recreating pictures: 32 years later

I went to Salzburg on a mission today: to recreate a bunch of pictures from my mom's Europe Semester visit to the city in 1979. The first two are in the Gazebo that was used in the filming of The Sound of Music. Unfortunately they don't allow people into it anymore, so Erica and I had to improvise.

The fist photo the group named: "The Proposal"

1979

2011

The second was named: "The Marriage" (dang that was a short engagement.)

1979

2011

The last one is at the entrance to the gardens where the Von Trapp kids ran around singing one of those catchy songs.

1979

2011

Hi Anna

the alps at night

Last night I took some long exposure shots of the mountains above Mittersill. It was a beautiful night with only a few high clouds, but I could see back for what seemed like an eternity!

(I haven't edited these at all FYI)

8 hours later...

What I went to bed to:

What I woke up to: 

baby it's cold outside

Let me set the scene: I’m in the Austrian Alps, staying in a castle on a hill overlooking the tiny village of Mittersill. It been snowing on and off for the last three days we’ve been here. Last night, there’s a group of us watching Monte Python upstairs, and we suddenly see out the balcony that it is snowing like it’s never snowed before here! When it snowed earlier, it didn’t stick at this altitude, only just above us. But it was finally sticking last night, enough for us to have a massive snowball fight in the courtyard. I may or may not have hit one of my professors in the face with a snowball… my bad Ken! The snow persisted until we went to bed, and we woke up to a winter wonderland! It started to melt early as the sun rose, but it was so awesome! 

Austrian Countryside

We left Vienna with the first episode of ‘bad weather’ on this trip. I woke up to the sound of rain, stoked because I love rain! Then I realized it was a moving day, and we were all going to have to haul our luggage through the rain a few blocks to the bus. It wasn’t as bad as I feared, and we actually left within ten minutes of our goal for the first time! The rain persisted as we drove out through the Austrian countryside. We stopped at Melk Abby, a ridiculously Baroque building. We went on a tour of the abbey, and had a delicious lunch. The weather stayed just about the same throughout the afternoon, with only a few dry patches. 

Erica and I outside the chapel at Melk Abbey

We left the abbey and continued our journey towards the Austrian Alps. Our driver turn on the heater as soon as we got on the coach, and it got stuck on full blast. Within 20 minutes we were shedding clothes, and sweating. We opened the emergency doors on the roof, and eventually our driver just took a screwdriver to the heater and turned it off manually. 

Cooling off after the emergency sunroof was opened

The rain grew worse as we slowly gained altitude. We could see the snow on the mountains drawing nearer and nearer every mile. We turned a corner and everyone started yelling… SNOW! The ground was covered in it. We drove through a few small villages and it was so beautiful.

I realized we were starting to go downhill, and soon we were below snow level. We were only disappointed for a moment, then we turned another corner and saw or new residence… our castle: Schloss Mittersill. It’s a medieval castle on a hill that looks over the tiny town of Mittersill, and we have it all to ourselves for an entire week!!

Schloss Mittersill