Monday, 21 December 2015

We arrived in Vienna this morning.  We’d been awake for more than 24 hours by the time we checked into our apartment, so we took naps and then went out for a walk in the late afternoon to orient ourselves a bit.  We still felt a little zombified, though, so we wandered around the streets near our building but didn’t really know what we were looking at.  Each street has a different light theme for the holidays and it’s beautiful.

The entire city center has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has spectacular architecture everywhere you look.

Window shopping at a Lalique glass shop.  Holden is eating fish and chips out of a cardboard box.  I think he’s actively growing right now because he has a voracious appetite lately.  He’s always been fixated on meals, but he’s stepped it up a notch.  Normally he’s a bit picky, which is why he’s always wanting to know ahead of time what the next meal is going to be.  These days, though, almost anything he can throw down his gullet will do.

St. Stephen’s Cathedral.  The tile work on the roof is spectacular.

We’re going to be treated to a rare full moon on Christmas this year.  The last full moon on Christmas was in 1977.  It’s only a few days away … here you can see the almost-full moon peeking out from clouds, making St. Stephen’s Cathedral look medieval.  Where are the vampires?

A large collection of teddy bears with a sign informing everyone they are most definitely not for sale.  Language and cultural differences always interest me.  In Japan, a sign like the one in this window would have an English translation saying something like, “We are humbly honored to have you admire our bears, we are so sorry but they are not for purchase thank you.”  Here, the English said “NO!!  NOT FOR SALE!” in all capital letters with exclamation points.

It’s hard to choose which street has the prettiest light display, but I think so far this one is my favorite (below).

Although this one is really nice, too.

We went back to the apartment at 8:30 p.m. with the intention of going to bed, but none of us could sleep.  We discovered on Netflix they have the newest episode of Black Mirror available and were really excited to see it.  As far as I know, it hasn’t been released into the US market yet.  It’s a Christmas special that originally aired in England 16 Dec 2014 but we hadn’t seen it.  The title is “White Christmas” and (no spoilers, I promise) stars Jon Hamm and is, in our opinion, the very best episode they’ve made.  (Netflix bought the show and has announced they will make a 12-episode season 3 to be released on an unspecified date.)

Tuesday, 22 December 2015

(Below) Some shots of the apartment we’ve rented for our stay here. We found this place on our old standby, AirBnb – and it has surpassed our expectations.

This apartment has 2800 sq.ft and is on the 5th floor (Penthouse) at the top of a building housing a luxury shopping mall on the main levels. The apartment has 3 floors but curiously only one regular bedroom. Each kid has their bed located in a loft area. There are two bathrooms, a kitchen and a private outdoor patio that gives 360 degree views of downtown Vienna.

It also has great internet, wifi, Netflix, and a color printer.

The kitchen in this place is by far the best stocked one we’ve ever rented.  They even have spice grinders filled with salt, pepper, and dried red pepper flakes. The full-sized refrigerator is hidden in the white cabinetry.  Other items necessary for cooking are included, too, like a bottle of olive oil, sugar, spices.

The windows have automatic shades and the closet unit has lots of space for the girls to unpack.  We don’t have to live out of suitcases for two weeks, which is really nice.

Holden’s area.  He has a closet for himself, too.

There is only one full bath (the main floor has a half bath) but it’s a really nice one.  The white cabinet in the corner houses a washing machine. The host stocked the bathroom with toothpaste, mouthwash, and laundry detergent in addition to the usual staples like soap and shampoo. They really have thought of everything.

We were grateful to the owner for including a car service from the airport so we didn’t have to figure out how to get here after spending so many hours on a plane.  He also stocked the kitchen with a big bowl of fresh fruit, cereal, instant rice, pasta, bottled water and juice, tea, coffee, and wine.  That was particularly welcome since we were hungry but also so tired we could hardly think when we arrived.

Not pictured is the private in-apartment elevator that goes from the first floor kitchen all the way up to the roof-top deck.  I can only imagine it’s primary use is to transfer food up there so you don’t have to carry everything up three flights of stairs.  The main elevator is outside the front door and opens in the mall adjacent to a chocolate cafe.  The whole area smells like hot chocolate.

The mall itself has everything one could possibly need for the duration of a stay here.  There is a huge grocery store on the bottom floor, restaurants, cafes, and food kiosks, clothing stores, a drug store … you name it.  You don’t even have to put a coat on to run downstairs for any item you might decide you need.

We like to spend the first couple of days in any new location just walking around the city to get a feel for where we are.  We dedicated today to visiting several different Christmas Markets – Vienna hosts about 20 of them in various parts of town. Some of them close down as soon as tomorrow, so we made it a point to visit these first. Everything was in walking distance.

This building belonged to the Hapsburgs and now houses the National Library.

Emperor Franz Joseph I in front of the Hofburg quarters.

Rose gardens throughout the Volksgarten Vienna park.  The tea roses are covered for the winter.  This place must be a magical wonderland in springtime when all the roses are blooming.

This year we won’t have a white Christmas. However, the good news is that it doesn’t look like it is going to rain the entire time we’re here.  Weather today was gorgeous – sunny and 56. Most of the time we’re here, however, it’ll be more like 45 day time, 38 at night.

“Frohe Weihnachten” (Merry Christmas) at the Rathausplatz Christmas market. Half of the booths sell local arts and crafts, the other half sell more than a dozen types of alcoholic drinks. The third half sell candies and treats. Good stuff for everyone!

We found some pink frosted doughnuts with sprinkles that look exactly like the ones Homer Simpson is always eating.  We bought one for Holden specifically to get this photo.  Holden was more than happy to oblige.  (The flavor was “erdbeer” which we learned is the German word for strawberry.)

Holden and Isabella checking out toys in the Rumplestilzchen booth.

Next was the Art Advent in Karlsplatz.  Tomorrow is the last day for this street market full of artisans offering their handmade and original wares.  They mostly had pottery and glass works, which were all very lovely.  I didn’t buy anything because most of it was so delicate I didn’t think I could get it home unbroken.

This market also had a petting zoo with goats and a couple of baby pigs.

Mostly, the children picked up armfuls of hay and threw it at each other.  We left this area before we got really dirty.

Josie thinking her deep thoughts while watching the baby pigs.  Josie loves pigs.

Lots of street performers back near our apartment.  This guy was making huge bubbles and then blowing smaller bubbles filled with smoke into the center of them.  It got a little windy and started messing him up, as the large bubbles were floating away before he had a chance to work his magic on them.

The kids watching a street artist paint a new drawing with spray paint cans and hand tools. Josie bought the painting the guy is making (€15) while I bought three watercolors done by the guy’s wife (lady on the right-hand side of the photo with yellow sleeves).

Street art at Stephansplatz. I bought 5 small water color paintings from two different artists — three from the lady married to the spray painting guy, and two from a young Polish artist planning to move to Chicago in 2016.  He was very keen to discuss Chicago with us when we told him we’d lived there for a year.

His watercolors were so good I assumed they must be prints and wasn’t going to buy one.  They were so well-crafted and had so much detail I figured they had to be small prints made from much larger originals.  I asked the guy if they were originals or not and he assured us they were … then he showed us the painting he was currently working on, which was beautiful even in it’s half-finished state.  He also pulled one of his finished paintings off the rack after giving it a scrutinizing look and said, “I can make better” and added some color and detail right there on the spot.  Sold!!  I bought two.  His work is better than a lot of stuff I’ve seen in galleries.

Another shot of St Stephen’s Cathedral and it’s spectacular tiled roof.

After walking around all day, we discovered that we’re having more trouble keeping track of each other in the crowds in this location than we ever have anywhere else.  We blend in here so well we lose each other.  Isabella remarked that we look like Austrians in spite of our genetic heritage being around 90% English and 10% Irish/Scottish mix.  (Adam has a German relative somewhere back in his family tree, but I think that’s an outlier in an almost all British cast.)  Anyway, we were surprised at how much we look like the Austrian crowd, including our clothing.  In most countries we’ve visited it’s a lot easier to keep track of each other because we stand out (sometimes like sore thumbs; Japan, for instance).  Even in England our clothes are noticeably different from everyone else’s.  In some ways it’s nice to be able to blend in, though.  We don’t attract attention as obvious tourists, which can make you into a target.

We ate a small snack in a sit-down cafe late this afternoon, but mostly we’ve been going back to our apartment for meals.  The grocery store is so convenient we’ve found it easier (and cheaper) to go there and pick out food to take upstairs.  We get tired of sitting in restaurants and have found we prefer to eat at home when possible. It also tends to be healthier, too.  We bought some fruit, olives, pastrami, cheese, and fresh bread — what we call our “Skyrim meal” that we eat a lot when we travel.  No cooking required.  They also have really inexpensive wine here.  You can get a bottle for €3.  Adam bought a very nice red for €6.  The €/$ exchange rate is pretty close to 1/1 right now, so prices are easy to calculate on this trip.

Wednesday, 23 December 2015

Today was another walking-around day.  We explored a couple of different areas and ran into a few more Christmas markets.  We had fun, but it doesn’t make for interesting stories.

The architecture here is amazing.  Every corner you turn has more exquisite buildings.

20 minutes after we left the apartment, Holden was so hungry he had a stomach ache.  We bought him a “hot dog” from a street vendor.  They stuff a bratwurst into a hollowed-out baguette with mustard squirted into the bottom.  The sausage shoves the mustard up the sides and coats the whole thing.  Then they stick the top of the baguette on the bratwurst like a little hat.  They call it a hot dog, but it doesn’t much resemble what we think of as a hot dog.

Isabella inspecting handmade leather purses.  She wanted one pretty badly, but they were €50 each and in the end she decided that was too rich for her blood and walked away.  She decided €50 in her pocket was better than a purse with €0 in it.

We found this location just wandering around.  That yellowish building behind us is the location of Mozart’s house (pink plaque next to the arched doorway on the end of the building.)  His house stood in that very spot, but was torn down in order for this building to be put in it’s place.

Around the corner from Mozart’s house.

Horse-drawn carriages in another grand location, right in front of one of the more posh Christmas markets.

Handblown glass Christmas ornaments.  These are stunning, but really fragile-looking.

The girls and I buying little wooden balls soaked in essential oils to be used as room fresheners.  Holden didn’t want one even though the lady offered to give him one for free.

Josie had a bit of a rough day.  As the youngest, her opinions and comments tend to get drowned out by older, louder, more adult siblings.  She was feeling a little like the picked-on runt piglet by the time we stopped for lunch, and then –rubbing salt in the wound — the waiter forgot to bring her meal.  She had to eat the leftovers off everyone else’s plates.  Adam and I resolved to make sure we pay more attention to her so she doesn’t feel so left out from now on.

The sun peeked out this afternoon.  The daylight hours are very short this time of year.

“Umm … maybe I’m better off taking my chances with the shark.”

This guy turned a broom into a guitar and was actually a pretty skilled musician.  Holden:  “Boy, quidditch sure has changed.”

We went back to the apartment around dinnertime.  I wanted to get a load of laundry going, Adam and I needed to go to the grocery store for the Christmas dinner fixins’ (potatoes, carrots, brussels sprouts, chicken tenderloins … ingredients easy to cook that will still taste OK with only salt, pepper and butter as flavoring agents) since the stores will have limited hours tomorrow on Christmas Eve day, etc.

After the chores were done and everyone got a little something to eat, we started arguing about what to watch on TV.  This apartment has only one television.  We searched for a long time on Netflix to find something suitable for everyone (which is next to impossible) and landed on Back to the Future, which the kids have never seen.

It ended up being really fun … it took a very long time to get through it because the kids kept hitting pause to ask Adam and me about 1985, and to speculate about the storyline in the movie.  Moments like these don’t happen at home when everyone can scatter to a different room/device and do their own thing, so while it was frustrating trying to watch the film, it was endearing to interact with the kids and have all of us engaged in the same movie.

After the movie Adam and I went back out, just the two of us.  It was quite nice to walk around without having to keep track of 5 people.  We may start taking a evening walk, just the two of us, each night.

Tomorrow we will attempt to find the big art market, which I’ve been looking forward to since before we left home.  We’ve also covered most of the city center in our aimless wanderings and will spend the next part of the trip visiting specific locations.  Vienna has the world’s oldest zoo, several museums, the house Mozart lived in when he composed The Marriage of Figaro, boat tours down the Danube, etc.