Mönchsberg and Augustiner Biergarten

It's hard to believe it's already so late. Tomorrow morning (or this morning, I guess), we fly to Berlin, and I really should be sleeping, but as usual, I'm a night owl.

Yesterday was one of my favorite days since I've been here, I think. Bärbel took us on a wonderful Stadttour through Mönchsberg, a kind of series of caves built into the side of the mountain. We took an elevator up through the mountain, and were soon very high up, with a great view of Salzburg. It was very green up there; we hiked along the side of the mountain, through woods and took a lot of great pictures. (If IPhoto and Facebook weren't having problems tonight, I'd have them online already.) Of course, there are a lot of people that live up there in very pretty mountaintop houses. There are also a lot of ruins from, I suppose, earlier days. We didn't get to see the actual catacombs and caves where the monks lived. I'm actually not sure if you can. But it was a nice hike.

Afterwards we all headed to Augustiner Biergarten at the bottom of the mountain, where we stayed for about three and a half hours! A few of us sat around, drinking lots of sweet beer and talking about culture and travel and...well just about everything. We're a great group. Augustiner also had amazing pretzels, and my favorite, Weisswurst.

I love my city, but it's going to be nice to have a break and travel to Berlin this weekend. We'll have lots of free time and hopefully I'll get to meet up with my friend Sonya from high school, who moved back to Berlin after we graduated. Unfortunately, Laura and I have both come down with colds, so I need to get to sleep and rest, so I can enjoy our weekend trip!