Vienna -- Random Stuff

Update -- School has started in full and it has been much easier for us than last year.  We had no idea what we were doing at the start of school last year but we were able to hit the ground running to a certain degree this year, so that has been nice. It almost feels like a real job. Ugh!

Andy and Rita (our Hungarian friends) invited us to her mother's house a few weekends ago and it was pretty amazing. Her mom and grandmother prepared traditional Hungarian foods for us all weekend. In true Hungarian fashion, her mom gave us a taste of their special home-made Palinka too. Ooof.

Also, we have furniture now and that has been especially nice! Anyway, on to the blog...

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So, this will be random and most likely out of any type of order but here is a lot of the other stuff we saw/did in Vienna...

Memorial to Soviet liberation

We just happened across that memorial on the way to the Archduke Franz Ferdinand's palace...

Known as Belvedere...and yes, this was taken off the side of a van by the entrance. Don't judge us!

Entrance to the Archduke's Estate

View from the back of the entrance

And from that entrance to the palace...this would have been much more impressive if we hadn't already seen Shonbrunn!

A bit closer to the palace

Fountain before the palace -- not under construction...just not working

Melissa on the way to the top of the fountain -- she left me with the camera and I got bored...cause even though this was much smaller than Shonbrunn it still took a long time to walk around the place.

And Melissa atop the fountain w/ palace in the background (and I think Oilerman?)

Yep, Oilerman

Again, Oilerman -- you may notice the amount of blurriness when I take the pictures.

From that spot back to the entrance

And from that spot on to the palace -- again, impressive -- just not as impressive as Schonbrunn

Meliss was very close to climbing atop this siren/whatever it was but didn't want to get kicked out.

Probably a good thing since some lady heard us speaking English and offered to take our picture -- would've been awkward if Meliss was riding that thing like Seabiscuit

And with the palace in the back

As close up as we could get to show the whole palace

Still can't do the panorama -- so here's the left side

And the right

And center -- again, this was the home of the guy whose assassination started WWI

Crest

And back towards the entrance -- St. Stephen's Basilica on the left

Us at The Archduke's

Now, we didn't tour the palace because it had been converted to an art museum and, as classy and cultured as we are, even we can only handle so much fine art. There were many museums to choose from, but we chose The Albertina.

The Albertina -- oooh, look at the big thing sticking out of the roof, how artsy!

Stuff on the outside

Stairs leading to the entrance

Meliss and Oilerman on stairs leading to the entrance

And the entrance...

Now, they didn't allow pictures inside because Istvan knows a picture couldn't do justice to the wonderful, spectacular works of art inside. Is the sarcasm coming through?

As it turns out, Meliss and I are not art people, who knew?! I fully expected us to have a Ferris Bueller type "moment" inside the museum but I suppose it was not meant to be. There was a Monet exhibit which was the highlight -- but it was only like two rooms and the rest was just a bunch of stick figures that seemed sooooo artsy-fartsy!

I would say that if you gave your child or grandchild a piece of paper and some crayons they could pretty much reproduce everything we saw. Now, perhaps a different museum (and there were about 5 that we had a choice of) would have been better for us -- but, in the end, we like what we like and that wasn't it (we were in awe at the Vatican Museum, though...if that counts for anything).

More random stuff...

Some garden with Vienna in the background

Close-up of said garden

Strauss Statue

With close-up

So, there were concerts like this just about every night in Vienna. There is just a lot of culture in Vienna -- art museums, opera, history museums, and concerts. While we don't regret not going to a concert (it was 100 Euros), I think we would have enjoyed that much more than the Albertina. I wonder if our dress sweatshirts would have been acceptable?!

Street from outside the Albertina

Another street from the Albertina

Statue -- don't know who

Plague Memorial

This is all from atop the Albertina

Another big, scary church

Bathroom door of some bar we went in. Well, crap -- can't smoke, do heroin, or throw up -- what kind of place is this?!
We did not stay...or use the bathroom

And...our favorite place in Vienna, by far. We found it on some side street as we wandered around at night trying to waste time before going to bed. 

And Heinz himself!

Weiner Schnitzel at Heinzi's

Heinz with Oilerman

Heinz, Melissa, and I with schnapps

So, the first night we went in we noticed Heinz dropping off pretzel sticks at everybody's table...just not ours.
This is a picture from the second night we went in...after Heinz brought us a glass of pretzels -- we really felt like we belonged!

More schnapps -- after palinka, this actually tasted good.
By the way, Heinz believes that Arnold Schwarzenegger will eventually come back to
Austria and become president or prime minister or king or whatever they have.

Heinz's place had a bunch of board and dice games in the cupboard -- so we borrowed some and
played Fill-or-Bust for a while one night. Also, Heinz gave us the rolling cup as a souvenir. So, that's what we brought back from Vienna. 

But, during the days, we did a lot of walking. Here's some more stuff...

Brahms

Another big church

These were in the window of some of the shops right by our hotel...yeah, we were out of place.
Those prices are in Euros by the way!

Famous dessert from Vienna -- we didn't eat it (strudel instead)

But, it looked good

People tell us that Austrian/German is pretty close to English in a lot of ways....well, maybe not.

Took this for Sarah

Roasted chestnuts were being sold on just about every corner. They are everywhere in Hungary as well...and seem to me to be very dangerous as they come crashing down from the trees. 

Main walking street in Vienna

Street performers

And more food

Part of the Danube

Ha! Such a shock that we didn't love the art museum, isn't it?

It was a long holiday in Vienna and we saw a lot...enough that we don't ever have to go back if we don't want. It was our first real good travel lesson and that is to stay no more than 3 days in any one city. We should have split this up with Bratislava or Prague or even taken some day trips into Austria but we didn't know enough at the time. We also realize now that although Vienna is expensive it is on par with the other Western Euro cities we've visited as well.

Ok, next up -- some stuff from a year at our schools!