Salzburg, Austria

How the h*** is he doing this?

The childhood home of Mozart.

Me, waking up this morning:)

A late night "jam session" a a local gastro pub where a friend of mine's uncle was playing. A bunch of local musicians play here every Thursday night and on this particular night, there were only a couple of us listening. This is as local as it gets, and Rick Steve's has nothing on me!! *Rick Steve's is a European travel guru who spends about four months a year traveling, writing articles, publishing books, and making video's of Europe. One major distinction between he and I is the fact that he gets paid to do it! Check out his website at: www.ricksteves.com

This is Maxy, short for Maximillion. He's is 87 years young and plays the base at this local pub every Thursday with a group of men. His wife Kati was there with him drinking red wine and they were a complete joy to meet and hang out with. She is 75 years young, but acts 25 years old! Maxy was captured during WWII and taken to work as a laborer in England. The farm was looked after by American soldiers and he said he was so thankful to work on an "American ran farm" as opposed to one of the other Ally forces, otherwise he would not have been treated so well. He and Kati have now resided in Austria since the War ended for over 50 years now and have two grown children and both of them are retired and enjoy the typical Austrian lifestyle known to the Salzburg area. You sometimes can't put a price tag on your travel when you meet people like this and hear a story such as this.

The hills may be alive with the Sound of Music, but the streets are filled with tourists. Bad economy, what bad economy!! *Salzburg is the home of where most of the movie The Sound of Music was filmed. The town is only about 250,000 people, but consistently swells to over a million people in the height of the Summer--a lot of whom want to get a glimpse of some of the scenery captured in this iconic film.