Sports Law and a trip to Salzburg!

Today was fantastic.  We left this morning at 8:30am to head to Salzburg, Austria for the day.  Its not a long bus ride, really only about an hour and a half and I slept basically the whole way there, which was wonderful.  When we got to Salzburg we started the day with a lecture at the University of Salzburg with Professor Michael Geistlinger.  Today's lecture was about international arbitration as it relates to Sports Law and the Court of Arbitration for Sports, located in Switzerland.  We focused mostly on the Olympics and Olympic sports, along with the Anti-Doping Laws.  I really enjoyed the lecture.  This was definitely one that I could've kept listening to for a lot longer if I hadn't been so anxious to get out and explore Salzburg.

Before we could go exploring, we took a tour of the University's law library which has some beautiful historic rooms in it.  The two main interesting rooms were the map room and then a second room that isn't actually used for anything right now, but occasionally houses exhibits.  After the library tour, the real fun started.

maps

Paintings on the wall in the currently unused exhibit room

First a group of us headed to Steigl Brewery for lunch.  It's part way up the hill to the Fortress and is the largest privately owned brewery in Austria.  I had the goulash, which was delicious and a Stiegl Grapefruit flavored beer that was surprisingly good.  From the Brewery groups sort of went their separate ways, but a large group of us started to head up the mountain to the fortress. 

Part way up, I realized that a museum exhibit I wanted to see was going to close before we finished at the fortress, so I went back down (we'd really only gone a little bit of the way) and off to find the museum.  I wanted to see the museum of historical musical instruments, but they currently have a Von Trapp exhibit in it that I wasn't interested in enough to pay the admission fee.  I ended up wandering around the city by myself for a little while, which was actually fantastic.  Traveling in huge groups is hard because we very rarely get to see everything.  I loved wandering around on my own today.  Salzburg is a wonderful city.

I went through the cemetery at Stiftskirche St. Peter, and wandered into the church to look around.  The cemetery and church were beautiful.  Cemeteries can be so creepy when they aren't kept up, but this one looked more like a garden than a cemetery. 

From there I went up to the fortress on the funicular.  The views of the city from the top were amazing, as were the views off the other side of the fortress, where you can see the mountains in the background and the snow still on the peaks. 

I also got to see exhibits in the staterooms.  There were historical exhibits about how the archbishops lived in the fortress and what the rooms might have looked like, along with information about different aspects of life at that time. 

From the fortress, I went down to the Cathedral (Salzburg Dom) to check it out and take more pictures.  Like everything else in Salzburg, it was beautiful.  I ran into Professor Lanier and Dr. McMurtrey while I was in there, just looking around.

From the Cathedral, I decided to walk down the main shopping street and around the area that makes up the center of town.  I went past the house Mozart was born in, and then ran into Yashica, who had also been exploring the city on her own for the day. 

The two of us headed over to Scholss Hellbrun and the Mirabell Gardens.  We easily spent over an hour in the gardens taking pictures and enjoying the flowers and views of the fortress and the mountains. 

It started to rain again so we found a little cafe where a large part of the group had ended up and grabbed some dinner and hung out there until it was time to leave.  While we were eating, we met a woman from New York who has traveled extensively in Europe and got some recommendations about Venice from her.

Once we got back on the bus everyone was still pretty wound up from the day and having fun, so the bus ride home turned into a dance party for the first 45 minutes or so before people calmed down a little. 

 Only one 3 hour class stands between me and the free weekend!  I can't wait to spend my bday in Munich with Sarah and Kaley!