Saturday, July 5, 2008

I Made It!

Hooray! I managed to bumble my way to Salzburg more or less successfully. My incompetence at going through security probably made it really easy to get through (no terrorist could be that stupid.) Luckily the 4th of July seems to be a light travel day so I didn’t have black diamond travelers breathing down my neck as I stood there stupidly waiting to be told what to do next. Well they say experience is what you get when you don’t get what you really want – and I didn’t really want to feel stupid, so I guess I’m a little bit experienced now.

You know these people all speak German over here! I stopped feeling so confused when I realized that they really brought it on themselves. But seriously, the bi-tri-quadri-multi-lingualism over here is truly impressive. Even bad English is delivered with beautiful British accent. I could not believe the airport employees and flight attendants. Those people deserve six figures for what they can do to make a language ignoramus like me feel comfortable.
I was genuinely impressed by Lufthansa. The overall quality of the experience seemed way above my limited experience of domestic carriers – there was food, and it was even palatable. The people were extremely professional and they didn’t lose my luggage! The last leg from Frankfurt to Salzburg was on a propeller plane, which was a first for me. Frankly the Tyrolean Air plane looked a bit long of tooth, but it was fun because we flew lower and I could see the plains of Bavaria. People say that cluster housing is this new idea in the US, but in Germany and Austria it looks like they’ve been doing it a long time – there’s a lot of open space and farmland.

Incidentally , the Frankfurt airport defines the adjective “sprawling” – in fact it is vast and hideously ugly to boot.

When I arrived in Salzburg (right on time) I had an easy time navigating the bus system and got right to Schoss Frohnburg (although it is a good idea to look at the number on the bus before you walk away from it and go to the platform where it’s supposed to be….) The public transit is amazing for a city of 150,000. Puts us to shame.

No comments: