A Rainy Night in Salzburg

I'm about to spoil the order of the telling of my trip, but I can't help it. I feel for some reason that this post must be written before others that chronologically came before it. What can you do- the heart wants what it wants, amirite.

Ah...the convenience of snapchat

Our second dinner in Salzburg was right in Mozartplatz, the old town, which boasts the oldest restaurant in Europe. Something like that. But it was a very nice sort of place, and I was dreadfully under dressed. I had taken the minimalist approach to packing, you see, and hadn't packed any nice things to wear.

They had forgotten about us vegetarians, although our tour guide assured us that he'd spoken with them twice about it. It didn't matter; I wasn't in any hurry to eat. When a dish of vegetables and rice was finally placed in front of me, I still wasn't hungry.

There was a show going on outside- a taste of what was to come in the next few weeks during Salzburg's festival of the performing arts. While I was waiting I made myself comfortable on the ledge and watched the actors. Later, when I'd lost interest in picking at my food, I again repaired to this ledge, and hung out the window to watch the crowds disperse.

A bevy of girls tripped gaily by, tossing their bright heads and chattering enthusiastically. Behind them followed their grandmothers. Some of them had covered their hair demurely with scarves. Impulsively, I leaned out a little more and waved. Amused by the friendliness of an American and a tourist, they waved back. I watched them all disappear past the archway.

Some time passed. I must have spent it without thinking of anything of note, because when my name was called, I found myself staring into space. All of a sudden the room was too warm. There was a touch of overripeness and something bloated in there. My friends seemed strange to me, but they weren't. I was the one being strange.

I couldn't stand it. The expressions on the servers' faces were grotesque in their amiability.

I fled.

Left the private dining room we were given, turned left. Then left, after a series of open doors. There was another window and another ledge- a bigger ledge with a heater in front of it. I flung that window open and clambered up beside it, a process made much easier by my sensible clothing (the ledge was pretty high, and some people had changed into dresses). I don't know how long I sat there, leaning wearily against the window frame. Ten minutes, maybe. 

<-- I meant Salzburg (in the video)

The sky was a funny mix of gray and pink, and the light that pierced that glorious gloom wasn't quite golden like it is back home. I blinked and missed the moment when pink began giving way to violet. It began to rain. Slowly, and then in earnest. Fat raindrops hit the cobblestones and drummed against the rooftops. Music to the ears of a drought-weary Californian.

The rain cooled the air, made it breathable. I no longer found myself stifled. Just in the nick of time, too, because I was joined by a girl I'd met on the trip. We sat and talked about something we found very important at the time, and then returned when informed that desert was ready.

Later, our group split. I followed the bigger half to watch some traditional dancing, a story for another time. Before that, we went for drinks on a terrace.

The walk to that terrace was steeply set into the hillside, with uneven cobblestones beneath our feet. It was the very picture of romance, what with the warm cloak that fell with dusk, the old crumbly (but stout still) buildings, the perfume of green things. Just after our breaths became labored-mine, at least- it began to rain again.

Do you not think that there is something of the divine in the first rain drops that fall before the deluge? They are the first to burst through the dam up in the skies while their eager compatriots squirm in cloudy prisons. They fell and kissed our cheeks as they fell. Soon the ground was filled with their falling bodies. We made it to the terrace before the rain really came down, to my consternation.

I was still feeling odd, so after my group found a table beneath some umbrellas, I fled again. I left by way of another terrace, climbed some stairs, hiked up a ways beside the road. I let myself get drenched, let the water cool my feverish cheeks and wash the paint off my face. My mascara is made of blackberries, and their sweet scent floated to me as the stuff ran down my face and was gone.



I liked the way my skin looked by streetlight, a glimmering, greenish bronze. Some others had followed me, and we spoke very seriously for a while. A different madness came upon me, the kind accompanied by mysterious smiles and a wild kind of gladness. Perhaps it was the rain.

When we returned, we found everyone crammed at a table removed from the reaches of water. Pity. We had our schnapps like children tasting cider for the first time.

Boo.