After the garden tour, Rob and Will visited the palace itself, since Maddie and I had seen it in 2006. It is a beautiful building and often gets overlooked or completely forgotten in the shadow of the trick fountains. The pavillion from the Sound of Music is also on the grounds. The filmmakers gave it to the city of Salzburg after the movie, but Salzburg didn't put it up until 1991. There is some serious ambivalence about the movie since it is a major reason that crazy Americans visit their city and do cheesy things like spin around on their mountains and break into song in front of landmarks and poke around in their cemetery. I was trying to understand, and I think it would be like Europeans descending upon Utah and knowing only Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or Touched by an Angel. Year after year.
We rode into town and Maddie and Sebi and I visited the Mirabell gardens which I'd wanted to see (Joss was taking a nap, Will had injured his foot, and Rob was watching over them both, savoring a minute when he didn't have to be in charge). They were pretty and absolutely full of exhausted tourists sitting on every bench they could find. While taking pictures, I noticed that the Japanese tourists were still looking cool and fresh as daisies, and that they'd take pictures in front of the same place in several different poses. With as many pictures as we have, I cannot imagine the number of files they must have to shuffle through. But they just kept powering on, determined to see everything and try everything. Americans were wilting. Rob overheard a small British child wailing "But I wont something toweeet roight naaaow!!" My children began punching each other as soon as they were within arms length of each other, so we weren't making any good impressions. But those Japanese -- Rob said "No wonder they're a world power!"
And to finish off our day, we ate at the Sternbrau with the students. It has been around for about 600 years, and with that kind of longevity, they make some good food. Joss wailed; Sebi fell off a bench and got one of my very cool bandaids with flaming dice. The boys decided to call it a day and Maddie talked me into going shopping for a dirndl for her. We found one in exactly the same store on Judengasse where we found her last one. We also saw another great water glass player and Getreidegasse and the Domplatz, Residenzplatz, and Mozartplatz; and lots of people wearing their dirndls and trachtenmode for the Salzburg festival.
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