My Salzburg Staycations

 

 
I’m a traveler. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy staying at home sometimes just relaxing: barbecuing in the backyard, sunbathing on Balcony Island and twiddling my thumbs. But generally, I like to spend my holidays abroad. Whenever I have time off from university, I want to see something and experience something new – break out of my daily rut. This year, I’ve been on staycation twice, though; and no, I haven’t been bumming around at home. In the purest sense of the word, I have spent my time here in Salzburg the same way I would have on vacation.

How come? It all started with a friend from L.A. wanting to come see me. Last year in October, she finally took the plunge, jumped on a plane, and 14 hours later we met at Salzburg Airport. The following day, we started our sight-seeing adventure. Did you know that there are 44 churches in Salzburg?! Well, I didn’t. But somehow we managed to see at least half of them as well as a ton of other important sights. And this, even though I am probably the worst tourist guide in the history of… local residents playing tourist guide, I guess. I’ve been living in Salzburg for almost four years now, but being occupied with university life, all I ever saw was a small portion of the inner city. For the first time, when my friend was here, I really got to see Salzburg.  And I got to see it in a completely new light: with the eyes of a tourist. It absolutely felt like being on vacation.

This experience repeated itself during the Easter holidays, when my friend visited me again. Before her arrival, I thought to myself, “What are we going to do this time? Is there even anything left to see?” Turns out there is. We spent another amazing three weeks together and visited a vast amount of places that we hadn’t been to before. We also stayed a few days in Vienna as well as a few days at my parents’ house in Linz, where we went see to places like Melk Abbey and the scary vampire town of Krumlov in Czech Republic. Surprisingly, it was one of the most enjoyable holidays I’d had in a long time. 

In only a few months, I’ve been on staycation twice and I can’t say I’ve gotten tired of it yet. After all, it wasn’t that different from any other vacation in a European city. Nevertheless, I’m flying out to L.A. in September, and it will be my friend’s turn to go on staycation for a couple of weeks. It should be fun – as usual.