Friday’s master class was a bit of a bore. The woman running it is a coach and pianist/accompanist who works at the Mozarteum. It was only the second master class she’s ever given, and it showed a bit. She was also quite soft-spoken which made it even harder to pay attention.
After the class I stayed around the college for a little while, but then caught the bus home early. It wasn’t until after I had been home for an hour relaxing up in my room that I started to remember Martina saying something about visiting her mother this weekend. When I went down to the kitchen at 7 for dinner, it was to discover little notes left all over the kitchen for me. Martina had left a plate sitting out for me to heat up for dinner and in the frig were sandwiches for lunch on Saturday as well as lasagna to heat up for dinner.
After eating, I decided to relax and take a bath. They have a nice whirlpool tub on the bottom floor. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out how to turn the whirlpool part on, so it ended up being just a bath.
Saturday I got up early to join Ian and Phoebe for the hike along Lake Wolfgang. (Phoebe is the director of the Salzburg College). I knew not many were going to come on the hike because the weather wasn’t supposed to be good and they wanted to go see Neuschwanstein (the castle Disney’s castle is based on). When I arrived at Mirabell Platz, I found phoebe, but Ian wasn’t there and it was past time to meet. She and I discussed different things we could do, and as it was just the two of us, I opted to go see the Eagles Next also known as Hitler’s Tea Room. Phoebe hopped on her bike to go home and get her car. As I was waiting at Mirbell Platz, Ian finally showed up. He had over slept. I told him we had a change of plans.
Phoebe picked the two of us up and we drove out to the mountain. Ian and I opted to walk up the mountain instead of taking the bus. Three hours or so later and after a couple of stops, one to eat a sandwich, we finally arrived at the top. The Eagles Next or, Kehlsteinhaus, is on the top of Kehlstein Mountain that is 6,017 ft high. We did take an elevator for the last 407ft. The elevator shaft was bored straight through the mountain and linked via a tunnel. The tunnel and elevator are still in impeccable shape. The inside of the elevator is completely surfaced with brass that is polished daily. Kehlstainhaus was built for Hitler’s 50th birthday. From the top of the mountain you can see everything (on a clear day). Unfortunately for us, it was not a clear day. We could see blue sky at the top of the mountain, but below us all you could see were clouds.
After we took the bus down, we looked through an exhibition about Hitler’s regime and walked down to what remains of Berghof. This is where Hitler spent 1/3 of his reign. He didn’t spend much time on top of the mountain. Once the area was taken over, the British bombed the headquarters, others burned some of what was left, and the Americans completely destructed the rest. All that is left are a coup-le of stonewalls. We also walked through a portion of the underground tunnel system Hitler built through the mountain for protection from bombing and gas. There were airlocks, a heating, air conditioning, and air-drying system built in.
Before the three of us headed back into town, we stopped at a new little restaurant that has opened. Ian had schnitzel, I had warm cheese strudel with ice cream and Phoebe had some ice cream. It was amusing to take my water bottle out and see just how thin the air had been at the top, and now at the bottom it looked more like an hourglass.
After spending an hour at the college to practice, I headed home to crash. I went to bed pretty early.
This morning I got up and the family had gone to church. I listened to a couple pod casts of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.” Then when they got back, we all enjoyed a cookout. It’s gorgeous weather today, so we all enjoyed the weather.
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