After Hours, Salzburg, and Week 2

So the first week of training camp is done, and we are through the weekend and onto the second week. Here are some of the highlights of the past few days. Our trip to Salzburg included myself, Osier, Julia, Katrin, Gaby, and Bodo. Important things to Note: I will be mainly be reffering to the Sound of Music as "the movie" since the Austrians aren't fans, I took all the pictures in this post, and almost everything is surrounded by mountains, so forgive me for telling you that over and over.

Extra-curricular Activities: The Austrian kids enjoy their tv, but all their shows play in German, and even though I have seen each episode of "Friends" 10 times, I still have no idea what is happening. So we resort to card games and outdoor sports. First, the card games. Take every card game you know. Then add a bunch of rules that will make each round of that game last 20 minutes longer, and somtimes to the point where they just won't end. Examples: Presidents and B.S. In Presidents, if you end up with a 2 AND a 3 you pretty much have no chance to win. I have found every way to cheat at the game, just so I can have a few minutes break before the next round. Did I mention we play with 2 or 3 decks and like 12 people...from 10PM - Midnight? Wirklich? And I have definitely won some hearts with my expert card castle buliding skills.

Then we move onto sand volleyball. We did the old fashioned picking teams thing and my team ended up winning in 5 games. We played in the rain and everybody was fairly decent at the game, which is impressive considering I think it's one of the hardest games to play recreationally. We also had some pretty awesome uniforms. :) (left)

Our Trip to Salzburg: Sound of Music anyone? No, we didn't go on the tour, but I had the most amazing day trip to Salzburg and the surrounding lakes and cities. We left Sunday afternoon around 10 AM and drove to Mattsee, the first of our 3 lake stops. The family told me they had taken my former coach George Libbon here, so we took some pictures and were on our way to Salzburg. An hour later, we pulled into the city, which is incredibly scenic considering the whole city is surrounded by gourgeous mountains. We parked in a parking structure inside a mountain and made our way through the tunnel on our way down to the city. We came out of the tunnel in front of, what else, but the theatre in the end of the movie where they sing at the festival. I was under the impression we would be going in, so I didn't take any pictures. We ended up passing the theatre and heading up towards the INCREDIBLE Festung Hohensalzburg. This castle sits on the top of one of the mountains and has an incredible view of the whole city. I ended up with about 100 pictures of the city because I had no idea that the view would keep getting better! We went through the fortress, which also has a museum and other stuff...most of the type in the Museum was German though, so Osier and I pretty much just looked at the items and pictures, which was still mildly entertaining.

We then took the tram down the side of the mountain into the town, where we found a brewery and had an amazing lunch. We then continued onto the Dom, which it the huge church in the center of the town with the green cathedral tops. We walked through the church, which was flooded with people and into the Residenplatz, which is surrounded by baroque style buildings. Continuing through the square, we reached the Alter Markt (Old Market) and the legendary Getreidgasse, where we had the opportunity to see the buliding where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born. This concluded our visit to Salzburg, and we were on our way to visit the surrounding lakes at about 3 PM. left: the fortress from the end of Getreidgasse

Wolfgansee and Mondsee: Our next stop was the first of our lake town visits, and was the town of St.Wolfgang on the north side of the Wolfgangsee. The place we stopped we very touristy, but had an incredible view of the lake and the surrounding mountains. We planned to take a boat tour around the lake, but were too late to catch the last ride, so we settled for some coffee, soda, and ice cream. We then took a brief stroll around the town then hopped in the car for our trip to Mondsee.

Mondsee was literally over the mountain from Wolfgangsee, so it took us less than 20 minutes to get there. We parked outside the city and walked in. We went straight to the huge church...which looked oddly familiar once I was inside. Had the lighting been better, I would have immediately realized that it was indeed the church where they are married in the movie. As we were leaving, I grabbed a brochure and across the front there was a line regarding the movie. From there, we walked about 3 blocks to the lake itself, which it surrounded by mountains, naturally. The water was super nice, and if it hadn't been so late, we may have considered swimming. We then headed back to town and had a nice dinner, which included the largest Wiener Schnitzel I have ever seen! That was the end of our day trip, as we headed back to Mattighofen. The ride back included an exchange of American slang for smart-ass German phrases, which we shared with all the boys when we got back to the camp.

Week 2 of Camp: We now have our entire team at camp for the week. I have learned the names of almost everyone, which is a task considering I have never heard over half the names before. Our first team meeting lasted about an hour and was held in German, naturally. I sat next to Osier the whole time, pretending to listen while picking the nail polish off my fingers. The first two practices were a learning process in terms of playing with a whole new group of players who play a different style of basketball, but the one we had this morning was a lot better after a night of sleep. There are 5 players our age and the rest range from ages 18-20, with a total of 14 players. We practice twice a day and have a "fitness" workout in the evening. That's about all I can say about the week so far.

That's It: I got nothing else. These days are very monotonous and we never really do anything THAT interesting, but I have no doubt I will be filled with experiences as soon as we get into Vienna next Monday. Check out our team website: http://www.uk-flames.org/. Finally, there is a lot of love flowing at camp since I learned the phrase"ich liebe dich".

Fun Fact: The diet coke equivalent here is called Coke light and tastes EXACTLY the same as regular coke. And the internet runs on Gbytes and you have to buy the amount of internet you want per month.