salzburg

sooo, this weekend i went to salzburg!
it was awesome!
our train left from budapest at 5:55 in the morning on saturday, so we didn't get a whole lot of sleep, but we were on it for about 6 hours, which gave us a little time to try and nap. all 13 of us went (12 students + 1 professor) though two people missed the train in the morning and had to meet up with us later.
The train ride itself was beautiful! There were so many green fields and rolling hills and cute little towns. I probably should have gotten more sleep, but I was too busy looking out the window. :-)
when we arrived in salzburg, we checked into our hostel (the Muffin hostel--how's that for an awesome name!) and then went to find lunch. After that, we did a ton of walking around the town. it was gorgeous! there were a bunch of beautiful old buildings, we went in an old church with cool statues and paintings. there were horse-drawn buggies trotting around, and cute little stores. We walked through an old cemetery and then checked out the catacombs. Then, we climbed this huge hill to a fortress overlooking the town. we got to walk around it a bunch, got a tour, and spent a lot of time just enjoying the view. after Chinese food, we headed back to the hostel and hung out, talked and played a bit of fooseball.
Sunday, we didn't need to leave until 5pm, so we did some more walking around. we walked along the river and then found this awesome garden /park place that had flowers and fountains and cool statues. we hung out there for a while and saw a marching band and outdoor orchestra playing. after lunch and a little bit more walking around, we headed back to the train station.
getting home was quite an adventure. The first train was about ten minutes late, and we were supposed to have 12 minutes between trains in Vienna. so when we got to the station, we all ran to the next platform so that the train wouldn't leave without us. once we were on the train, we weren't really sure where to go because we ended up in the first class sleeping car instead of second class cars. so we wandered around a little bit and ended up in what we thought was the right place. two hours later, someone came by to check our tickets and let us know that we were actually still in 1st class. oops :-)
so we had to move, but by that time in order to get a spot in 2nd class we would have had to wake people up (it was about 10 or 10:30) so instead, a group of us went to the dining car and got pringles and tried to make them last for the rest of the trip so we could sit there and not be too rude. It was fun :-)
so that was my weekend! This week school starts, and we might start making plans for a trip to Croatia!
hope life back in the states is going well!