Corey trying to kick the pigeon

Sat 15-Sep-2001 Got up, packed up, and departed our hostel. We went to Westbahnof to leave our bags for when we depart for Salzburg, and we went to Stephansplatz. Bought a newspaper, offered Corey money if he succeeded in kicking a pigeon, and we split up for our last few hours in Vienna. Corey and I went down to check out the botanical gardens, pretty neat. We met back up at Stephansplatz and ate lunch at the Bermuda Bräu. Then we went back to Westbahnof and caught our train. I played a few games of chess with Erik, traunced him, then took a nap. We got into Salzburg around 6:50pm and we went to our hostel (the International Youth Hostel, or YoHo) and checked in. We went to a pizza place, which took a disproportionate amount of time to get our food. We passed the time by goofing around and Chris was quoting some of the more "interesting" Sigmund Freud quotes out of the book he got the other day, and we got some sleep.

Mozart's star at Stephansplatz

Botanical gardens

Sun 16-Sep-2001 Erik had to do laundry and Corey was somewhat sick, so Chris and I went out and did the walking tour (as guided by Lonely Planet) in the morning. Saw quite a few cathedrals. Since it was Sunday, services were in session and the town was somewhat sleepy. The weather was also miserable. Got back to YoHo and Erik was still doing laundry and Corey was watching "The Sound of Music", which apparently plays every day here. On the door in our bedroom, the door is covered with graffiti. Chris wrote "You suck" next to large portions of it. In the afternoon after much debate, we decided to take "The Sound of Music Tour". "Lonely Planet Western Europe" placed this tour as Europe's #6 worst attraction. Either way, I had a morbid interest in seeing this particular attraction for myself, in the same way that one might get facinated by a dead moose on the side of the highway. We got on a bus and it loaded up with people from other hotels and an obnoxious tour guide that reminded me of that dumb guy that was the host of America's Funniest Home Videos. And just like that asinine show, everyone laughed at every single cheesecake joke the guide made. A typical joke was "We just saw St. Gilgin... so where is St. Skipper and St. Marianne (ha ha that was funny!!!!). Gag me with a butterknife. Basically, you just get a tour of the places near Salzburg that played a role in the movie, and then you get dumped at a bunch of overpriced gift shops tourist traps. Afterwards we went to the Augustiner Bräustübl, which is a brewery run by monks. And believe it or not, they were actually quite good. Between this place and the bar at YoHo, I had about two or three liters of beer.

Stupid sights from a stupid tour