June 2, 2007
The Yale women's basketball team's 10-day foreign tour continued today, when the Bulldogs left Germany for neighboring Austria. Yale visited Salzburg, Mozart's birthplace and home to the movie The Sound of Music. Sound of Music nuts Kaitlyn Lillemoe and Emily St. Jean were inspired to sing the praises of their favorite movie, and favorite stop so far on the trip.
These are a few of our favorite things
Yale Women's Basketball hears the "Sound of Music" in Salzburg
Today our team spent the majority of the day in Salzburg, Austria--the birthplace of Mozart and the home of the famous 1964 film The Sound of Music starring Julie Andrews. Although we are not "16 Going On 17", we were very naive to how much Salzburg had to offer. "Somewhere In Our Youths or Childhoods We Must Have Done Something Good" to deserve this trip!
The short ride to Salzburg from Bad Reichenhall was picturesque, filled with green mountains and windy rivers, very similar to New Haven :) After we got acquainted with our tour guide, Hans (don't worry, Robert was there too), we began our tour with the Mirabell Gardens, which are best known for the scene where the Von Trapp children and Maria frolic around the fountains, statues, and trees singing "Doe Ray Me". We even tried to re-enact part of this scene by skipping under the hanging garden for the cameras--though unfortunately these pictures of Emily (Liesel), Kaitlyn (Marta), Mel (Kurt) and Nenye (Gretl) will NOT be posted on the website. There were many "Raindrops on Roses" in the garden because it had rained earlier that morning. This was only the first stop along our journey of many famous Sound of Music sights--we later saw the lake where the Von Trapp children and Maria fell out of their canoe (fortunately, we had no such incidents, although of course Nenye tried to push other girls into the murky water), the gazebo where kisses were plentiful, and the mansion where the Von Trapp family lived.
Once we had finished our morning tour, we were free to spend a few hours in the old city to enjoy lunch and shopping. It's funny how Yale/New Haven girls manage to find a Starbucks, pizza and/or McDonalds in every town we visit. The town was beautiful, filled with cobblestone streets, ancient castles, and historic churches. Although we failed to see any "Edelweiss" while roaming the city, we did see the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
While looking out the windows on the way back to Bavaria, the Alps looked so green and beautiful. But after a long day of walking through the town, we were not quite ready to "Climb Every Mountain." Instead, we are excited to play a Bavarian All-Star team tonight in our second game!
Coming at you live from the suburbs: "So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye. GOODBYYYYYEEEEEE!"
Kaitlyn (Marta) and Emily (Liesel)