Our first free weekend has finally come and gone and it was definitely one I'll remember forever. Salzburg has been a place I've wanted to go to for years for many reasons, The Sound of Music being one of them. To be in a place that I've only seen in movies and to recognize actual places from scenes in a movie was a surreal experience. The mountains of Austria and the surrounding landscape is so beautiful and pictures really could not do them justice.
Paragliding in Salzburg gave us the most amazing view of the entire city, and I've never done anything like that so to be suspended in the air by a parachute was something very new to me. It was also a huge step out of my comfort zone which I'm glad I did, because no one ever got anywhere by staying where they're comfortable. Salzburg in itself is a wonderful place, although I'm surprised by just how many tourists there were. I think we were spoiled in Bonn because all the students were on holiday and it isn't typically on anyone's destination list, so it was a bit of a shock to deal with the huge crowds and tourist traps and dangers that come with it. All in all Salzburg really was charming and I know I'll want to come back. One weekend isn't enough to see everything and you're rushed the whole time, so I'll come back someday and really explore the city to my hearts content.
We woke up at 5:30 Monday morning and took a train to Vienna to meet up with our professor's 'friend' who gave us a medical history tour of the city. Dr. Schnobel (really our prof) was in traditional clothing which doctors wore to treat plague victims which gained him some very interesting looks from the local folks. He took us around Vienna or 'Wein' as the locals call it and showed us places of medical and historical importance, like the Austrian Academy of the Sciences, the place where Mozart died, and various other statues and buildings. And throughout this tour he gave us "medical remedies" for the plague. The first was a clove, which doctors would give to patients medicinally and would put in their own masks to make things smell better. Then a piece of candy to represent compound medicine, which they had the capability to create in the 14th century. The final medicine was vinegar (that he made us drink) but was represented as urine. They readily prescribed tinctures and compounds of human excrement to patients as a way to use your own body to heal itself. While he was explaining this and then told us to drink it he loudly exclaimed "You just drank your own urine" and one poor soul witnessed this whole thing. The look on his face was PRICELESS, because of course it totally looked authentic and he couldn't smell it to know it was only vinegar (which still tasted gross) but he actually thought 20 people just drank vials of pee and walked off with the most hilarious, disgusted and confused look in his face. It was great entertainment.
The rest of the time spent in Vienna was in 2 different anatomical and pathelogical wax museums, the Austrian Natural History Museum, and the Sigmund Freud museum, all of which deserve their own post. Austria was so beautiful, and I got my fill of Weiner Schnitzel, apple strudel and the Sound of Music... So until I'm craving more
Auf Wiedersehen, Austria
Annie
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