4th of July / der 4. Juli

Our 4th of July started with an exciting police car chase which ended in the street right outside our door, three police cars stopping a banged up car for some unknown reason. The passenger in the car was quickly brought out of the car and placed against the wall where he stayed, unsupervised, while the driver was talked to and the smashed-in car front inspected. While the police rifled through the driver's wallet and pockets and glove compartment, the driver smoked a cigarette. After a while, the passenger was directed to the back seat of one of the police cars where he was joined by a blond haired police woman while the driver was directed into the back seat of another police car. Then off went all three cars quietly, leaving the damaged car behind. It's still sitting there, waiting for more action.

Later we headed downtown on our bikes for lunch and a last visit to the Altstadt. We found the European Stone Festival underway, hundreds of stone masons gathered on Dom Platz chiseling giant stone blocks of stone. Like every good festival in Salzburg, kids weren't left out, and there was a children's area where kids could try their hand at stone masonry with real hunks of stone and real tools. Nikolas spent a long time working on his rendition of a mountain, carefully walking around and around his stone, chiseling here and chiseling there until the mountain was just right in his eyes.

Unfortunately since the mountain carving took so long, we missed our weather window to cycle home before the afternoon thunderstorm came in. After June's constant rain, July has started with three storms a day. One rolls in at around 6am and last a few hours before clearing up for a few hours. Another storm will hit in the early afternoon, and then another crashes in during the night. It's been the same for four days now. I never thought I'd say that I miss June, but I do.

We took refuge under the arched passageway next to the Dom with loads of other people doing the same thing. There was a busker playing melancholy tunes on his futuristic electric violin which was good entertainment for a while. More than an hour later when we reached the fourth playing of Ave Maria and his routine was starting all over again, we had to move on even though it was pouring harder than ever. You would think we would have, could have, learned by now, but we had ridden into town with absolutely no rain gear, and so we started off for the bus stop, bikes in tow, soaked before we got anywhere. The taxi stand half way to the bus stop looked inviting, and while standing under a tree debating about ditching the bikes so we could all jump in a taxi and collecting them later or Peter riding the bus with both bikes and Nikolas and I taking a taxi, our knight in shining armor drove up: a silver taxi van whose driver was willing to fold down two of the three rows of seats so that he could drive three sopping people and our dripping filthy bikes home, all for the same price that two crummy Mozart mini-umbrellas would have cost us from a souvenir stand!

Even without the parade or the fireworks, this was certainly a 4th of July to remember. Happy 4th everyone!