BACK TO SALZBURG

Two weeks ago I met a guy at the the church whom I had never seen before. After talking to him for awhile I discovered that he is a Hungarian who was being taught by the missionary assistants to the mission president (the AP's) and who would be baptised that coming Sunday in a different ward.

Fast-forward to this past Friday... as I explained in my previous post, I was walking down the busy tourist street in downtown Munich and I ran into several people I knew from Utah who would be singing that night in a concert at the LDS stake house. While I was vaguely aware of this concert previously, I had not planned on attending because the stake house is kind of far away for me. However, after learning that these acquaintances would be there, I decided to go.

Towards the end of the concert the Hungarian man I had met previously grabbed me by the arm and took me over to the AP's. He said to them, "this is the who I was talking about." They looked at me and said, "you speak Hungarian?" I replied, "Yippiddy dippiddy" which, in Hungarian, means absolutely nothing. (Ok I didn't really say that, but my narrative was getting boring.) They explained how there is a Hungarian couple living in Salzburg who don't really speak German, but are getting baptised on Sunday and they wanted to find someone who speaks Hungarian to baptise them. I said I would gladly do it.

So on Sunday the AP's picked me up and we drove the hour and a half to Salzburg. We were well on our way when I realized that I had forgotten to bring an extra pair of underpants! Woops. At least the scenery was pretty....

We finally arrived and I chatted a bit with the Hungarian couple and the missionaries. They had been using the help of another Hungarian member living in Salzburg to translate for them from Hungarian to German.

The Salzburg church building has a nice view of the Salzburg fortress

So we had sacrament meeting and then right afterwards was the baptism. One of the missionaries had the idea for me to wear a pair of smaller baptismal clothes underneath the normal-sized pair of baptismal clothes. It worked but it was uncomfortable. Nevertheless, the baptism proceeded wonderfully. The man has only one leg so one of the missionaries had to stand behind him in the font as a support.

Here in the picture are the missionaries, the couple, the other Hungarian member and her baby, and myself.

I had to change quickly so that the AP's could high-tail it back to Munich. You see, their new mission president was arriving in a few hours and they had to run to the mission home and pick up the out-going mission president and his wife (President & Sister Rakow) so that they could get to the train station on time to pick up the new president and his wife (President & Sister Condie.) So I tagged-along with them since the train station is near enough to where I live. It was kind of funny actually. I even followed them to the platform where the new president was arriving to meet him and his wife and help carry luggage. They were a little confused as to who I was and what I was doing there, but it was fun to see part of the "passing of the baton" as it were.

So what a fun day... I'm glad that I decided to go light bulb shopping last Friday.

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WORLDS COLLIDING!

On Monday my Roland Keyboard finally arrived and I was happy. The elders were kind enough to help me haul it up the four flights of stairs to my room and help me put it back together. Now I can make music whenever I want. Underneath the lid of the keyboard the cords and screws were stowed away in baggies. However, there was one surprise from my parents: A big ball of Whitney's cat hair (and a nice note from Mom & Dad). Thanks you guys.... but couldn't you have hid some beef jerky in there instead? :-)

"Let's turn on the music machine!" -weird music machine lady from the ca.1980's PBS television program.

On Friday I had to buy a new light bulb for my desk lamp. So I headed to the Saturn (Europe's version of Best Buy) on the main walking street of Munich. I decided to take the U-Bahn to the Marienplatz and walk down the walking street and watch the tourists since it was such a nice day. As I was walking down the street amidst the hordes of people I saw someone I recognized... it was Mike Gates, a fellow music student at the University of Utah! I snuck up behind him and put my arm on his shoulder and said, "Hi Mike!" He did a huge double-take and was like, "Hi... Nate. What are you doing here?"

It turns out he wasn't alone, he was here with a choir group led by none other than the current head of the U of U choral department Dr. Allred. He also did quite the double take and he invited me to eat with them since they were just sitting down and had an extra "pre-paid" place set for a choir member who had to go home from the tour early. This choir was a sort of pick-up group of LDS church members from Salt Lake and other places as well and they had been touring Austria and Bavaria. So who else should be there with the choir but my 12th grade seminary teacher Brother Leishman!

So I had a wonderful and completely coincidental dinner with all of these people from my past worlds (I even got to take the left-overs home.) That night I went to hear them sing at the Munich stake center where they were putting on a program, and of course they sounded great.

Left-Right: Bro. Leishman, Me, Dr. Allred, Sharon Gates, Mike Gates's wife (can't remember her name at the moment,) and Mike Gates.

First a hairball from Whitney and then a seminary teacher and then friends from college... what's next?

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RUNNING AROUND SALZBURG IN NOTHING BUT DRAPES!


...and having a marvelous time.

After a busy week of teaching and as it was the first day of summer I decided that I should celebrate by taking a Saturday trip to Salzburg, Austria. So I hopped on a train with my book, my ipod, and my camera, and headed east.

It wasn't long on my two-hour train ride before I began to see the great giants on the horizon: The Alps!

Before long the train crossed the Salzach river and made its final stop at the Salzburg Hauptbahnhof. With beautiful weather and a full day of exploring ahead of me, I eagerly set off to the old town.

Of course my first stop was to the house of the the most famous of Salzburg citizens: Christian Doppler, who as you will no doubt remember was the one who invented the Doppler Effect, Doppler Radar, and of course, Super Doppler.

On the way I passed some building dedicated to a rather obscure composer of music named Mozart. The "Mozarteum" is the Salzburg University of Music and Dramatic Arts.

After being thoroughly overwhelmed by the site of Doppler's house, I walked a few doors up the square to find Mozart's house. He wasn't home, seeing as he's been dead for some time. However, this was the house where he spent many of his teenage and young adult years. It is now an interesting museum dedicated to the composer.

After touring the Mozart Wohnhaus, I wandered the streets snapping photos and people watching.

Soon I found myself on the most busy pedestrian street in Salzburg, the Getreidegasse.

The street was packed with tourists, particularly in front of Mozart's birth house. It was touristic chaos at its worse as people were trying to photograph each other in front of the plaque while tour groups were being shouted at by their guides. Come on people, what about Doppler!

Inside Mozart's Geburtshaus there is little that is authentic and the museum was recently designed in a sort of modern art-ish way. However, there was one treasure that I snapped a photo of before being told "No photos:"

This is Mozart's piano on which he reportedly composed The Magic Flute, The Abduction from Seraglio, and the Requiem.

After touring the Geburtshaus I was back on the Getreidegasse. This street is famous for the many ornate iron signs that hang from the shops.

Even the McDonald's had a fancy sign...

With my trusty Rick Steve's Germany & Austria guidebook I had all the information I needed for my do-it-yourself tour of the city.

Next it was on to the Salzburg Cathedral.

Salzburg is one of the best preserved Italian Baroque-styled cities north of the Alps. The Cathedral is a fine example of this and is a wonder to behold. Mozart was baptised here and served as ward organist for two years.

Right now the European Championship Soccer Match is being played between qualifying nations (including Germany... more on that another day) in Austria and Switzerland. Thus "Fußball" banners are everywhere and a huge makeshift festival stage was erected in Mozart Platz next to the Cathedral.

But the continental soccer tournament is not nearly as interesting as this exciting water wheel! An ancient canal system with water wheels has served Salzburg since the Middle-Ages.

Speaking of the Middle-Ages, the purportedly oldest restaurant in Europe is the Stiftkeller St. Petri, where Charlemagne dined in AD 803.

Next I hiked up the large central "park," or hill as it were, to get a great panoramic view of the city.

And the magnificent Salzburg Castle...

Hey there good-lookin'....

I thought the woman with a nice DSR camera would take an excellent photo of me and the city. I was wrong... Seriously, who cares about my feet?

I traversed the hill to the castle where I made it up to the gate.

I decided I would pay the money to go inside another day and instead snapped a few photos from that angle.

I came down the other side of the hill and found a cool palace with the Alps as backdrop. (That's the same mountain that you see in the background of the lake in Sound of Music. The lake and mansion were very near but closed to tourists.)

I soon found my way back to the river.

...and explored some more of the ancient narrow streets off the beaten tourist path.

...following up the river I made a complete circle of the city from where I began in the morning.

Mozart balls!

My final destination was another hill opposite the Old Town for a final commanding view of the city.

With it being the longest day of the year this far North, it was 7pm and still the sun was high in the sky for my journey home. Exhausted from all my walking and pleased with my day, I enjoyed passing the rural Bavarian scenes as my train took me back to Munich.

When I got back to Blutenburgstraße I caught the tail end of the Blutenburgstraße Festival held right outside my building. You can even see my roommate Boris in the khaki shorts next to the buildlings on the right.

So it's been a full and a fun day. I hope to go back to Salzburg again and see even more. Be sure to check out my full Salzburg photo album below...

Salzburg

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SATURDAY IN THE ALPS

It's been really crummy weather almost the whole month of June so far. Nevertheless last Saturday a few of us young adults decided to go on a hike in the Alps and hope for the best. Our destination: the mountains above the Ettal Monastery. We took the morning train to a nearby town and hiked a short way up to the valley where this monastery and its surrounding village are located. After entering the city we were joined by a very friendly black cat. This cat followed us quite a ways, and even chased a dog off for us.

Soon we came to the monastery and had a look around.

Even though it was quite cloudy, they were cool clouds.

The inside of the monastery was interesting.

We got a little bit of blue sky as we started our hike...

We had some great views as we hiked up the trail.

....Including the monastery below.

I CATCHED A THE LIZARD!!!!!1

The slugs were out en force... or as the Germans call them "naked snails"

Soon we came to the rocky summit where chains led the way up the steep jagged stone.

We didn't go up all the way, but high enough for a good view from which to eat our lunch.

We then headed back and it started to rain at the end of our trail.

We got back to Ettal and decided to hitchhike back to the town where we could take the train back to Munich. We met a nice American lady who agreed to give us a lift. After getting in the car, however, she said she could take us all the way to Munich if we'd like. So she did and we got home in record time. It was a fun day and a good hike.

This week I'm teaching another intensive course and I have high hopes that the weather will improve soon!

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