The One Where She Visits Rupertikirtag and Oktoberfest! P.S. She Eats Good Food!

Rupert who? Oktoberfest what? Presentation when? Yes, this week has been full of questions and events that have made this experience abroad even more incredible! Each day that I am in this beautiful country, I learn more about immersion into a culture and how to enjoy this experience to its fullest. As of today, I have officially been away from home for a month, and WOW has it gone fast. Of course, I miss little things like Dairy Queen blizzards and big things like...Dairy Queen blizzards, but I am learning to crave new foods here as well. This past week was full of new foods for the pallet, new festival experiences for the eyes, and new German words for the ears. This post will highlight my experiences at Saint Rupert's festival, Oktoberfest, and food that I have both prepared with my Gordon Ramsey talent or spent lots of money on to enjoy just a few blissful bites:)

Rupertikirtag (Saint Ruperts Festival):

Rupertikirtag is know as Saint Rupert's festival here in Salzburg. Saint Rupert is the patron saint of Salzburg. Every year, in the "old town", the citizens come together to form a huge festival to honor their patron saint. This festival includes fun fair games, handicrafts, rides, and of course MANY new foods to try. To me it seemed like a large scale festive version of a farmers market. The festival lasts for four days and concludes on a Tuesday night with a brilliant firework show shining across the river over the Fortress of Salzburg. The festival also features many local artists and small business owners. There are tours of the Cathedral, ghost train tours, and folk music galore! Students do not have school during the days of the festival so they can celebrate this special time with their families and friends.

During my time at Rupertikirtag, I had many fun experiences. I headed down to the crowded streets on the first day the festival was open, very eager and not knowing what to expect. Honestly, when I got there I couldn't believe my eyes. The town that I had just started becoming familiar with was no longer quaint and quiet, but lively in a different way. My ears rang with the beautiful sound of trumpets, guitars, and accordians. My eyes were treated to the sites of Lederhosen and Dirndl's dancing, sunshine on the Cathedral, and shiny jewelry at every corner. My nose was overtaken by the smell of fresh baked goods, potatoes, and candied almonds...mmmmmmm. I was so amazed at how this town had transformed overnight. Not only was the festival incredible, but so were the people around it. I couldn't help by smile when I got to see little ones running around the cobblestone singing to the music, and when I saw those passed out in their strollers with chocolate smeared all over their lips. This proved to be a successful Rupertikirtag for them:) I looked around at the handicrafts with some friends and bought a beautiful handmade bracelet. My friends picked up some rings, and some other little gifts to bring home in December.

After a day full of excitement, the CSB/SJU Austrian crew went out for a night at Rupertikirtag together. Each of us dressed up in our traditional Austrian attire, and headed into the heart of the festival. The Ferris wheel screamed with the joy's of little voices, and our group ran to the tent for some drinks and dancing. After a few games of hot-seat, we wanted to head out to get some food and explore the festival more. I got a another giant pretzel as per Austrian tradition, and took some pictures with friends before we danced the night away. Yes, of course, O'Malleys was sad that night as they had lost all their student revenue to Rupertikirtag;).

Being the foodie that I am, my final bit on Rupertikirtag will of course be about the FOOD! Lets just say my run on Monday was a little bit more challenging after this past weekend:). I was once told never to eat at the same place twice, so I decided to try something at as many stands as my wallet could handle. I started off strong only allowing myself a chocolate covered cream filled pastry. However, that just opened up my horizons to all the tastes my tongue would be missing if I spared the change in my wallet. So, what did I do....what any normal person would...spend it all:). I tried the famous Currywurst: spicy yet tangy and sweet. Next was the Pizza Langos: fried pizza inside of a fried bread roll. It was about a foot long. My tummy really loved me after that! Next was some cheese, bread and sausage samples: had to give the ole billfold a 20 minute break. And finally, I topped it off with some warm cinnamon candied almonds: seriously YUM!!!! On the night of the fireworks, I splurged once again and got a Langos which is just fried garlic bread and butter about the size of a medium pizza! The serving size recommended sharing...not a chance:). My food experience here was INCREDIBLE and I cannot wait to come back here one day just to eat some of those homemade foods again!!!

Rupertikirtag ended with a bang with the final firework show Salzburg will ever have. Due to the environmental effects that fireworks cause, they have been banned in Salzburg. Because of this, my blue eyes got to see the last fireworks of the Rupertikirtag festival. What a treat that was! Our group got dressed up again and watched the fireworks along the river bank while eating our last savory bites of the festival food, all of us buzzed on the happy memories we had made together. The final firework show is below, and I hope you enjoy the best firework show as much I did. The finale is definitely worth the watch!!!

OKTOBERFEST:

I am one of the few Americans that can say I went to the REAL Oktoberfest! However, I am jealous of the American version of waking up at 9:00am, and heading into the festival at 11:30. I, on the other hand, was up and at 'em at 3:30am. Well, I was suppose to be up then. But, due to an unfortunate series of events, I missed my alarm and woke up with only 15 minutes to get out the door and to the bus stop. After spilling a jar of salad dressing on the floor, burning my toast, and putting in a defective right eye contact, I was out the door. Yes, it was somewhat of a rough start to what would become a long, but very fun day!

After hoping on our 5:45am train to Munich, our group was exhausted and ready for some sleep. I listened to a podcast to prepare myself for the day and watched the sunrise over the German hillside. We entered Munich at 7:45am and were ready to head to the festival...I know CRAZY right. Who would go to Oktoberfest so early in the morning? This crazy group of CSBSJU students would. We lined up outside of the festival in a gated area that had people wrapped around multiple blocks just to enter the festival. I thought it was purely insane that so many people were getting there so early in the morning just to have incredibly large alcoholic beverages in a giant tent. However, I was doing that exact thing too:). In Austria and Germany, drinking is more of a social aspect than anything else. You have a drink and be merry and social with those around you. I thought this would be the idea at Oktoberfest as well, but I was a little off....people do drink a lot.

When the gates opened the mass of people started sprinting into the festival grounds. And I, the young naive traveler that I am, sprinted too. I ran for a solid five minutes before I realized I was running to nothing and that no stand on the grounds was open. It was quite a funny thing when my friends and I realized that. Our group walked around, found a tent we wanted and waited outside until it opened at 10:00am so we could mark a few tables for the day! While waiting, we played a game of hot-seat and got to know each other more!

Pictured above is the tent that we stayed at for a majority of the day. The first thing I saw when I walked in the tent was a rather small man carrying twenty of the largest beers I had ever seen in my life. Foam was falling out of the glasses left and right, and people were already ordering another one...the tent had opened only five minutes before!! I turned to see another man standing on a table downing a liter of beer in less than 30 seconds. My mind was blown...where was I? Instead of grabbing a beer, I settled for my favorite pretzel of all time: Schnittelauchbrezel, which is the delicious combination I previously mentioned of butter and chives in the middle of the pretzel. AMAZING! I got some other gals to try one with me even though they were incredibly overpriced. I am happy to report that I have now gotten them addicted to these amazing pretzels, and I am no longer the only one who has to take out a separate fund just for a few of those bad boys.

After awhile I finally ordered a beer, which was not to my tongues standard of a fruity flavor. It was indeed a wheaty beer that tasted in the best possible way "beery". I was able to sip on that one beer for five hours and was happily okay with it. A band started playing around 12:00 pm and our group was having fun discussing our trip experiences and cracking jokes. It was a gorgeous day outside, so some of us went outside to get a bratwurst and water. Well, we thought thats what we were doing, but after about an hour it turned out that our food run was actually a giant game of hide and seek. Yes, people were lost, and without communication in this area where you had not even a half foot of free space around you. We decided we would find people at a later time closer to when we needed to leave for the train station. Two friends and I headed to our second tent after leaving a few others to test their luck at the festival games. In these tents you sat down wherever there was space. So, I ended up sitting next to a table of German guys and the other two were next to me at a table with couples. We talked to these interesting people and they let us try some traditional German bread and candies. After a little while, one male asked us if we would like to snort cinnamon...yes its cinnamon...I SWEAR! I politely declined, but enjoyed the look on my friends faces when their sinuses were completely cleared for the first time in 20 years! Now they can cross that tradition off their bucket list:). After awhile, a storm rolled in and we decided to head to the station to catch the train.

It took us roughly an hour and a half to corral everyone back together. This was the hardest task of the day, since no one knew were anyone was. Also, there was a few students visiting from other programs, and they had went off on their own...and since they were new to the drinking culture, I'm sure you can understand just how hard it was to find them. After some frustration and giggles, the 21st birthday girl stumbled into our arms and we were on our way to the station. When we arrived, we realized our train was delayed for solid 70 MINUTES!!! Everyone in the group had the mutual idea that Chinese food was a must. So we ate some good cuisine in the train station and waited for our train to arrive. After the long journey we got home exactly 22 hours from the time we had left. Yes folks, that was one hell of day, but man were the memories worth it. For anyone who wants to go to Oktoberfest I recommend you do it once, but I think after that one time, you will probably not be easily convinced to go back! It was an experience I tell you, but there are so many good memories there, and I will forever cherish the time that I had with my study abroad group of friends that day:)

Foodie Moments:

For my final little section of this blog I just wanted to take a paragraph or two to highlight my newfound Gorden Ramsey talent as well as other delicious food I have purchased and LOVED throughout the week. I am trying to try two-three new foods a week, and so far that has been one yummy success.

The first meal I would like the feature is my teriyaki chicken avocado and veggie lettuce wraps. I finally found a grocery store here that has all the ingredients I need to make some of my favorite meals so my credit card definitely took a ding this week:)

The other featured food I would like to mention is the OREO CREME FILLED DONUT. If you really know me, you know that my favorite things are donuts and ice cream. You can always catch me smiling when I have one of those two things in my hand! I hadn't had a donut since I left the states, but this week after Sunday Mass I found a donut shop! They had roughly ten choices of donuts, but I went for the Oreo one. Little did I know that it was filled with Oreo creme filling in the middle. This wasn't what I expected since the donut had a hole in the middle. But, it was the best surprise when I bit into the ooey gooey chocolate and Oreo creme deliciousness. This donut definitely topped off my week, and you can bet your buttons this will become my new Sunday ritual:)

I want to give a quick shout out to the University of Salzburg library. By far one of the coolest libraries I've been in featuring skylights, cushioned steps, couches, and study desks galore! I am a HUGE library girl so the discovery of this secret gem made me become more focused on my studies while abroad! I have already found my cozy study spot and will continue to make that my permanent residence for studying and relaxing during this fall semester:)

Well, another week has flown by, and once again I have stayed up much later than any night owl should. I think I will wrap up this post here leaving you with the excitement to view next weeks trip to Prague, Schnitzel cooking, and food features! Thanks for checking this post out, and I look forward to posting about this upcoming week very soon! Once again, I will leave you with the new knowledge I have learned this week:

1) Oktoberfest articles are not lying when they say that the beers have triple the alcohol content of a normal drink...don't question the statistics bro!!

2) Nutella toast is continually a good thing, the addiction does not stop.

3) Gym's want you to sign up, but they make it so hard to do so...its like someone is secretly trying to tell me to go back to bed and eat more 95 cent chocolate bars.

4) Clogged sinks apparently fix themselves on their own...???

5) If you need a pick-me-up ask your roommate Maggie for a hug, they're great:)

6) Chinese food has a special way of calming you down in a storm.

7) Running in the rain makes you more wet than walking in it...that goes for that 5 Euro Kebab (Gyro) you just bought too.

8) People are very hostile about the use of the vacuum, like calm down man, I'll bring it back...yes, I promise I will not lose it??

Thanks again for reading my update this week! I hope you enjoyed it and appreciate you being curious about my European adventures! I am still training for the half marathon, and is going well so far! Keep the encouragement coming:)

Best Wishes Always,

Abbey Jean