Salzburg

Hello friends and family! We are now in Salzburg, Austria where we begin our studies at Paracelsus Medizinische Privatuniversität (PMU) today. Monday we took a train from Prague to Linz and then Linz to Salzburg and arrived to Salzburg Monday evening. After being surprised by Salzburg not having a subway system, we figured out the bus system (after walking in circles for a few minutes) and made our way to the Christian-Doppler Klinik where we are staying in some on site housing for the week. We met our caretaker, Frau Garner, who is a very nice women who lives downstairs and showed us to our rooms. She does not speak any English, but Laura was able to talk to her a littler bit. We also met Frau Susanna Holzer, who has been our coordinator for the PMU exchange. She welcomed us and gave us a bit of direction for making our way in the city this week and provided us with a Handy (cell phone in German) so we could contact her. After making a quick run to the grocery store and discovering mayonnaise in a tube and an unfortunate mix up of sparkling water for still water, we called it quits for the day as we were both pretty exhausted. Tuesday, we started off our day by venturing down the road to find PMU and to make sure we knew where we were going today. After a very scenic walk along some railroad tracks, through neighborhoods, and with the foothills of the Swiss Alps in the backdrop, we discovered PMU and met up again with Frau Holzer. We then took just a couple of hours to squeeze in a little bit of homework at the university (we do not have Wi-Fi in our housing this week…just an FYI in case we take a bit longer to respond to anyone this week). After a quick homework session, we ventured down to historic Salzburg centered around the Salzach River and surrounded by mountains on every side. We crossed over another love locks bridge and made our way to Mirabellgarten where many scenes from the Sound of Music were filmed. The palace and gardens were built in 1606 by the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg for his mistress (oh my!). We saw a few more beautiful cathedrals and the home where Mozart grew up. We then crossed back over the river and continued exploring the streets of downtown Salzburg. We saw the birthplace of Mozart and also walked around the church in which he regularly performed as a child. We saw numerous shops, cafes, a university, museum, and cathedrals. The streets of this city are absolutely gorgeous! We then made our way up the hill to the fortress that overlooks the city, Festung Hohensalzburg. The views from the top of this fortress were absolutely amazing! After seeing pretty much all of Salzburg from the top of this fortress, we headed back down for dinner. Dinner for both of us was a traditional Austrian dish – Goulash (beef, pork sausage, dumplings, and pickle…oh and of course soft pretzels on the side)! Salzburg has treated us very well so far and we are looking forward to meeting students and faculty at PMU today!