Oktoberfest and Salzburg

I am a bit late on writing about Oktoberfest, as we went last Sunday. There actually ended up being quite a lot of us that went. My host mother, Renate, and host sister Isabella went along, as well as Kevin's host parents, Elyse's host parents, and then Bo and Allison. It was a pretty large group. After we got off the train to München, we had to walk for a bit, and then we got to the Oktoberfest parade mostly this involved lots of wagons from different breweries pulled by cart horses, with lots of drunk/drinking people on board. But of course, everyone was wearing Dirndle and Lederhosen, so that was really nice. There were also a lot of marching bands. I really liked this, but it was a LONG parade, and after a while, it was kind of the same stuff over and over. I was ready to actually go into the fairgrounds. I say fairgrounds, because that's all Oktoberfest really is. A glorified state fair, with lots of alcohol and fewer animals. There are horses, but that's about it. As it turns out, none of us actually drank at Oktoberfest. Each of the different breweries has a beer hall that you can go into, and it's neat because they all are decorated elaborately on the outside, I guess in an attempt to draw you in of course. My favourite was the Löwen Bräu hall, because it had a big mechanical lion (löwen means lion...) with a beer stein, that would rumble "Lowen brau every few minutes.( Remember that a w is pronounced as a v though... I wish I could have gotten my camera to record with sound).
They are very strict about getting into these beer halls. First you have to order a drink outside in there deck area, or maybe more than one, I don't know. They won't let you in unless they know they're going to make money off of you. They don't want tourists in wandering around, mostly because it is already so ridiculously crowded.
There were so many different stands for souvenirs, food, and glazed nuts, it was crazy. My favorite stands were for the Lebkuchenherz, which are basically just the gingerbread cookies in the shape of a heart, with words in frosting, and a string so you can wear it around your neck. They say things like "I love you", or "You're the only one for me" and you give them to your sweetheart. So there are lots of girls in dirndle with lebkuchenherz around their necks. As we were wandering around we got some glazed nuts; Renate got sugared almonds, and I got hazelnuts. I am REALLY going to miss hazelnut when I go home!! They were really tasty. Then Renate talked me into eating this big Leberkässe sandwhich, which is neither liver or cheese, but really looks like a thick piece of bologna. It was scary looking, but it actually wasn't bad! They eat it with sweet mustard. I would probably eat it again...That pretty much sums up Oktoberfest though. It was fun, but it is incredibly crowded and we got seperated from each other and didn't find each other until about an hour or so later when we met at a restaurant for dinner. Renate and Isa had tried to stop to buy a Lebkuchenherz, and we didn't see them again for a while!! I just followed the main group though, I sure as heck was not getting lost in there with all those drunks!!
Yesterday was our excursion day for the week, and we went to Salzburg. I can't begin to describe how this city makes me feel. It's just a powerful feeling. I'm in love with the city. I have to say though, that this time around wasn't as fun, because I couldn't get ANYONE to sing with me. I really tried. No one was interested. And no one was interested in running through the veranda thing. I was NOT happy about that. I did really put my foot down and headed over to the main gate of Mirabell gardens ala SOM, when everyone walked off. I didn't care. I wanted my picture damnit! It turns out that everyone made it there eventually though, so I didn't have a lot to worry about.
At first, we spent a lot of time just wandering around the city. There was mini Oktober fest going on, but I have had about all I can take from Oktober fest. It was fun, but it wasn't all its cracked up to be. We were given some money to go and check out some museums, but pretty much no one used their money to go to a museum. I did, however!! The two heads of the group, Leonie and Orlando, wanted to go to the Museum of Modern Art, and I thought that sounded like a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it, but I think it was a bit too futurist for them :) The only display on exhibit was about "The Art of Sound" which had a lot of Dada and Futurist art. There were lots of sculptural pieces, that you could push a button for and it would make a noise. Lots of them were sirens. I can understand why Leonie was a bit overwhelmed by all the noise, but I thought it was incredibly cool. Not my choice of art, but still very interesting none the less. One of my favorite pieces was a sculpture that had been a performance piece..I can't remember who the artist was, but the guy pounded a bunch of nails into the piano and then painted it white. I especially liked the placard that had some info about the piece..it said that when the artist had performed this piece, he went into it knowing he would have to go and continue to pound every single last nail in without stopping in order to have the effect he wanted. The audience was of course stunned. I would have actually have liked to see that. I was really excited, because I was able to see the Man Ray print, L' Violon D'Ingres. It's interesting because he named the print for the Neoclassical painter, Jean Ingres, who was well known for his repetitious "bather" paintings. He kind of got a bad wrap for it...kind of a one hit wonder. So the back of this woman in the photo makes sense. That is my vague recollection of learning about this..
anyway. But really, my favourite part was the kid's room. They had a lot of noise maker things. They had this really interesting rocking chair that had strings on the side like a harp, and when you sat in the chair, the wood of made the noise reverberate very loudly, and you could hear it much better. It was really neat, but I wish they would have had strings of different keys.. one side was all one note, and the other side was all of a different note. Another thing they had that I really enjoyed was this pinball like wooden box, that was on springs and you could move around. There were a few metal balls inside the box, and there were different things the ball could interact with to make a different noise. My favorite part was the music box though. They had a bunch of little crank handle music boxes, and some pieces of paper with the music scale on it, and some hole punches. You could punch holes into the paper and then crank it through to hear your own composition. And then you could turn the paper over and get something even more different! It was really neat.
We really didn't get to stay in the museum for very long, we only had forty-five minutes. After that, we met up with the rest of the group to go up in the HohenSalzburg Festung, which is the fortress up on the hill. I was excited about this because we decided not to go the last time I was there. I didn't really go through the museum inside the fortress much though. Originally I was with Bo, Allison, and Kevin, but I tend to wander off sometimes, so I just checked it out on my own. I took a long of really neat pictures, and I've been trying to edit them a bit in photoshop to create depth of field and such. I'm liking how they turned out so far. Even though the weather was a bit icky, it ended up that it made for some really interesting pictures. We stayed at the fortress for an hour maybe and they took the traincar back down (that only takes a few minutes). Then we all went out for dinner.