I'm a Doctor, not a Salt Miner . . .

On our way to Salzburg this weekend we stopped at the small mountain town of Hallstadt to tour the oldest salt mine in the world that is still in operation. The tour was one of my favorites thus far this semester. We walked through a mining tunnel deep into the mountain. The tunnel gradually became smaller and smaller and progressively darker. And then all of the sudden I heard the voice of a woman creepily whisper

Stein . . . stein . . . stein and Salz . . .salz . . . salz

right into my ear. I nearly jumped. There were speakers hooked up to the sides of the walls and were continually playing this creepy woman's voice. And it was very scary.



We stopped at the top of the first slide--yes, we got to slide down two slides in the mine. I already felt like I was in a cheesy Star Trek episode in a cooked up set. I almost expected to turn around and find Spock and McCoy on my left and right.
"This salt mine contains one million, three hundred twenty-three thousand four hundred and forty four point one two seven four nine . . ."
"I'm a doctor not a salt miner."

So, anyway, we were all a little apprehensive about the slide. One girl mentioned how she would probably scream. Then our tour guide turned to us and said, very calmly and pleasantly, "You can scream down here and no one will hear you." Creepy! ;) The slide and the mega-slide were a lot of fun. I even bought a hokey photo of myself going down the slide.

Hallstadt was a beautiful mountain town nestled between to foot of a mountain and the shores of a large alpine lake. And it snowed the entire time we were there. I loved every single minute of it.

Schreien ist Uncool!

Screaming is not cool.

Last week we went to Karlskirche for Art History. The cathedral was a beautiful baroque church. The frescos on the dome have recently been restored and the scaffolding hasn't been taken down. So, for our class, we were able to climb the scaffolding stairs all the way up into the dome and into the lantern at the top of the dome. It was an amazing experience, once you forgot how much the stairway was wobbling from others climbing up and down it. It was definitely an adrenaline rush. I have been up on the rims of domes in cathedrals before, but never like that. The frescos were beautiful.


Right now I am sitting in the most elegant McDonalds I could ever dream of. Besides having trendy chairs, tables, and booths, and free WIFI, the architecture of the restaurant screams Maria Hilfe Strasse, a very trendy and fashionable avenue in Vienna. Large columns, that appear to be made of stone marble (as opposed to fake marble), seperate different sections of the restaurant. Giant wrought iron chandeliers that one might expect to find in an opulent ski lodge in Vail hang from a ceiling trimmed with baroque borders and designs. There is a hot coco and coffee counter aswell as the usual counter you can order McNuggets from. It is pretty much rediculous.

This week, Melinda and I have reflected a lot of our German-speaking abilities and how we could do better. Melinda did an amazing job of asking our HostFrau to help us with our German. I didn't even know what she was up to until she was half-way through the question. I think that Frau Creneville simply assumed that we didn't know very much (if any) German. So we are both making a bigger effort to speak German with each other and also to take our German class as serious as possible (sometimes it proves difficult). I have my first German test on Monday, so hopefully everything will go well. While discussing this our German-language predicament late one night, I was trying to express the importance of studying grammer, but ended up saying, multiple times, that you have to study your grandma.

I've seen two operas this week, both of which I LOVED! I saw The Magicflute on Monday and the Merry Widow last night. The Magic Flute was amazing! The music was beautiful. Every voice (except for Monastatos') was heavenly--especially the Three Boys. In Vienna, the parts of the Three Boys are played by members of the Vienna's Boys Choir. Their voices were amazing. I could have listened to the three of them all day. And they all looked so cute in their misfitting 1800's garb. One even carried around a teddy bear, which he gave to Pamina to comfort her when she was dispairing. The sets of the production were astounding and spectacular. I had only seen a minimalist production of the Magic Flute before, so seeing the opera with such epic sets was a wonderful experience.

The Merry Widow was as close to a feel-good, everyone-loves-everyone 50's musical as opera can get. It was so cute! It think it was perhaps the best operatic chic-flick ever. The script wasn't to complicated, so with the help of subtitles, I found myself following along better. And I just want to add just how dashing and handsome Count Danilo was. ;)

Imperial Napkin Folding

While touring the unbelievably extensive dishes collection of the Habsburgs, I found these imperial napkins. There is also an imperial napkin fold design, not pictured here, that is still used today. How to fold the napkin in the imperial style is a state secret. Only two people, in the entire world, know how to do it. That is a lot of napkins to fold for two people when State Banquets role around.

The dishes collection was its own museum--there were hundreds of thousands of pieces. It was a maze of cutlery and opulence. And it went on and on. For an hour and a half. I'd never though of table settings as an indication of wealth until now.