Steve in Salzburg.

The weekend of Friday 23rd to Monday 26th November was one I'd been looking forward to a while, as it meant that Steve was coming to Salzburg!

There were no cheap, direct flights so he had to fly Manchester to Munich, which meant a bit of a nightmare 14 hour journey. He arrived in Salzburg around 3pm, we went home and he spent the afternoon sleeping off the journey. Since being in Austria, I've somewhat lost the ability to nap (I will elaborate on this is a future post), so I spent the afternoon pottering quietly and trying not to wake him up. He eventually rose and we went downstairs to have dinner with the family. There was a definite language barrier at the table, as as the parents were away in South Africa, the grandmother was there looking after the children. She doesn't really speak a word of English, and the children are still talking to me in German so there was no way they were going to start talking to this stranger in English. There was a lot of translating on my side, a few hand gestures, but also a bit of awkward silence until the children gave up and started their own conversation.

Afterwards we took the bus into town and Steve (a massive Christmas fan) admired the Christmas lights of Salzburg. We headed to Augustinerbraeu to meet a few other TAs. This is by far my favourite brewery in Salzburg. The rooms are huge and always full, so there's such a great atmosphere. I love that so many people are in Tracht (traditional dress), and I still find the process of filling up your own beer mug very exciting. As an added bonus we managed to get a table in a non-smoking room this time, which made a huge difference. We stayed drinking beer, chatting and laughing until closing time, 1am. Everyone was very welcoming to Steve and we all got along really well. We made a mad dash to try and catch the last bus home but had left it too late, so ended up getting a taxi home.

On Saturday we had a lazy morning and headed into the Altstadt just after lunchtime. We picked up some food and then started walking up the Moenschberg together. I'd now call this a 'mini mountain', so a safe bet for anyone who isn't into the Austrian way of 'hiking'. We stopped just under half way up so sit down on a bench, eat our food and generally enjoy the magnificent view over Salzburg. We were lucky with the weather as the day before had been quite cold and foggy, but today the skies were clear, it was even quite sunny (!) and we could see right over the city. After a few stops to take the view in along the way, we reached the Festung (fortress) about an hour and a half later. We went in and it was pretty interesting to look around. In the tour they explained how the name 'Salzburg' comes from 'Salz', meaning salt, and 'Berg', meaning mountain, and about the importance of salt in the city's history. Thinking about it now, this seems pretty obvious, but it was a good fact to come away with. We also made it up the viewing tower which had a spectacular view over the city in all of its Christmas glory.

We took the funicular back down and made a bee-line for the Christmas markets. We had a look around for about half an hour before stopping for a Bratwurst and Gluehwein. Steve then proceeded to eat a pretzel bigger than his face, while I opted for some chocolate covered strawberries. Wandering around the markets hand in hand felt so Christmassy and perfect. I love looking around at what each of the different stalls has to offer, and there is a high chance for anyone receiving a Christmas present from me this year that at least one part of it will be purchased here! After having a good nose around, we decided to look for a cafe to have a sit down. Unfortunately, as it was Saturday evening, everywhere was packed already so we ended up heading home instead.

I had asked Steve to bring over some Yorkshire Puddings, so that we could contribute something to the Thanksgiving celebration planned for Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, they hadn't lasted his 14 hour journey so well, and when he went to take them out of his bag when he arrived, he pulled out a box of liquidy mush that looked very sorry for itself. We put it straight into the freezer, to try and salvage at least some of the puddings. On Sunday morning, we went back to the freezer to see what had become of them. It didn't look great, but we decided to soldier on in our attempt to give the Americans 'a taste of England'. We did what we could, but unfortunately the end result left a lot to be desired...

It was around this point that things started to go downhill...

We headed over to Rachel Fry's flat, where 'Thanksgiving' was being hosted, and were greeted by a wonderful spread of food as thankfully everyone else's cooking endeavors had gone better than ours. I piled my plate high with turkey, mash potato, carrots in a boubon jus (delicious), olive salad, and anything else you could dream of having at a really good roast dinner! We spent the afternoon playing games, which included old classics such as 'Mafia' and 'Wink Murder', and new favourites such as 'Chicken Goggles' and 'The Hat Game'. In the third round of 'The Hat Game', you say one word and your team try to guess which word is on your piece of paper. As a testament to the catastrophe of our cooking attempt, one word said was 'failure', and the team immediately guessed 'Yorkshire Puddings', which was shamefully the correct answer. I can only apologise to everyone again, especially the Americans who were looking forward to trying them!

Although Thanksgiving doesn't mean nearly as much to us Brits as to the Americans, it was a great afternoon and it really did make me appreciate the wonderful group of TAs that are here in Salzburg. To top off the weekend, Steve borrowed Tim's Lederhosen just before we left, and we got this picture together, which is potentially my most favourite one of us ever taken!

My most favourite picture ever!

The girls in dirndls.

The weekend went far too quickly and on Monday morning it was already time to drop Steve off at the station and go back to work. However, it won't be too long until we see each other again at Christmas, and in the meantime I've got some great memories from his weekend here to be going on with.