Yahners vs. Europe Part 1: The Hills Are Alive

Ever since I spent a semester abroad in Rome, my family has been planning a trip to Europe to experience the sites for themselves. The time for the great Yahners in Europe adventure came on June 11th, or so we had planned. We arrive at the Cleveland airport in plenty of time to make our flight to Philadelphia, where we would get a flight to Munich. Unfortunately, due to weather on the east coast, our flight to Philly had been delayed nearly 4 hours already, which would cause us to miss our connection. Super. So, after some pouting and rebooking for the next day, we grabbed our suitcases and went home. It was kind of a huge let down since we had totally closed the house down—shut all the doors, gotten rid of all the food, set up our vacation answering machine. Fortunately, our flight the next day was not cancelled or delayed and we made it to Philly in time to catch our flight to Munich. What’s even more exciting is that we saw Al Roker of the Today Show in the Cleveland airport. Alex said it was a sign that I was supposed to talk to him and ask him for a job. Though Al Roker seems much nicer than Matt and definitely nicer than Ann, I was too nervous to bother America’s favorite weatherman.
We arrived in Munich and hit the ground running since we now only had one day in the city. Our main goal was to find the statue of Maximillion II. My great grandparents used to live near Munich and owned some sweet nightclubs. I guess these nightclubs were so cool, that the guy who designed the statue of Max that would go in the square gave my great (or great great?) grandparents the original model. This model now sits in my grandmother’s house and before we left my mom was looking at it and almost broke it. When I had visited Munich, I searched for the Max statue but did not find it. After asking the concierge at the hotel about it and consulting a map, we finally found Max. The statue is permanently in the middle of a square, but currently in the middle of some sort of carnival. It was difficult to get a picture with him with all the food tents and beer steins around us, but it was cool to see the giant version of what we’ve always been forced to admire at Oma’s house.
We were so exhausted from the flight that we needed to take a nap. However, my dad can’t nap or sit still ever, so he went down to the lobby and made a new German friend—Peter—who bought him a beer. I was actually surprised at how much German my dad remembered from his summer studying in Austria, but he did pretty well, or at least pretended to and we didn’t know the difference because none of us speak a word of German.
After a day in Munich, we took the train to Salzburg, Austria. The first thing we did there was take the Sound of Music tour because we are tourists and love busses. The tour was actually very nice and focused more on seeing sites around Austria than it did on just the movie. However, during the bus ride from place to place, they blared songs from the film as loudly as if they were a rap song with some heavy base. My eardrums were nearly shattered by an overly loud rendition of My Favorite Things. The best thing about the bus tour was Barbara. Barbara was cranky and apparently didn’t really want to go on the Sound of Music tour, though I don’t know how you could mistakenly get on this tour thinking it was something else considering the side of the bus had a giant picture of Julie Andrews singing her heart out. Barbara continuously complained to her spineless husband that she wanted off this bus immediately and wanted to take a different bus tour. At one point, the bus started slowing down due to traffic and Barbara started to get up, saying “Let’s get off now, come on,” but the husband advised her to wait until the bus actually stopped moving and got to a parking spot before she debussed. Finally, after much complaining to her husband and the tour guide, Barbara was let off in the middle of the street where she wandered off to something else to complain about.
During our next day in Salzburg, we took a lift up to the top of a mountain to see some great views and do some hiking. Since it was so high up, the air was pretty thin and the hiking was a little difficult. Therefore, when Alex asked my mother to hike a little more down the trail, she refused. He tried convincing her by saying, “But there’s a cross up ahead. We could just go to there.” She responded with, “I don’t care if God himself is up there, I’m not hiking up that hill.” And that was that.
The steep incline and thin air was not the only thing plaguing my mother on the top of the Austrian mountain. There were also large black birds flying around that, according to her, would peck your eyes out given the chance. When one bird landed close to us, I got my camera out to take a picture. Just as I was setting up the shot, something scared the bird and it flew away. I looked over to my mom who had several more rocks in her hands, prepared to throw at any more dangerous birds that should come our way.
Though the views were enough to keep us occupied on the mountain, there were also signs with old Austrian folklore on them, mostly having to do with gnomes. The tales made little sense and didn’t really have a moral at the ending. They were mostly just about hikers finding gnomes and then these gnomes might be nice, or they might be mean, or they might just go on their merry way. Obviously, the Austrians are still working on the craft of story telling.
Once we went down the mountain, we went to the Mirabelle Gardens, where my mom made us reenact some scenes from the Sound of Music and we had a contest to see who could name all the Von Trapp children (no one got more than 2). We also visited the Augustiner, where my dad regaled us with tales from his youth studying abroad, which inspired my mother to tell stories of her youth studying in Ellet. All of the stories were unwelcome by my brother and me.
After eating lots of pretzels and sausage (which my mother described as looking like baby belugas), gazing upon the snow capped mountains, and hearing more about the Sound of Music than I ever cared to, it was time to leave the German speaking region and head onto Italy. According to my dad, this also mean it was time for me to “remember all that Italian because that’s the only reason we brought you on this trip.” Ah, family memories.