Midterms are done!! Let the break begin!

You can see the snow on the mountain!

A view of Salzburg from the Fortress

A nice view of the river and Untesberg from near my house

On our way up to the fortress!

First, let me rewind to last week. Last week we visit the fortress that overlooks the city of Salzburg. It was really beautiful. One of the largest fortresses in Europe and the only on that was never overrun (they did surrender a few time though.) It was a really cool walk back through the history and architecture of fortress building, and there were some beautiful views from the top! Fast forward to this weekend. My first official weekend in Salzburg... and what did I do?! Homework.... 19 friggen hours of homework. All that reading, essay's, outlines and studying that I had been slacking on came back to haunt me. But its done now, and the weekend was still very nice. The temperature here went from 85 on Thursday to 30 by Sunday, so it has been quite a change. It has snowed almost every day this week, and while it doesn't stick here, the tops of the mountains are already covered in up to 3 meters of snow!! This has simply gotten me extremely excited for skiing!! Alas, most of the resorts don't open until late November/early December, so I still have a while to wait. Monday through Thursday this week has been a flurry of voice lessons, trip planning, and studying/taking mid terms. This morning was my last one, and I feel like I did fine on them. So, onto break! Tomorrow I leave at around 2 for Villach the first stop on my European tour. I decided that I was going to travel by myself, and just take a backpack with me, so packing is going to be a bit difficult. So I will spend a day in Villach, then on Saturday and Sunday spend those days in Klagenfurt. Then on Sunday I will take the train to Innsbruck, the capital of Tyrol (an Austrian providence) and place where the ruler Maximillian I lived. On Monday I take a train to Memmingan, a small town in Germany where I take my flight on Tuesday to Spain!! After three days in Spain I fly back into Munich. I will spend three days in Munich then fly to Italy, where I will spend almost a week with Mom and Dad on a much deserved vacation. It should be a great time. Most nights I am staying in hostels for $15-25 a night, and sleeping in the Airport as much as I can, haha. I am excited to just relax and do nothing. I do have a few historical monuments, museums, and concerts that I have been planning, but most of my time in these cities will be just wandering around; soaking in the atmosphere, speaking some German (or Spanish!!!), and absorbing the culture. After a stressful week of midterms I am excited for a week and a half of nothingness. I will hopefully have some interesting updates when I get back. Oh, and no computer, so I will be back on Sunday night or Monday November 1st.... holy cow!!! The time here has been flying, but it has been wonderful.
-Christoph-