was really, really yummy, with really, really, bad service. Like really bad. But this photo was taken from our table.

 

We headed down to this monastery after lunch for a tour of the beer hall that has been in operation there,  churning out beer since 1350 or so. It is a giant building that has about 15 huge rooms around one main cashier. You grab a ceramic stein off the wall, wash it in a fountain, pay the cashier, then take it to the keg man who fills it up with the most wonderful, fresh, delicious beer ever. By far the best beer we had in the whole eight days. Good price too--2.50 Euro for a half litre stein.

 

We met a really nice couple American-Norwegian couple who live in Scotland there too and shared a few mugs.

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OK--So I misjudged how long it takes to make these posts and how many photos I have. Salzburg was really nice. Much nicer than I anticipated. You don't need more than two days to see it adequately, but I highly recommend it. I'm going to split the other cities up---and also to keep you all interested because I have not found anymore Manchester cats to take photos of and to keep your interest piqued. I did however mange to snap a pic of this piece of Austrian haute couture. It can be yours for the bargain basement price of 35 Euro. I bought Heather two. Later, CC