Semana Santa, Destination: Austria

After a great visit with my friend Bethany in Germany, I headed to Linz, Austria where my friend, Fabian, had grown up his whole life. His mother still lives there, so I stayed with him and his mother in her lovely apartment. I arrived in Linz on Tuesday, the 26 of March at around noon. Fabian had picked me up at the train station then we headed to his mothers home where a home cooked meal was waiting for us! I was so excited to try typical Austrian food! It was so delicious! She had made us something called Schweinsbraten and hot Krautsalat which was pork and a form of sauerkraut. After about an hour, we went back to the train station and picked up our friend, Michael. We then headed over to a place called Ars Electronica Center. This Center is a museum of the future in which all sorts of mergers of different art, science, and technology directions are shown and edited.We explored that for a little while and then Fabian gave us a tour of the city. Linz is a cute city and is the third most populous city in Austria after Vienna and Graz. The great Danube river runs through it and the river banks are a typical hang out area during the summer time. After a great tour, we headed back to his house and had some dinner and got ready for a fun night. Although the weather was quite bad(cold and rainy) we still went out to a couple bars downtown. After Fabian had told us that the legal drinking age for wine and beer is 16, we were not surprised to see high school students in the bars. Some of these Austrian teenagers were so fond of Michael and I because we are from America and they were telling us how much they wanted to visit. We were all dancing and having fun and suddenly, Fabian jumped and landed on someones foot and hurt his foot! After that, we took a taxi home and went to bed.

ARS Electronica Center in the background lit in red

Inside Cathedral

The next day, we had some things in mind to go do, but Fabian couldn't do much since his foot was pretty badly hurt. For lunch, we ate some soup called Rindssuppe with Leberknödel and Frittaten and some meat called Tafelspitz all made by Fabian's mother. After lunch, his mom drove around looking for crutches or a brace or something to support his foot. Finally, she rented some crutches for him to use. We then went to the top of a hill where a Cathedral is located. It was a beautiful sight with an overlook of the whole city! After that, we took the train to downtown again and got some traditional Leberkase meat. Leberkase means "liver cheese" and is corned beef, pork, bacon and onions and is made by grinding the ingredients very finely and then baking it as a loaf in a bread pan until it has a crunchy brown crust. The kind I ordered had peppers in it and was in between a piece of bread. It was really tasty! It kind of tasted like bologna. After that, we went to a nearby bar and had a beer and played a game of pool. That pretty much summed up the evening since Fabian was pretty exhausted from using his crutches all day.

View of Linz, Austria

Leberkase(Mystery Meat)

I left for the next leg of my trip to Salzburg, Austria. I left from the Linz train station at around 2pm and arrived in Salzburg at around 4. In Salzburg, I met up with some people from couchsurfing and we went to an Irish pub and did karoake! It was a lot of fun! The next day, I explored the city and it was so beautiful! I really enjoyed viewing the city where parts of the movie, The Sound of Music was filmed! Some pictures of my tour are below!

A Beautiful Fountain

Castle

Panoramic View of the City

Cathedral

Ceiling of the Cathedral

 

Traditional Schnitzel

I explored the city with some locals and we walked up to the top of a hill where we could view the entire city. It was a very stunning sight! After a long day walking around, we were determined to go to a restaurant so I could try traditional Schnitzel. We went to a few different restaurants, but the cost of schnitzel was either too high or the restaurant was closed. Finally, we found a bar that served schnitzel for a decent price. Schnitzel is a boneless meat, thinned with a hammer, coated with flour, mashed eggs, and bread crumbs, then fried. I tried the pork schnitzel which was quite tasty. Usually schnitzel is served with jam which seems like a strange combination, but is was actually surprisingly good. After a great day in Salzburg, I met up with some people who were giving me a ride to Basel, Switzerland. I was very anxious for the next part of my trip, Switzerland!!!