We are away from Austria, away from Germany, and moving south, into expensive, expensive Switzerland, and once again onto a computer where I can't change the keyboard to English, so once again, if I mention Germanz, please don't think I'm being cute. I have discovered that I hate Swiss keyboards even more than German ones though. Why can't we all just get along and use the same keyboards? It would make life so much easier for me, and that's really all that matters, right? Oh well, you get used to it in time.

On the way to Salzburg we talked to a nice couple from the States who were in Vienna for a medical conference, which served to break up the monotony of the trip some. Once we arrived, we found a phone and Will called the hostel to see if we were sleeping on the street that night, and on our way out of the station Andy, one of the Americans we'd talked to, asked to make sure we'd found a place. Awfully decent chap, eh? We had, so we said goodbye, and Will commenced to navigate the streets of Salzburg to find the hostel. That was our first mistake.

We've run into all manner of people on our trip, including a lot who are travelling in groups, and a clear pattern of delegation has emerged. In most groups, things like navigation, talking and the like are usually handled almost exclusively by the same person all the time. Since I've inherited my father's impeccable sense of direction, I usually navigate.

After a few questionable turns I grabbed the book (which, to be fair to Will, generally has hopelessly inadequate maps) and tried on my own. I had looked up a few hostels on the net the night before, and the name of the one we were trying to find tweaked in my memory for some reason, so I stopped to find a payphone.

Over here, and I presume back home, there's an organization called Hostelling International that, as near as I can tell, exists solely to make travel difficult for non-members. Many affiliated hostels will charge you extra if you don't have a card, and some won't even let you stay at all. This one belonged to the former group, and it turned out that we'd be charged another 2 or 3 euros per night to stay, which is ridiculous. Having found that out I made a quick course correction and we went to another hostel with considerably more reasonable terms.

The hostel was decent, as hostels go, high-middle of the road, but not good enough to break into the top ranks. It did have a big-screen TV though, and a collection of videos that included Grosse Pointe Blank, one of my favourite movies of all time, and one that Will and I have been itching to watch again for a month or so. That was a pleasant surprise.

It was a funny city really, and it seemed a lot smaller than it actually was at the outset. We just read books on the first day, Will had picked up Carrie in Vienna, and I read the Sophie Kinsella book Undomestic Goddess that we'd half-traded half-stole from Budapest after I finished Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. I counted them out, and I've read eighteen or nineteen books since we left, and will is another three or more ahead of me. I love Europe, I haven't gotten this much reading done in I don't know how long (now where is that blasted exclamation mark key?)! (there we go, stupid Swiss keyboards)

Outside of Salzburg is a palace called Hellbrun that has a bunch of trick fountains, and it had been recommended both by the Americans on the train, and Will's mother, so with an endorsement like that, we figured we couldn't go wrong. Naturally, we did, and waited at the wrong bus station. We decided to go find the brewery instead in hopes of getting a tour, but what we found was a giant beergarden with a whole bunch of food stalls instead. We made do.

We did find our way out to Hellbrunn the following day, and the trick fountains were quite a sight to behold. They were built for a crazy bishop in the 17th century. The man was a real jerk, as they included a table where the guests had to sit with water jets going up their posteriors at the bishop's pleasure, a sort of early-Renaissance bidet with clothes on. It would have been hilarious to do to somebody though, and the tour was in English as well as German, so understanding it all was an added bonus.

That's about all for Salzburg highlights. We decided to cut our time in Switzerland short for some reason, by a day in each place, and boy are we glad we did. It's ridiculously expensive here, and I can't wait to get to a more reasonable economic climate. We're also planning to meet up with Will's brother Tim in the next few weeks, probably in Venice, assuming the schedules work out. Pending that, there's going to be a major shakeup in the itinerary, so stay tuned for that!

As I'm sure many of you know, Salzburg was the setting for The Sound of Music, and there are tours and memorabilia for the movie all over the place. I've never seen it, though our hostel showed it every day at 10:30 in the morning, well before any reasonable person gets out of bed (exclamation mark, where are you...ah, there we go!)! I was thinking about getting up early one day and spending three hours in a noisy bar watching Julie Andrews traipse around the Alps, but then I had a better idea, and it goes something like this:

Pretty Girl - "You mean you've never seen The Sound of Music!?!?"

Me - "Nope"

Pretty Girl - "Well, we'll just have to remedy that now, won't we?"

I think we can all agree that this is a much better plan. I'll leave you on that note, and with a really terrible joke that I once heard.

The Hill family was travelling through the mountains when they were caught in a terrible storm. As they got colder and more desperate, Mr. Hill finally saw a castle in the distance, and with the last ounce of his strength he got his family to the door and pounded on the knocker. The door was answered by a strange little hunchback named Igor who immediately ran to get his employer, the master of the house.

The kindly count had the family brought in and tried everything he knew to warm and revive them but to no avail. One by one the Hill family passed away, and finally the count had Igor take them to the basement until the storm abated and he could have them buried.

As Igor was finishing his task, the count went to his chamber and began playing a mournful dirge on his great organ. Igor had just placed the last body in the cellar when, one by one, they began sitting up (Blast, where is that...oh, here we go)! In a panicked rush, Igor stormed up the stairs and into the count's chamber shouting breathlessly, "Master, master, the Hills are alive with the sound of music!"

Current Location: Zurich, Switzerland