Salzburger

- Rachel -

Just left Salzburg and off to the small village of Hallstatt, also in Austria! When we arrived to Salzburg a few days ago our couch surfing host Michel met us at the bus stop and helped us get to his dorm building where we found that the size of his room was about half the size of a dorm room at Concordia.. and that we would be sleeping on the floor with one pillow and one sleeping bag... but we made it work haha. We were just thankful that he agreed to host us!

Before even getting into the dorm building we ran into two of Michel’s Pakistani friends who were leaving the dinner party. Right off the bat they were so open and friendly, shaking our hands, asking us questions, and then finally asking us if we would like for them to cook us a traditional Pakistani meal for the following night at their apartment! We were blown away at how generous they were, being that we had just met them 5 minutes earlier. We hesitantly said that would be great, shocked at the invitation and didn’t really know if they were serious or not.

That night he was hosting an international dinner for some of his friends so we went and joined everyone in the kitchen. Everyone was so friendly and I ended up meeting two people from SPAIN! I was so excited! They gave me some Don Simon (cheap popular spanish sangria). Beautiful :). Apart from them it's only right that I mention the gal we met from Ukraine. She had an over-the-top personality and was SO curious about our personal lives and just life in general in the U.S. She literally spent over an hour asking us questions and then started writing our answers down. When she asked about food I told her Sloppy Joes are a must! Pretty solid suggestion I’d say. She asked if she could order that at Mc Donald’s... lol.

So the night was rough, neither Zach nor I got a good night's sleep, but thankfully we had booked a hostel for the next night because Michel was originally planning to go back home to Germany. That day we got lunch right away and we were SO relieved to see normal prices after coming from Zurich! We got Subway and man, was a 5 euro foot long a treat. We started our day out by going into old town and going to see the Salzburg Fortress! Besides the fact that castles are just sweet in general, the view from the top was great! More snow covered Alps were awaiting our i-phone cameras to snap a crazy amount of pictures. I have never seen so many beautiful sights in my life! No words can truly describe the sights Zach and I have seen during this journey.

During our day I had been sending messages to Michel to see if we were really going to have that dinner and also if we would like to join him to go to a student party that night! We were like "why not"?

After the castle we had to give in to our cravings and get some Starbucks!! It was delicious if you were wondering. I had an orange mocha and Zach had the gingerbread latte.

We then went to meet Michel to go to the guys' house because they actually were cooking us a dinner! Wow. So when we got into their apartment the kitchen was filled with a delicious smell of spices and chicken! We all stood around the kitchen as they prepared the meal as we chatted and they taught me a few Pakistan phrases! The meal of rice and chicken with some hot seasonings was awesome! Both Zach and I had two servings!

It's amazing how friendly fellow travelers can be! That night we also ended up going to that student party that I mentioned earlier, which will be in the next post :)

- Rachel