During my time in Salzburg, I stayed at the St. Sebastian Institute. There were dorms there for students, but the institute also functioned as a hostel, so travelers were always coming and going. I shared my dorm with two other students from my program. Though it would have been interesting to live with someone from Austria, it was nice to come back at the end of the day to people I knew and could study with. We had our own bathroom, but the kitchen was in a common space shared with everyone else living on the floor. Each person had their own little locked cubby and fridge section to keep food. It wasn’t much different from an American dorm, other than the lack of air-conditioning, Living through a hot summer without air-conditioning was probably the biggest “culture shock” I went through in terms of housing. We did, though very slowly, get used to it, and we learned to always keep the window open. The institute also had common spaces where students could eat, study, or hang out. This provided a great opportunity to meet the other students living in the dorms. As people came through to use the kitchen, we would chat and get to know each other. Most of the students staying there were international, so it was nice to meet other people who had been in the area longer and could give us recommendations from what they had done so far. It was nice to meet other foreigners, but it was difficult to find natives to practice German with because the students were mostly Americans or other internationals, many of whom didn’t speak German. To find people to speak German with, I had to go out into the city and really make an effort. The location of the dorm was perfect for learning about Salzburg’s culture. It was situated right in the middle of Salzburg’s old city, so we had easy access to the city’s historical center. I walked past Mozart’s birthplace nearly every day, and as I rode the bus to school, I had a view of the towering fortress where Salzburg’s archbishops lived. The dorms were also right down the street from the Capuzinerberg mountain, which made for a great hiking spot. From viewpoints on the trail, you could see over the whole old city, and from the top, you could see over the entirety of Salzburg. Living at St. Sebastian was definitely a positive part of my time in Salzburg.
