Where's Scott?

Margit and Tini are kind enough to offer me the spare room (no hotel! hurrah!), and I make good use of it sleeping until noon. We head back into town and do a little touring and grab some coffee. Salzburg is beautiful this time of year, and despite having some tourists, it’s surprisingly uncrowded. On our way back home, we pass the preparations for tonight’s “half Christmas” party, something a few friends of Margit’s have been putting on for years. Christmas trees, lights, and lots of ornaments bring the season to life on the 24th of June each year – and we’re all invited.

Margit and I dig in her storage room and rustle up the necessary festive red and white hats, and Margit show’s me her extensive art compositions; it’s very cool and original work. Tini’s got a play to go to, so she plans to join us later, and Margit and I head into the madness that is half Christmas. There’s already about 75 revellers there, and more arriving.

Some people are really taking the party seriously and have full white fur lined red outfits on, and a few really creative hats! Most guests are like us with just a seasonal hat, but given the warm afternoon, it’s a good thing. There’s a wide selection of drinks, and lots of “hearty” Austrian food. Tini finally joins us after we’re already 3 sheets to the wind, but catches up in no time. I’m meeting lots of their friends, and they all have at least a basic knowledge of English, so I can avoid inflicting my destructive German on them!

The party (well, at least we and some of Margit’s closest friends) move the party closer to the bar, and it starts getting quite wild. Kris Kringle shows up with his… Um… Goblins! That’s right, Santa in Austria has some seriously ugly, scary brown goblins (not just at half Xmas either), and they grab people from the crowd to be interrogated by Kringle. It’s all in good fun of course, but it’s… well, different! 😉

Salzburg is the home of Red Bull (or at least one of it’s founders), and so Red Bull is in everything. I’m not much of a fan of the liquid candy myself, but all the cocktails are 1/2 redbull and 1/2 something tasty, so I make do ;). Still, about nine hours of this, and we’re very drunk and very wired. We eventually take the party back to Margit’s house. As we stagger back the sun’s just rising over the rooftops.

At the house Tini is barmaster, and makes short work keeping the party going! We all try to keep pace (memory’s a bit fuzzy here though ;), and we pour the final drinks at 7:30am – or there abouts anyway.