Today was a good day

I had a feeling today was going to be a good day. Despite the fact that I got in at 4am, slept in my clothes, and within 10 minutes of waking up, was muttering profanities, and then out the door by 10am. The sun was shining. The weather had turned around; it was a clear day, a picture perfect blue sky, and hell, it was even warm…like, 8 degrees warm. It was just one of those days, where as soon as you wake up/peer curiously at the sunlight flooding into your room/step out of the house you know it’s going to be a good one. Anywho I set out to explore the town, running into acquaintances I had met last night, as we all tried to ignore the fact that we had completely forgotten everyone’s names, before making a quick exit wandering through the Old Town of Salzburg.

Salzburg...the city carved into the mountain

Love of Mozart

Ladies wearing fur coats and dainty heels, Austrian men wearing suede jackets or Lederhosen for Mozart Week, the crisp smell of Viennese sausages sizzling from market stand stalls, only to be doused in mustard and then wrapped up in newspaper for you. Bonus – dinner and reading material all in one. Heidi Klum featured on mine.

Having been travelling alone, I always say to myself (and to others when they ask) that it’s never really lonely, because you meet so many different people on the way, and strangers in the hostel/on the tour/ on your bus are simply friends you haven’t met yet. But when you aren’t in the company of others, - you have to be content with being by yourself. Today was one of those days where I was utterly content with being alone. Every day when you’re travelling is a good day – but today was even a better one. There was something…I don’t know, excuse the cliché, in the air or whatnot. The Old Town was a hub of activity, there were people, musicians, every man and his dog were about and about doing something(literally, very man and his dog IN A SUEDE JACKET), and all the sights, sounds and smells of Salzburg were at my feet.

Digital postcard

Spent a bit of time wandering around some historic landmarks, namely places that were used in the filming of The Sound of Music…as if I already couldn’t get enough of the film.

And honestly, sorry to harp on it – but the weather! The weather, the weather, the weather. You could have honestly not asked for a better crisp winter day. I ate my lunch down by the river in the sun, whilst pondering the irony of ‘locking your love’ onto a bridge in a famous city – only to use a combination lock. Isn’t the whole idea to lock your love there and throw away the key? Wouldn’t then a combination lock imply ‘our love is everlasting only until I want to use the combination to unlock it and then see ya later big guy’?

Lock your love

If there was ever any way to do something half-arse, I reckon a love lock like that would be it. But anywho, I’m still going to buy a lock and lovingly write ‘Weiner Schnitzel’ in flirtatious calligraphy, before locking it up there. And I will throw away the key. There will be no shortcuts for me on this one.

Famous shopping district

In summer this fountain is happening, but this is the square where Maria skipped across to sing 'I Have Confidence'

I headed to the station around 4pm, now to catch a train to Passau, a small-ish town in Germany, on the Austrian border, where my fabulous German sister Mareike is currently living. A quick run down on our history;

In the early 3 months of 2009 she stayed with me and my family in Melbourne, that November – January of 2010 I lived with her and her family in Ansbach. We also visited both sets of her grandparents who live in Bremen, in the north of Germany. Two years later, in my summer of 2012; my travel companions and I met Mareike and her boyfriend Sven in Prague, as we were passing through, and then later on I went to see my German family again; my German parents in Ansbach, Mareike, who was then living in Nuremburg, my German brother Matthias, who was living in Regensburg, and all 4 German grandparents and uncles/aunts living in Bremen. And here I am again, exactly 2 years later, 2014, coming to see all the people that I hold so close to my heart, who have shown me nothing but kindness and love, and who have repeatedly opened up their homes and their arms for me. I don’t think I could quite accurately, in a short amount of space and time, fully verbalise my thoughts towards my German family, but just know that I refer to them as family for good reason; Meike is just as much my mother whenever I am abroad, and Mareike, whom I have always considered as my sister before secondary as my best friend, travel companion and support.

Fortress on the top of the hill

That is Salzburg ladies' and gents

#torbz

#torbz

#torbz

Anywho, if the sentimentality hasn’t killed you yet, get ready for MORE TO COME because I am going to see Mareike now for a few days, before chipping all over Bavaria for more couch hopping. YAY. On a count of the fact I’ve not seen them all for two years, I am bursting with excitement, to see everyone again, and return to my beloved Germany. Austria, you’ve been fabulous, but Germany is and will always remain my most favourite place to be.

Oh, and at the station I thought I’d give it a last shot, and inquire about my backpack. I figured it was a long shot, but the Lost and Found for Salzburg Hbf was right there, and I had time before my train. Obviously, computer says no, they hadn’t found it, but through a couple of phone calls and clickety clicks we phoned Croatia again – and I was chatting with the guy on the other end of the line – and they had my backpack sitting for me at Zagreb Hbf – waiting for me to pick up! It was a momentous moment; it’s been lost now for over three weeks, and I had given up all hope, honestly. But YAY, things are good. YAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYA.

Nonnberg Abbey - where the 'real' Maria was a novice and the Captain and Maria married in real life

The Abbey, also the cemetery that inspired the recreation of the cemetery for the film

The scene where the Von Trapps are hiding in the Abbey from the Nazis? Love it.

Mirabell Gardens

Do-Re-Mi filming location

When I spoke to my mother a few weeks ago about the trauma I had recently endured with the lost backpack, she simply smiled and told me that she was sure I’d get it back.

“You’re Caty Gierer”, she said proudly, smiling at me. “Things like this always happen to you. You’re the girl who leaves her wallet in the middle of the city only to go back and find it there untouched. You lose cash, valuables, and bags all the time – and they always find their way back to you. It’s a Caty Gierer thing; with you bad things are predispositioned to occur; only because they all work out okay in the end.”

I contemplated that for a minute, in all truth not very seriously, because I knew, I just knew that this wasn’t one of those things. Yes, my name is Caty Gierer – but it comes attached to all sorts of other drama and catastrophes.

But you know, here I sit, with my things waiting patiently in Zagreb, and o can’t help thinking that maybe I am lucky. Perhaps I’d best go and buy a lottery ticket. Wait no I can’t actually - I don’t know where my wallet is.