Salzburg, Wednesday, June 2

We had planned to spend a little time here in Budapest, but we discussed it last night and the group decided they would rather go on to tour Vienna than tour Budapest in the rain. Lee was disappointed, but got out exploring last night and again this morning. We left our hotel shortly after 7:30 under overcast skies. We made good time and by 8:00 we were out of the city centre and onto the main highway out of town. It also started raining, which continued all the way to Vienna.

In Vienna, the rain decreased to “light” as we split up and toured the pedestrian area in small groups. It was quite cool and windy in addition to being wet. The four guys traveling alone went together to St. Stephan’s Cathedral. There we saw some people wearing Donauschwaben crests with a kind of stylized flag below it. I thought they might be the colours of the Brazilian flag, so I went up to one and said “Brazil?” He said “Ja.” I said “I am Donauschwaben too from Canada,” and showed him my red Canada hat. Then I said “Sindelfingen?” And the lights came on for him. I think I wrote half a lifetime ago about the Brazilian group that was at the Haus der Donauschwaben when we were. He now recognized me and was telling his friend. Then a woman came up and started talking to me in very good English. She was one of their guides and lives in Vienna. She is a member of the DS community here, so we exchanged business cards and agreed to get in touch. Unfortunately, her business card got wet in my pocket on our evening escapade and it is not clearly readable, but I think I can figure it out.

We had a little adventure on our pickup. We were all at the agreed pickup point at the agreed time, but there was no bus. We assumed Johannes was stuck in traffic and would arrive at any moment, but, as the delay reached almost half an hour, I decided that there must be some confusion on the time and place or something was seriously wrong. I decided to try to telephone him. Most of the businesses were stores and restaurants, but there was a travel agency. There was only one young lady there serving a customer. I politely intruded, explained our situation, and asked if I could use her phone. She said that no, she could not do that. But her customer immediately volunteered to use his cell phone. He called Johannes and they had a nice chat as Johannes came around the corner. I thanked the man profusely, but I was all out of the Canada pins that we have been handing out to people we meet. It turned out that there was an accident on a one way street and Johannes was boxed in for an hour. We were pretty relieved to see him!

We arrived about a half our late for our lunch with Barbara Hebenstreit. She is the daughter of the author of the Georgshausen book and worked with Ray on its translation. She is a charming lady that is a delight to visit with. She presented us with a book for our library. She worked on it with a friend of her father’s. It is a book of the friend’s poetry in the old Donauschwaben dialect with a translation to modern German and a CD of how it sounds in the dialect. Frank is salivating over it. It won’t appeal to a large audience of our members, but it is an important time capsule of our ancestors’ culture to hold onto for future generations.

When we left Vienna, it was again raining steadily. This persisted all the way to Salzburg and throughout the evening. Any level fields by the road throughout Hungary and Austria are saturated and there is lots of standing water.

Having had a large lunch we weren’t looking for much of a supper. About half of the group went next door to a restaurant, a few decided to skip entirely, and a few ventured out into the rain with Mary Ann to walk to her special place for her Salzburger Nockerl. We were pretty wet when we got there and each had a dessert. Mary Ann had taken another route because she wanted to investigate something and her dish took twenty minutes to prepare, so we ordered for her when we arrived. The waiter tried to talk us out of it. He said that it is for at least two people, as it said on the menu. We assured him that Mary Ann could handle it. As we waited, we noticed two tables of four that each split one. But Mary Ann was up to the challenge. It helped that she did not eat a meal first.

It was still raining on the way back. On the way there, we had passed under a bridge on a pedestrian walkway with the water flowing fast less than a foot below the wall. On our return, the ramp was closed and the water was almost to the top of the railing, a rise of close to three feet in less than two hours!

The hotel is pretty good although, as usual, the rooms are not overly large. Could not get the internet to work again.

I had planned to keep things simple and politically correct on this blog to avoid any controversy, but I have been challenged on my use of the term “internment camps” in Yugoslavia after World War II. A gentleman who spent three years in Rudolfsgnad prefers “death camps.” I guess when tens of thousands of people die in them, that description is pretty hard to dispute. So, let there be no doubt, many thousands of people died in these camps from hunger, cold, disease, and, sometimes, outright murder. Although the facts are unpleasant, they are indisputable and, I guess, no purpose is served by avoiding them.