Wednesday, December 22, 2010

City of Mozart, No Longer Prized for Salt

Ah, Salzburg! Where the sun was shining and the air was... bitterly cold and dry. There was snow on the ground with no inclination to melt; as such, all the feet passing over it at the outdoor Christmas Market had turned it to the color and texture of sand. Despite the temperature and the fact that you can see everything of interest there within 2 days, I really liked Salzburg.

The best view of the city came from high atop the Hohensalzburg Fortress's viewing platform, where I got a great 360 view of the whole city, thanks to the audio tour.



Salzburg also held some of my favorite cathedrals I've seen to date, with the detailed, pleasantly-colored ceilings of the Dom (Dome) and St. Peter's putting them into my top 2, in that order, and Franziskaner not working it's way into my favorites but still providing a huge, impressive (though somewhat gaudy and vaguely cultish) golden altar centerpiece... thing.

The whole town is packed with history, mainly regarding Mozart, which means lots of classical music concerts and impromptu street musicians. The royal Residenz, where Mozart gave many concerts in his all-too-short career, hosts some really amazing woodwork on it's floors; hundreds of years old and still looking great, and so detailed! (Stupidly, I didn't take any pictures of the really cool star artwork on the floors, though that might have been due to the museum workers constantly breathing down my neck.)
But really, the main reason to go to Austria is to eat excellent pastries. My new favorite is called Creme Schnitt, which is Austrian for "vanilla layer cake with sugary glaze on top that suits madam just fine." In addition to all kinds of cakes and strudels, Salzburg is known for a strange creation called Mozart Kuglen, or Mozart balls, which are chocolate-covered balls of marzipan (possibly with some pistachio added in). I lucked out in that both my Creme Schnitt and Mozart Kugeln came from Fuerst Cafe, which is supposedly one of the best in Salzburg. However, after just 2 days of exposure to all the delicious sweets, it took another 2 days to be able to touch chocolate again. Just in time for Christmas, thankfully.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

2 Things

Firstly, snow! And lots of it!

Over the past 2 or 3 weeks, there have been a handful of days in which it snowed. The first big snow we got was a couple inches and actually messed up the bus and train schedules (the bus schedules royally, and the trains only a smidge). Earlier this week we just got a dusting, though definitely enough to close schools in Chattanooga. Last night it snowed a lot more, though, so we're back up to a few inches, with temperatures well-below freezing to keep it around a bit.


Secondly, cooking! Super-sweet stuff from scratch!

I wanted to expose the European heathens to a traditional batch of homemade Christmas candy, including peanut butter fudge, chocolate-dipped pretzels, and divinity. However, if you know anything about candy making, you'll realize this list holds a serious problem for me: about half of the ingredients for these candies simply don't exist in Europe.

So in addition to the final products, which remain to be seen, I've already gone about making some of the basic ingredients, namely, peanut butter, "corn syrup" (or super-saturated sugar syrup), and marshmallow creme. It sounds like a lot of work, but really I'm the winner in this situation, because the marshmallow creme is fantastic.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Sennentuntschi

Last night I saw the movie Sennentuntschi, and then I didn't want to fall asleep. There is talk of it being released in an English subtitled version, possibly under the name "Killer Doll" or "Thank God There Are Subtitles Because this Movie is Entirely in Swiss German." I, of course, was not so fortunate to have subtitles, but knowing a little German helped immensely, though I had to have a few gaps explained to me after the movie.

This movie is supposedly Switzerland's first real entry onto the horror movie scene, but what it really is is messed up, and some of the imagery near the end is particularly creepy, burning itself into your brain. As the movie focuses on some killings that take place in a nice little village in the Alps, many Swiss were worried that tourism would suffer after the movie came out, but I doubt the movie will be that popular worldwide.

As for the movie theater experience itself, it was fairly standard, with plenty of overpriced popcorn and a small, cozy theater. Americans, take note: if you ever find yourself attending a movie in Switzerland, you have an assigned seat, theatre-style, none of this "pick a seat, willy-nilly" nonsense.

Before going to the movie, I got to see a little bit of Zurich's Christmas market (the third of it that's inside the train station, because it was really freaking cold). There are tons of little stands there selling everything from hats and candles to spiced wine and sausages. Also, there's a pretty tree covered in Swarovski crystal decorations. Yes, every one of those little dots hanging from the tree is a Swarovski.