Salzburg, Austria

Home to The Sound of Music and Mozart. The crazies were sure out today, was it a full moon or something? The first crazy was a woman on the small train out of Hallstatt. I was sitting on the train reading my book, when I hear this commotion in the next car up. This older woman was screaming at someone, and I mean really screaming. Of course, it was all in German, so I have no idea what she was mad about. People were getting out of their seats to peer down the aisle to see what was going on. Then I guess she was finished. She gathered all her belongings and started heading into the car I was in. And where does she decide to sit? You got it, right across from me. It was one of those seats that face each other. Mind you, she is still huffing and puffing and muttering things in German. The woman across the aisle and I are exchanging looks. She seems very sympathetic. I put away my tablet and get ready to bolt if she starts in on me (it's not easy to switch seats with a 25 lb pack). She finally starts to calm herself down, but I didn't really look at her for the rest of the trip.

Then I board the train to Salzburg. It's one of those where there are several different cabins in each car. I settled down into my cabin and this guy asks if he can join me. Sure, why not? He introduces himself and asks if I am Christian. I notice the Bible in his hand and think, here we go again. I politely respond that I am not and he spends the rest of the hour long ride preaching to me with quotes from the bible. He wanted to me to become a Christian and say I believed in Jesus right there in the train car. I let him talk, partly because I was being nice, and partly because I believe in respecting others beliefs even when they don't match mine. Obviously, he does not share that belief! He really was not getting the point that he was not going to change my mind.

At one point I interjected with the fact that in America I have the right to my own religious beliefs. That's what my country was founded on. People fled to America for religious freedom, and I am proud to have that right. I told him he was not going to change my beliefs.  He got quiet for a min, but then started in again.

Then he pushed another button. He asked why was I letting the devil win, because I was not married and didn't have children. I wasn't holding back this time! I told him I was very happy with my life and I was not going to get married just because someone said I needed to. I would get married when I was ready and had found the right person. I told him I was a teacher and had 20 new kids come into my life each year that I cared about as if they were my own. I did know the joy of having children in my life. He had the gall to say teaching didn't count in that way because when I was 80 or 90 years old, who was I going to have to take care of me? I was getting very pissed off by then and didn't want to turn into the crazy lady from the before, so I just told him we would disagree on that one.

He told me God had brought him into my life today to become a Christian. I wanted to tell him that if God really brought him into my life that day, then God knew me, and knew this was SOOO NOT the way to change my mind, but I held my tongue. I was done with the crazies for the night.

Onto Salzburg itself. . . Many of the old towns I have been to have been tight fitting. Narrow streets, buildings built high, squares for traffic are roundabouts. Salzburg is very different. Everything is so spread out - the streets are wider and there is so much space in the square, but traffic doesn't seem to have a real direction. I can just imagine Salzburg in the middle of the summer with the crowds taking over the space making it disappear.

I toured Mozart's house. Lots of history about the man that I know was lost on the non-musical part of me. Sorry to all my musician friends out there. I know you would have gotten more out of it than I did. It was neat to see all the old instruments he had, and some of his original compositions. Well worth it, I just wish I had more of a background on Motzart.

I also went on The Sound of Music tour. I was really skeptical at first, but it turned out to be really fun, and with a great group of people! I learned a lot about the history of Salzburg. Then I was able to put parts of the movie to places in town, like the steps where they sing, "Doe, a deer". The tour also took us out of town to places where the movie was filmed. The guide, RoseMaria, was funny and very helpful. She said that in Salzburg the only people who really knew about the movie were those in the tourist industry. She said that her parents, like many others around Germany and Ausrtia, did not show the movie to their kids. They said it portrayed the Natzies as being too nice. It was not a realistic picture of what it was really like, so they refused to show the movie to their children. So many of the locals are not even phased by all the tourists taking over their town. Motzart tended to be a bigger deal than The Sound of Music.