We had an nearly disastrous late arrival and had to rush from the airplane to a
train to a taxi just to make the 11pm check in curfew time at our guest house…
However, the people there were exceptionally kind and had waited for our
arrival. I’m sure there will be times in the future when we are not so lucky. I
know that we are resourceful and would’ve found somewhere to get our heads down,
but it still wasn’t a nice feeling!

But ever since then, we’ve enjoyed getting to know Vienna.  It’s late summer
now, and although it’s still warm, we are starting to feel the arrival of Fall.
Vienna was beautiful at this time of year…  and we enjoyed just wandering about
taking it all in. It’s such a clean city… with great shop windows for browsing
and all sorts of other little quirks. Mark was taken with the walk/do not walk
lights on the streets. You know the ones you see at a crosswalk that typically
show a white stick man waking for “go” and a stopped, red stick man for “stop?”
Well, in Vienna  they are similar but they there are special ones for people on
bikes! Let me tell you, we could use some of these in the Netherlands!! The
other quirk we found interesting was the newspaper sales mechanism. Basically,
on every other street you find a heavy plastic bag where you can take a paper at
your will and there is a little can where you drop your 50 euro cents (or
whatever.) It’s nice to see that kind of trust in a fairly sizable city.

Anyhow, as most of our travels are now starting to become… seeing Vienna was
more about taking in the feel of the place and seeing how people live (and eat!!
– has anyone noticed how much we talk about food in these journal entries!!?)
than seeing the sites. We did wander through the museum quarter and enjoy the
view of the beautiful Imperial Palace of the Hapsburg family. There are horse
drawn carriages all over the enter of Vienna – even more than a normal tourist
spot… which gives the city a festive feel. Watching one carriage driver water
his horses is one of my best memories of Vienna.

Vienna is also home of the Spanish Riding school and the Lippenzaner Stallions.
I thought it would be interesting to see them do some of their horsy ballet, but
shows are sold out years in advance and Mark probably wouldn’t have been too
interested. So, instead we ventured out in search of Mozart’s house. This tiny
little museum is a bit off the beaten track, but what makes it special is that
unless you know that you’re looking for it you’d walk past it without knowing it
was there. This is hard to believe in the city where literally everything is
Mozart. They have stores called “Just Mozart” where you can buy everything from
sheet music to little chocolates of Mozart’s head. Anyhow, for the 2 euro per
person entry price the house museum was well worth seeing. What an incredible
place Vienna must have been when all these composers were running around
creating some of the world’s most beautiful music.

And before we sign off this entry, I have to comment on some of the culinary
delights of Vienna. Of course we had to have sausages! Vienna is, after all, the
home of the wiener. Vienna’s local name is “Wien”—which is where “wiener” comes
from! Austria is also known for it’s cakes (which we also enjoyed) and it’s wine
taverns. Can’t say that the wine tavern was a successful experience for us… we
tried it, but the wine was not so good. Mark said it tasted a lot like
antifreeze – as if he really knows what antifreeze tastes like. But, you never
know what something is going to be like until you try it!