Friday, 01 January 2016

This morning we were greeted with snow. Not much, but enough to say it snowed while we were here. The kids raced up to the roof top to have a little fun.

All morning the kids announced everything they did:  “Our first day of 2016 we played in the snow in our pajamas!” and “The first food we ate in 2016 was a bagel with cream cheese from Starbucks!” etc.

Every New Year’s day, the Royal Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna Boy’s Choir put on a big show – it’s broadcast all over the world, including in the US on PBS, hosted by Julie Andrews.

We didn’t stand a chance of getting tickets, but could watch the show live outside the opera house.

Adam:  Brenda and I waited until 1:00pm to visit the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Fine Arts). The kids opted to stay home – which suited all 5 of us just fine.
We were nearly the first ones to get in – which made our visit there thoroughly enjoyable just from a lack of crowds. It was fun for me to have many of the more famous paintings “all to myself” to look over without pushing and shoving.

The museum opened in 1891 and houses the primary collections of the Habsburgs – the result of over 700 years of family collecting.

When we arrived, the lines were out the door and we almost turned around and left.  I’m so glad we didn’t; the museum opened today at 1 p.m. (we arrived at 1:05) so these were just the handful of people who had been waiting for the doors to open.

The foyer entrance is splendiferous.

By far my favorite painting in the entire museum was this Vermeer.  They had only one of his paintings, and it was incredible.

This is my kind of “not crowded” at the museum.

“Oh, look … a Rembrandt self portrait. Oh, here’s another one. And another… and…”

[Below] One of Adam’s favorite series at the Museum – Diego Velázquez and his 3 paintings of the Infanta Margarita Theresa.

Poor Margarita Theresa … she was just a child when she was betrothed to her uncle Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. Velazquez was commissioned to paint some portraits of her at various stages of her childhood in the court of Madrid so they could be sent to Leopold while he waited in Vienna for his fiancee to get old enough to marry. I guess he wanted to keep track of what she looked like.  That struck me as really creepy.

When she was 15, she left Spain and went to Vienna to marry her uncle. He was 26.  They had four children together, but only one of them survived.  “After giving birth to four children, and weakened by many miscarriages, Margaret Theresa died at the age of 21.”  A tragic story.

Collection of sculptural facial expression studies.

Adam:  We returned home from the museum to grab the kids and have a late lunch/early dinner…

Because tonight, we’re heading back out!

We couldn’t get tickets for the New Year Philharmonic show, but we did get the next best thing … tickets to the Weiner Konzerthaus to see a special performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony – all four movements.

The symphony was performed by the Vienna Symphony which as been the “house band” at the Wiener Konzerthaus since 1913. Accompanying the 60 piece orchestra was the Wiener Singakademie, a 120-member mixed choir performing in Vienna since 1858.

(Skating rink we saw along the way – we might have to check this out tomorrow if there’s still time.)

Cameras were forbidden, so I could only take a few, furtive iPhone shots. We arrived early enough to find our seats and listen to the symphony warm up. We were up in the cheap seats, but grateful we got tickets at all. It was another standing room only crowd.

Detail of the ceiling. The Konzerthaus was built in 1913 and the largest hall accommodates 1840 seats.

You can gauge Holden’s excitement level long before the conductor takes to the podium.

I took one decent photo of the entire ensemble after the performance had finished. This was something special – I enjoyed it more than the opera a couple of days ago. The orchestra was magnificent. Anyone who doesn’t get chills when 120 voices burst into the “Ode to Joy” in the fourth movement should just pack it in and call it a day. Ludwig could throw together some notes.

Saturday, 02 January 2016

Today is our last day.  Isabella wanted to go back to that military supply store to buy another couple of €3 shirts for her friends.  When she texted them pictures of hers, they all wanted to know if she could pick some up for them, too.

It was a tight schedule, since the military store opened at 10:00 a.m. and we had tickets to the Lipizzaner Stallion show at 11:00 a.m.  We headed out early and got to the military store 15 minutes before he opened, so we found a gourmet cupcake store that was open and — most importantly — warm inside.  The kids couldn’t believe their good luck.

After successfully obtaining the shirts, we raced back to our hotel, dropped off the stuff and then headed out to the Spanische Hofreitschule – the Spanish Riding School, home of the Lipizzaners.

Adam:  On to the main event – Performance in the Winter Riding School. This building/arena was built in 1735. The Spanish Riding School has been performing continuously since 1572.

The show was about 1 1/2 hours long – with a series of different “acts” – starting with the young horses only partly trained, then on to the “naughtier” horses that are more spirited, don’t always behave, but are great at jumping and kicking.

These were the young horses.  The host announced, “You will see them make some mistakes, but you must remember they are still children.”

Josie and I, far right side of the photo.  We couldn’t get 5 seats together, so Josie and I were by ourselves.  All through the first half of the show she kept giggling and I finally whispered, “What’s so funny?”  The show was elegant and regal, set to classical music; there wasn’t anything funny about it.  She whispered back, “All the horses are farting, really loud!”  I said, “They’re snorting air through their noses … those are snorts, not farts.”  After that piece of information she didn’t find the rest of the show nearly as humorous but I was having a hard time stifling giggles.

These guys performed a two-horse ballet, Pas de Deux, in which the horses and riders mirrored each others movements the whole performance.

The next group demonstrated a series of movements based on a horses’ natural body language, the “Work in Hand,” to show how the horses are trained for the school jumps levade, courbette, and capriole.

After each horse came to center stage and performed his movement, he was taken to the side of the arena and it took two men to manage each waiting horse.

The “Airs Above the Ground”; all horses are under saddle, but the riders do not have stirrups.  When Adam and I took riding lessons last year, the teacher made us learn how to ride without stirrups for safety reasons (in the event that our feet fell out, we would not lose control of the horse and fall off.)  It was hard.  These guys were doing jumps; the balance and leg strength necessary for these movements is mind-boggling.

The last performance is the “School Quadrille,” — “8 riders working in formation at the walk, trot, and canter, with flying changes, pirouettes, the half pass and the passage. The ride is performed to classical music. Lasting 20 minutes, the School Quadrille of the Spanish Riding School is the longest and most difficult in the world.”

A few shots of the building interior.  

On the way home, we saw one last Christmas tree that hadn’t been put away yet.  Nearly everything celebration-related in the city has been packed up.  The festivities are over and everyone is getting back to real life in the new year.

Since we have to get up at 3:30 a.m. tomorrow, we called it day early.  We saved the best movie for last:  Forrest Gump (1994), which wasn’t strictly an 80s film but close enough to suit us.  The kids were under the impression it was a comedy (all the others were) even though Adam warned them right from the outset, “This movie is going to make you cry.”

And cry they did.  Through sobs Isabella said, “I thought this was supposed to be a comedy … it’s making me feel things!”

I’d forgotten what a powerful film that was.  Hours after it was over, Holden said, “Boy, Forrest Gump sure was a good movie. I’m really glad we watched it tonight.”

It was a heartwarming end to a fantastic family vacation.  The kids all three declared it the best trip we’ve ever taken.  It exceeded even our already unreasonably-high hopes.  We dearly hope to be back soon; possibly as soon as this summer.  Until then … Goodbye, Vienna!!

Wednesday, 30 December 2015

Today was a much better day as far as Holden was concerned.  We got to do everything we set out to do, satisfying his desire to have things go according to plan.

First, a couple shots of our apartment’s “lobby” in the mall.  This view is directly adjacent of our entry door.  The chocolate shop is the on the left where that lady in black is tidying a table.

The front doors (brown ones) into the elevator area for the private apartments.  The computery-looking thing on the left is an ATM, which has proven handy.

Today turned out to be fantastic, in spite of crowded conditions at the venues we chose.   Schönbrunn Palace is the place we visited a couple days ago but were chased away by the massive crowds.  This time we arrived earlier in the day and the crowds were just as bad (if not worse) so we figured we had to just grin and bear it if we wanted to see the palace at all.  It is, after all, the most visited location in all of Austria.

Adam:  Schönbrunn Palace is a former imperial summer residence of the Habsburg family. The palace was first started in 1638 but was remodeled and expanded in the 1740s – and that is largely the version that we can now see.

Our tour took us through 40 rooms – total size of the palace is 1441 rooms. Photography inside the building was strictly prohibited… which means I had to be sneaky with my wide angle lens and a series of coughs and deceptive misdirections to sneak just a glimpse of the splendor indoors. This place is well worth a visit for anyone wanting to come – on the order of Versailles or Windsor.

[Excerpts from the palace tour guide, in blue text]:   This first room is the billiards room, just off the room where the personal guard of Emperor Franz Joseph was stationed to keep watch over the entrance to the emperor’s apartments.  The billiards room served as a waiting room for people attending an audience with Emperor Franz Joseph.  The billiard table, which belonged to Franz Joseph’s grandfather, Emperor Franz I of Austria, was used by the army officers to pass the time.    

The Walnut Room.  This room gets it’s name from the precious walnut panelling … It was in this room that Franz Joseph received individuals who had requested an audience…. Franz Joseph would receive up to a hundred people in a morning and was famous for his phenomenal memory, never forgetting a name or a face.  These audiences lasted for a few minutes and were brought to an end when the emperor inclined his head slightly. 

Franz Joseph ascended the Austrian imperial throne when he was only eighteen.  He dealt with a phenomenal amount of work each day: starting before 5 o’clock in the morning, he spent the day at his desk.  He even had breakfast and lunch served to him at his desk.  This was how the first public servant of his state, as he liked to describe himself, spent most of his time. 

Salon of Empress Elizabeth [below]. Elizabeth was considered to be one of the most beautiful women of her time, and was well aware of this.  Her beauty regime and sporting activities to preserve her slender figure dominated the empress’s daily routine, with the care of her magnificent ankle-length hair occupying several hours a day.

(Note from me:  Franz Joseph was lauded for his work ethic and memory, while his wife was valued only for her beauty.  In the guide’s description of a family dining room, it notes “The emperor sat at the centre of the table, with the empress opposite him on the rare occasions she was present. As Elisabeth often fasted in order to preserve her slender figure she seldom attended family meals.”  I find this incredibly sad. In the photo, you can see a mannequin dressed up to look like her, complete with her long hair.)

Hall of Mirrors;  “In 1762 this room saw the first concert given by the 6-years-old Mozart to the empress.  After the performance, according to his proud father, ‘Wolferl jumped onto her majesty’s lap, threw his arms around her neck and smothered her with kisses.'”

The Rosa Rooms, named for Joseph Rosa, the painter of the landscapes that hang there.  They mostly depict scenes from Switzerland, the ancestral seat of the Habsburg dynasty.

The Great Gallery, which was used by the imperial family for balls, receptions and banquets.   The frescos are by the Italian painter Gregorio Guglielmi.

[Below] Napoleon Room:  Once the bedroom of Maria Theresa, Napoleon resided here when he occupied Vienna — twice; once in 1805 and again in 1809.

Maria Theresa was an interesting character.  In all of her portraits she looked like a fat old grandma, but she was in a lot of ways the real mover and shaker for the Habsburg family during her time.  She had 16 kids, 11 of whom survived into adulthood.  Through brilliant diplomatic maneuvers, she managed to marry 7 of them into other royal families across Europe.  She was known as “Europe’s mother-in-law.”  She was Marie Antoinette’s mom … it blew my mind that Marie Antoinette grew up in this palace, in some of these very rooms.  (It was only their summer home, but still!)

Exterior view of only part of the buildings.  This place is HUGE.

Your basic “backyard”: Neptune fountain down the path and concluding the the “Gloriette” (1775) at the rear of the grounds.  We are contemplating altering our summer plans to come back in July when everything is warmer and green.  We’ll have to wait and see if another big trip is something we can work into our budget and schedule.  It’s nice to dream and talk is cheap.

Kids standing on the palace steps looking out over the grounds.

After visiting Schönbrunn Palace, we headed towards the zoo (also part of the Palace grounds) — and ran into the Palmenhaus Schönbrunn:  a hothouse/greenhouse first erected in 1882. It now houses more than 4500 species of plants.

Inside the Palm House.  It was warm and humid in there (and frigid outside) so glasses and camera lenses immediately fogged up.  

Holden looking at the fish species in one of the water lily/plant planters/tanks.

This was one of those rare days when the kids thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company.  They usually squabble like pigeons fighting over stale bread.  I don’t know why today was so special, but I’ll take it.  Everyone woke up on the right side of the bed, I guess.

Leaving the Palm House …

 … and entering the Desert House (Wüstenhaus Schönbrunn) – a greenhouse with plants and animals typical of the world’s desert environments.  This greenhouse had quite a few animals in it, so it was my favorite.

In what turned out to be the coolest activity of the day, they had a tank of Doctor Fish (Garra rufa) in the Desert House.  Visitors are invited to stick their hands in the tank and let the little fish eat off all their dead skin.  It’s creepy and weird and also weirdly sweet — you feel like the fish are doing you a favor by cleaning you of all your grossness, just as you feel you are doing the fish a favor by feeding them.  It’s a relationship and transaction that is in perfect balance, which is hard to find in life.  This was really, really special.

We finished the afternoon with a visit to the Tiergarten – the Vienna Zoo – and the oldest zoo in the world (opened as an imperial menagerie in 1752).

Much of the original architecture of the zoo still exists.

The underside of a sturgeon.

You can get close to the animals in this zoo.  There is a very thick pane of glass between the lions and the humans, but they are right there.  

The kids cracked up over this sign [below].  They observed that a few someones in the past must have done something horrible with a selfie stick in order to have it specifically forbidden in sign form.  No feeding the animals and no climbing the fence are obvious enough, but I can only imagine that in this selfie-stick scenario a few seals must have stolen some iPhones.  My thinking is that if you stick your phone in a wild animal’s habitat at the zoo and the animal steals your phone, you deserve it for being such an idiot.  As my dad used to say when I did something stupid and had to live with the consequences, “Some actions naturally provide their own punishment.”

On to the elephant enclosure.  We’ve all seen elephants before, but Adam captured my stunned face when I noticed ….

… a baby elephant nursing.  What luck to be here today!  This sweet baby was in a pen with what I believe were three adult females.  The two in this photo were both taking care of the baby.  I assume the one nursing it in this photo is the biological mother.  A much larger elephant with fairly impressive tusks (and therefore male?) was in another area, closed off from the baby.

The kids having fun on some elephant sculptures specifically put out for kids to sit on.  Who says entertainment has to be electronic?

One last shot of the palace as we were leaving. The sun finally came out and the sky cleared up.  Tomorrow is supposed to be clear and the coldest day yet.

We spent most of the late afternoon in the apartment.  4:00 p.m. in Vienna is 7:00 a.m. in Tijuana.  Adam needs to spend several hours each evening working, once the factories back in the San Diego/Tijuana start their day.  I generally use this time to do laundry, tidy the apartment, make dinner, and work on this blog.

We’ve had to skip our 1980s Wine Time movie ever since the Christmas holiday in the States ended and people went back to work.  Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, though, so Adam will get another couple days of very light work and we’ll be able to spend more of the early evening playing again.   We’re all really grateful, though, that his work can be done by email, Skype, and phone calls … it makes trips like this possible.

Around 7:30 p.m. we headed back out for our evening stroll.  Holden was starving (even though he had dinner) so we stopped at Nordsee, a fish-and-chips take-away restaurant.  It was so cold outside that all of us ended up eating some of Holden’s piping hot snack just to warm up a little.

The porta-potties are making their appearance in preparation for the massive crowds of New Year’s Eve partiers expected tomorrow.

We found ourselves back at the world’s prettiest grocery store and this time it wasn’t so crowded.

Part of the cured meats department.

The tea and imported candy department.

This is the strange fruit I bought:  a Buddha’s Hand.  It’s a fingered citron originating in either the Far East or China.  I thought it was going to be like a lemon, but it very much was not.  The inside is solid white pith with no juicy part and no seeds.  I’d intended to take the seeds home to try to grow my own tree, but no such luck.  I read on the internet (after I’d already purchased the fruit) that this plant can only be grown from a cutting.  If I want one, I’ll have to find a nursery that has some.  The fruit is highly fragrant and mostly used in perfumery, but the “fingers” are also candied and eaten as a treat.  The skin makes a great zest, as well, that people say has a lot more complexity and floral notes than regular lemon.  It did smell heavenly.

The equestrian accordionists.  Everyone needs a gimmick, why not this?

Josie dropping some coins in their tub.  She’s blurry because she was bashful and wasted no time in tossing the money and then scurrying back to the safety of her family.

Thursday, 31 December 2015 (New Year’s Eve)

This morning we went to a kids’ attraction called Time Travel Vienna.  It was pretty cheesy, but the kids enjoyed it.  They use animatronic puppets, a 4-D movie, a simulated bomb shelter, and various other gimmicks to get kids interested in the history of Vienna.  In terms of getting the kids to pay attention, it was successful.

Adam:  The general theme was a brief history of Vienna, from the Roman times to the present. It was mostly hokey, but had some interesting facts presented. The most interesting (to me) was for us all to get packed into a WWII air-raid bomb shelter. (The actual location, underground did serve as a bomb shelter during the war). It was the first time I’ve had to hide from Allied bombing raids. The bombs exploded outside and the shelter shook and rattled to simulate what it might have felt like.

Today was the coldest day yet.  We passed by Cafe Griensteidl (where we had lunch on Christmas day) and the line wasn’t very long, so we stopped in for an early lunch.  We were glad we did, too … by the time we left, every cafe (including this one) had lines out the door.  People were stuck waiting out in the cold.

Adam:  This shot is for Arge – the Bundeskanzleramt (Federal Chancellery). It is in here that Engelbert Dollfuss was assassinated as part of a failed coup attempt by Nazi agents in 1934. His successor Kurt Schuschnigg maintained his regime until Adolf Hitler’s annexing of Austria in 1938.

We spent the early afternoon in our apartment, drinking hot beverages and resting up for going back out later.  All five of us headed out around 3:00 p.m. to inspect the festivities and gauge how crowded everything was going to be.  Authorities in Vienna have issued warnings that people with claustrophobia should avoid coming into the city center because of the crushing crowds so we weren’t sure what to expect.  The crowds definitely were the worst we’ve seen, but you could still walk around comfortably.

They were selling the alcoholic punsch again, this time in souvenir pig mugs.  Neither Adam nor I wanted the punsch, but Josie was desperate to have the pig mug so we bought some anyway.  This one had a higher alcohol content than the Christmas punsch did.  We offered the kids a sip, just to taste it.  Holden and Josie both declined after they saw Isabella’s face when she took her sip. (An FYI that Isabella loves pointing out: the drinking age in Austria is 16.  Isabella is a couple months away from her 16th birthday, so not quite yet technically legal, but nobody seems to care one wit about checking IDs. “Everything in Europe is so much cooler than at home!”  She hates the taste of alcohol and is way too Puritanical in her personality to actually drink, but she loves knowing that she could if she wanted to.)

People dancing a waltz in the square.  The guy is wearing a lucky pig hat.

Things getting crowded.

It is REALLY cold today.  Holden and Josie both hated the crowds, were uncomfortably cold, and wanted to go back to the apartment.

Adam didn’t have much work this afternoon because of the holiday, so we were able to resume our 80s movie Wine Time.  Today’s selection was National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983) — the original.  The kids had never seen it and it’s been years since Adam and I had.  It was a little naughtier than we remembered (and naughtier than the others in the franchise) but the kids enjoyed it.  I usually see it on TV with those bits edited out; I’d forgotten they existed.  We winced a few times during this viewing and hoped the jokes were veiled enough that they would sail unnoticed over Josie’s head.

We decided to go back out after it got dark so Adam could take some night shots.  Isabella also wanted to see some of the live bands performing at various points throughout the city center.  Holden and Josie both decided to stay home, so just Isabella, Adam and I went back out around 6:30 p.m.

One of the bands along the way – each stage has a different “theme” or style of music highlighted. These guys were big into German-language Reggae. They just sounded angry the whole time.  The crowds loved them.

A shot of the lucky New Year’s pig mugs being sold all over the city.

There was loud music EVERYWHERE.  We could barely communicate with each other, no matter where we went. Since Isabella couldn’t do as she normally does and holler, “Daddy!  Don’t take my picture!” she was reduced to making faces so the pictures would be unusable.  Joke is on her.

We walked the entire New Year’s celebration loop.  There was a very strong police presence, but they were all full of smiles and managed not to seem scary and threatening in spite of the fact they were armed to the teeth and wearing bullet-proof full body suits.  The crowds are predominantly families with small children and elderly couples.  We figure the young hard-partiers will come out closer to midnight.  I was thrilled that nobody seemed excessively drunk and nobody was throwing up.  The atmosphere was festive and joyous without sinking in debauchery.

In the place where the biggest Christmas market is still going strong they erected a huge stage and had a U2 cover band.

The proprietors of this booth selling punsch in pig mugs went the extra mile and dressed up in old-timey costumes.

People were also consuming staggering amounts of sausage.  Everyone wants to eat and drink something hot.

Demel set up a booth selling their famous sacher-tortes, slightly modified to make them easy to eat as a to-go treat.  We bought three of them to take back to the apartment for later in the evening.

We were hoping that we’d be able to watch the fireworks displays from our roof.  Rarely does reality far exceed what you imagine is possible — we were stunned by the fireworks over Vienna.  The entire city lit up as far as the eye could see in every direction.

The city itself put on at least three professional pyrotechnic shows, and thousands of individuals set off fireworks from their rooftops.  It was so spectacular it nearly defied belief.  The only other phenomenon I’ve seen that captured the same majesty was brought on by nature itself, the aurora borealis in Alaska.  The fireworks were impressive in a different way, of course.  The unbelievable noise and camp-firey smell of cordite was part of the magic.

All across Vienna people were in the streets and on the rooftops, dancing waltzes and singing. At the stroke of midnight, all the church bells in the city rang out, too.

The Opera House displayed a huge countdown clock on their screen.  We could hear people in the street counting along with it in multiple languages.

 Photos can’t do justice to the majesty, pageantry and general atmosphere of tonight.  The sky was alive.  We stood on our roof spinning in circles, trying to take it all in.  

Adam:  The night ended with a fireworks show that will be remembered by us all of the rest of our lives. I don’t often succumb to hyperbole, but last night’s viewing was truly something special.

We took to the rooftop to see the entire city alight with thousands of individual fireworks events as well as some larger, more organized performances at some of the key touristy areas. The result was a constant and stunning show of fireworks everywhere you looked. People were shooting off fireworks from their rooftops – both far and near, so we had rockets shooting out over our heads, close by, and way off to the horizon. This show started around 7pm and didn’t quite end until sometime around 4 this morning. Clearly, the most intense period happened right after midnight.

At midnight, the booms and light were constant. The church bells through the city all chimed. There were klieg (search) lights waving around. Waltz music was being performed live next door and was piped by speakers throughout the city center. People were dancing waltzes in the street and rooftops every where you looked. Folks, this is how you celebrate New Year’s. Now, off to bed.

Finally – a video link here:  https://vimeo.com/150466024   Adam took this with Josie’s phone – the video is blurry and of poor quality – it doesn’t do the show justice but does give you a sense of the constant barrage of fireworks all over the city – and our spectacular 360 degree view of the entire show that went on for hours.

Happy New Year and here’s to a fabulous 2016!

Sunday, 27 December 2015

The grocery store is still closed for the third day in a row.  We’re starting to get desperate since we didn’t know this lengthy closing was going to happen.  I came into the kitchen this morning and found Holden standing in his underwear eating a raw carrot; that’s how low on food we’ve gotten.  It’s raw carrot bad.

On the bright side, the mall this Sunday morning was filled with an antiques flea market.  People set up tables in the mall aisles (the stores were closed) and offered all kinds of treasures.  It was by far the highest-end flea market we’ve ever encountered.  Hermes scarves, antique alligator suitcases, a brass telescope from 1850, paintings, and lots of jewelry and china.  We spent a good deal of time browsing — Isabella fell in love with an old Zeiss brass microscope from the 19th century.  Adam bought it for her as a Christmas/straight A’s gift since we didn’t really do presents this year, and she had fantastic grades this semester — straight A’s in all AP classes.

I bought a pair of antique oil portrait studies: two old men.  I liked them because, in addition to being well done, the one with the white beard reminded me a bit of my Uncle Leon.

We wanted to eat lunch today in another locally famous cafe, Cafe Mozart – serving coffee and cakes since 1794. Around the corner from the cafe we discovered the coolest street in the world… roughly translated as “Mayse Alley”.

Waiting for a table in the Mozart Cafe.  They make you stand by the tantalizing dessert case.

The interior of the cafe is quite nice.  We had a good meal (albeit on the expensive side).

We got there at the right time, too.  By the time we left, the line was out the door.

On the walk to the Belvedere Museum (our main destination for the day), we passed the French Embassy.  The little fence outside is adorned with displays like this one.  It felt real and immediate, especially considering that Vienna itself is under a terror watch right now.  Most of these signs were touching and sober; but one said “Fuck ISIS” and is probably the sign that came closest to saying what everyone is actually thinking.

French Embassy.

We spent most of the afternoon in the Belvedere Palace. The Baroque palace complex was built as a summer residence for Prince Eugene of Savoy, staring in 1712.

They have a large collection of Klimt paintings, including The Kiss, which is impressive in person. Klimt used real gold leaf on a lot of the surface, so the painting glows and sparkles. It’s the best example of a painting I’ve ever seen that deserves the quote “you have to see it in person.”  They didn’t allow photography inside the museum, so we don’t have any pictures.  We got a couple shots of the exterior.

We went home for wine time and our afternoon entertainment — National Lampoons European Vacation (1985).  We’ve inadvertently stumbled into a tradition on this trip of watching a movie from the 1980s in the late afternoon as a way to rest for awhile before going back out for the evening.

The kids haven’t seen a lot of these movies and for the most part Adam and I have been surprised at how good they still are.  They kids are enjoying them, mostly.  The evening we tried to watch Back to the Future II (1989) was a dismal failure.  That was so  bad we all gave up on it after about 20 minutes.

Later this evening, we walked to #18 Elizabethstrasse [photo below]- the actual home of the family Bloch-Bauer, the original owners of the Klimt painting Woman in Gold. Adele Bloch-Bauer and her husband (owned several sugar factories) lived on the 2nd and 3rd floors.  This is the very house the Nazis looted.

We enjoy trying to give the kids multiple exposures to a story (movie, museum, house) and hope that some of it sticks.

Tonight the stalls began to sell New Year’s celebration junk. In Vienna, pigs are a sign of good luck for the upcoming New Year – as such we find many stalls filled with all things pig related. This has put Josie in heaven. She’s coming home with a bag full of pig trinkets.

A misty photo of St Stephen’s Cathedral.  I’m beginning to understand why Monet painted so many versions of the Rouen Cathedral in France.  The mood changes dramatically depending the weather and light.  You never see quite the same scene twice.

Monday, 28 December 2015

Holden dubbed today our day of “Oh … never mind.”  We had a long list of things we wanted to do, but as events unfolded we ended up saying, “Oh … never mind” about almost all of them.

Our first stop today was the Kunst Supermarkt (art market), which was finally open.  Visitors are greeted with a sign that our friend Randy would adore:  “Enjoy your fucking sushi, Love the fucking art.”

The market has all these bins, each filled with the work of a different artist.  You could spend a very long time in here sifting through it all.  Some of the work was impressive and some of it was crap and most of it was just meh.  The prices were too high, in my opinion, so  … “Oh, never mind.”

We next visited Austrian hatmaker Mühlbauer (in business since 1873) to find just the right hat for Arge to wear on the golf course. We’ve already sent him a photo of what we picked out and he seems pleased.  This, at least, was a stroke of good fortune.

Adam:  You’re all aware of my dad’s involvement in Vienna regulator clocks – clocks made [in Vienna] from roughly 1790 to 1910.   Long before we planned our trip here, we talked about the exotic name and address listed above – the clockmaker F. Prihoda and his shop’s address at 63 Stumpergasse in Vienna.  

Once it was set that we were coming to Vienna for Christmas, we knew we had to track down the old address… #63 is the door above on the left – allowing entry into the building in yellow-ish stone.  The old clockworks from 1900-ish is now the “Lowcarb Shop & Bistro”.

31 Stumpergasse, Hitler’s residence when he was still a hopeful starving artist in Vienna in 1908.

Last night, we passed in front of the Academy of Fine Arts (below) – where Hitler was rejected for enrollment in 1907.

Vienna is thick with Hitler history – although you won’t find any sign of him here.  His name and influence has been erased from history. It only takes some research on the internet, however, to find that his time here (1908-1913) was significant. Most of his remaining art depicts Vienna architecture and daily scenes – very recognizable to us now.

Hitler ultimately left Vienna dejected and moved on to Munich – joining the military, fighting in WWI and then moving into political life. Our kids rightly observed that the world would be very different today if that academy had only accepted his application to paint under their tutelage.

Waiting for the train.  Isabella is sharing her favorite band with Josie:  Panic at the Disco. Isabella feels it is her duty as an older sister to expose Josie to the world of “good” music.

Outside the train station these two guys were playing theme songs from various movies as a violin/flute duet.  They performed the Harry Potter theme song, Star Wars, and a couple of others.  The kids liked it so much they made us stand there long enough we felt obligated to put money in the little box.  Isabella videoed the whole thing on her phone.

Schönbrunn Palace.  The line just to get tickets was so long it scared us away.  Combat viewing is no fun.  Yet another location today was “Oh … never mind.”

They did still have a Christmas market open in their courtyard.  The prices were slightly higher than what we’d been in the other markets and we left with nothing.

Our plan was to visit the zoo after the castle, but it started getting really cold and we were all getting tired of standing.  We unanimously decided to try the zoo on a different day.  “Let’s go to the zoo!  Oh … never mind.”

We headed back to the apartment to rest a little before heading back out for the late afternoon.  I needed to get some laundry done and the kids wanted to just relax a bit.  Adam did a little work and then headed back out by himself to the Leica store around the corner to see their exhibit of Elliott Erwitt prints.

Adam:  This afternoon, I went alone to the Vienna Leica store to see a special exhibit of signed prints by photographer Elliott Erwitt – one of my two favorite (still) living photographers. They had about 25 prints available for purchase running from €4400 to €9500 each. Another return empty handed.

Our goal this afternoon was to visit a grocery store that has earned the reputation as the prettiest grocery store in the world, and get a hot chocolate at a cafe that is reputed to have the best hot chocolate in Vienna.

Below:  The police presence is much greater now than it has been previously due to the terrorist threat.  They are checking every single vehicle that comes into the pedestrian squares. We are also now seeing 2-man teams of Polizei walking around the crowded areas, most carrying Steyr AUG assault rifles and wearing bullet-proof vests.  The good news is that the officers seem very relaxed.  They have smiles and friendly head-nods for everyone.

Pretty architecture and building decoration.

More kiosks selling the Viennese lucky pigs.  Josie can’t get enough of these.  (That’s Josie, me and Isabella in the photo below, checking out all the pig offerings.)  Isabella and I each bought a little glass pig figurine and Josie bought four more to give out to her friends as gifts.

She had a hard time choosing.  They were all so cute!

This is the front of the world’s prettiest grocery store, Julius Meinl am Graben.

Interior shot.

The people shopping here were fancy, too.  It’s hard to see in the photo below, but there is a dog with a very intricate dreadlock hairdo at the feet of the black-haired lady wearing the white fur coat.  Yes … people brings their dogs into the grocery stores here.  They bring dogs everywhere here, including restaurants.  I love that about Europe.

I looked up the dog breed when we got back to the apartment.  It’s a Komondor.  Wikipedia:  The Komondor breed has been declared one of Hungary’s national treasures, to be preserved and protected from modification.  I’ve never seen one in person before, and they are quite striking.

The fruit section [below].  This grocery store was deceptively large and so crowded we ended up abandoning our plan to buy stuff for dinner here.  We took one look at the checkout line and said, “Oh … never mind.”  It opens early in the morning so we intend to come back on another day before the afternoon crowds make it no fun.  The smaller grocery store near our apartment is finally open again so we’ll go there for tonight’s dinner instead.

And then in the crowning failure of the entire day, as far as Holden was concerned, we couldn’t find the place selling the best hot chocolate in Vienna.  We looked and looked and looked, until we finally gave up:  it was another “never mind.”

Our 1980s Wine Time movie selection for today was Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989).  We chose it because Bill & Ted travel to Vienna to collect Sigmund Freud: “the Frood Dude.”  (Our plans for tomorrow include the Freud Museum.)  The kids kept hitting pause to talk about the plausibility of the story line and pick apart the time travel plot holes, but they really enjoyed the film.  That movie was the one bright spot in Holden’s otherwise disappointing day.

Adam and I had fun today, but Holden did not.  He’s hoping that tomorrow will be more successful.  He was so defeated that he didn’t even want to come out for the evening stroll.  Isabella and Josie wanted to go and found yet another booth selling pig stuff.  Josie bought a little ceramic piggy bank.

After pig shopping, Adam and I dropped the girls off at the apartment and went back out by ourselves for a while.  We noticed that the Hotel Sacher (directly across the intersection in front of our building and the hotel featured in Woman in Gold) didn’t have enormous out-the-door lines to get into the cafe like it usually does, so we decided on the spur of the moment to duck in for an evening espresso and tea.

It was a lot fancier than I expected, though … the maitre’d showed us to the cloak room where we were supposed to check our coats and hats.  I hadn’t planned on going somewhere elegant (we initially were going to stand in line at Starbucks to get something to go) and I was basically wearing pajamas under my coat.  I just couldn’t take my coat off and go sit in an upscale, lavish dining room in my ratty old t-shirt and jeans.  My hair was a fright, too, from being smashed under a hat all day.  When the maitre’d wasn’t looking, we snuck out and went to stand in line at Starbucks with the rest of the hoi polloi, where I could keep my coat on and preserve my dignity.

Tuesday, 29 December 2015

We started our day visiting Demel – an 1888 salon serving specialties such as cream cakes, scones and strudels. It is also a confectionary/bakery where you can watch the chefs making their treats. This was recommended to us by a couple of people so we had to make a special stop to let the kids try out their version of the hot chocolate drink.

Bar downstairs. When we arrived (around 11:00am) we only had to wait about 5 minutes to get a table. By the time we finished, the building was so full we couldn’t leave without pushing and shoving. The line to get in went out the door into the cold.

Crowd gathered in front of Demel.

Vienna has turned cold on us – the low is now 20 and the high 30. The locals have broken out the covered carriages, along with the New Year festival flag decorations.

After fueling up at Demel’s, we made a long walk over to visit Sigmund Freud’s original office and living quarters. This is where Freud spent his most prolific years and developed his groundbreaking theories; moving here with his family in 1891 and staying until he was forced into exile (he went to London) by the Nazis in 1938.  He died in London about one year later.

The original front door to Freud’s private apartments.  His professional offices were just to left.

Staircase patients would have walked up to get to Freud’s second-floor apartments.

Adam:   On the way back from Freud’s, we ran into a small military supply store. The kids wanted to stop and look over the old excess army gear. Isabella purchased a small denim/canvas jacket similar to the one she bought in Japan. She paid all of €3 for a new (never used) coat and now has a Japanese military jacket and an Austrian one. 

(Brenda: The proprietor said the jackets were so cheap because the army changed the design earlier this year.  He ended up with the surplus jackets in the discontinued style for next to nothing, which is why he was selling them for only €3.  Isabella wants to find this store again and buy a couple more for her friends.  The only problem was that all the big ones — that would fit a teenage boy — were gone and all he had left were extra-small.  Isabella has two guy friends she REALLY wanted to get jackets for, but they would never fit into the little ones.  She has a couple girl friends who would like them, though.)

Adam:  They had two coats that I very much wanted to buy – two authentic WWII leather coats – the long leather trench coats issued to Gestapo Criminal Inspectors. These were the real deal and were reasonably affordable, too. In the end, I passed because I just couldn’t come up with an occasion or situation where I could actually be out in the public wearing it without attracting attention – and none of it the good kind.

After this, we returned home for a late lunch and some grocery shopping. We all needed to get ready for the big night’s event – the Opera!

Before coming here I bought tickets online for us to attend Rossini’s opera “La Cenerentola” – first performed in 1817. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra provided the tunes.

This was the first opera for all of us and it exceeded expectations (although Holden might pass on the next offer, if ever made.) We all got dressed up in shirt and tie, dresses & the lot and headed across the street to the Staatsoper in style.

I couldn’t bring my good camera to the event, but snuck a few crappy iPhone photos to capture the evening.  [Photo below] Part of the foyer and stairs leading up to the several levels.

Seats for the 3 of us – top balcony, 1st row, hanging out over everyone else. They didn’t have 5 tickets all together so Holden, Josie and I sat in one area and we gave the better 2 tickets to Brenda and Isabella.

There are Brenda and Isabella – opposite us in one of the balcony boxes. 3 rows up, second over from the left. Brenda is the white figure in the middle of 3.

La Cenerentola is performed in Italian. Outdoors, they broadcast the opera with German subtitles. Fortunately, each seat had a little screen like the one above that also printed the text in English. This helped A LOT to keep up on what was a 3 hour performance.

Vienna Philharmonic in the pit, lights dimming curtain about to go up…

Holden and Josie during the intermission.  Holden’s face sums up his attitude about discovering the show wasn’t over yet and was going to resume after a break.

Adam took this photo of me [below] during the intermission with the zoom on his phone.  I had the box all to myself for about 10 minutes as everyone else in our area headed out for the bathrooms.  Isabella and I shared this box with three other people; one single guy and a couple.  The couple left after the intermission so we had even more space.  Each box has it’s own private coat room in the back with a long upholstered bench and mirrors so people can check their outfits.

The guy sitting next to us knew this opera by heart.  If fact, he knew it so well that I have a feeling he may have been an understudy for the performer that played the Prince Charming character.  I’ve never seen a person watch a performance quite the way this guy did … if he wasn’t a professional performer himself, he was a hard-core aficionado.

There were no fat ladies in this performance, so the two little ones kept asking me when the show would be over (especially after the 2+ hour mark) but they were good troopers.

Isabella loved the show and Brenda couldn’t hardly drag her away at the end.. there was one standing ovation after the other that went on for more than 10 minutes.  

It was fun to see the Opera, grab our coats from the check girl and then just walk across the street to our apartment.

Thursday, 24 December 2015 (Christmas Eve Day)

We’re getting late starts each morning.  The time change has us still awake at 1:30 a.m. and still in bed at 10:30 a.m.  Considering it starts getting dark at 4:00 p.m. this time of year, we really need to get up earlier to start our days.  Today it was nearly noon before we finally made out the front door.

This guy is selling roasted chestnuts and potato “chips” — roasted spiral potato slices on a stick.  He’s there when we leave our apartment in the morning (well … noon) and he’s still there past 8:00 p.m.

Isabella coming out of our building.  We exit into this covered walkway with a small Christmas market.

A lot of people were buying their Christmas trees today.

We began our day figuring out how the Vienna subway system works – with our destination being the Kunstmarkt – art marketplace.  The subway system here works just like the one in London, although it’s unclear where the tickets are supposed to be collected.  We bought tickets but never saw a place to scan them, so we didn’t.

While Adam was buying the tickets at the ticket vending machine, I noticed the kids giggling by the drinks vending machine a few feet away.  Isabella said, “Mama, they sell pot tea.”
“They sell potty? What?”
“No — pot tea.  Weed tea.  As in marijuana. They have a picture of the leaf and everything.”

By this time we’d walked out of the vending area and over toward the train platform.  I said, “It can’t be tea made of marijuana.  It was probably a picture of a dandelion leaf or something.”  The kids don’t know anything about plant leaves and to them they all look pretty much the same.  Holden said, “No, it was definitely marijuana.  It even said ‘cannabis’ on the label.”

So, back we went to the vending machine.  Sure enough, there was cannabis tea in a can like Red Bull.  We didn’t buy any.  I looked it up when I got back to the apartment — it’s called C+Swiss and according to wikipedia: “is a hemp based icea tea which is legal in the United States. C+Swiss contains 0.0015% THC and is environmentally friendly.” According to general internet users, it’s a disappointment and doesn’t taste very good.  We may have to buy a can just to see what it’s like.

Once we got to the art market we found out that it was closed for the weekend – we’ll have to return some other time.  I peeked in the windows and didn’t see anything as good as the Polish watercolor guy, so my hopes for finding the next Van Gogh have been dashed a little.  We’ll still go back after Christmas and paw through the bins.  They have most of the paintings stacked like vinyl records.

[photo below] Cool Fin de Siecle designwork near the Naschmarkt.

We decided to walk the long way back and just see what we ran into. We stopped off at the Naschmarkt – about 1.5km of stalls selling all sorts of food goods – fruits, vegetables, meats, spices, etc. The market has been in the same location since the 16th century.

Spices, salts and herbs from all over the world.  I bought a bag of garlic sea salt and a bag of Viennese salt, probably harvested from the alps but it doesn’t say on the package.  The salt itself is very coarse and dark grey.

Some of the fruits and vegetables were exotic.  Holden really wanted to buy a dragonfruit, but we didn’t want to carry it around all day.

Still debating on where we could put it and who would have to carry it.  In the end, nobody wanted the responsibility.  Carrying a bag would mean not being able to put your hands in your pockets and it was quite cold.

We found a nice cafe for lunch and had the best meal of the trip so far.  The waiter remembered to bring Josie’s meal, too.  She had a much better day today.

We walked and walked for what felt like forever, just taking in all the new streets — and then suddenly realized we were very near our apartment.  We’d been headed toward Mozart’s house but all thought it sounded like a nice idea to pop back upstairs first to rest our feet for a few minutes.  Once all the shoes were off, Holden and Josie decided they didn’t want to go back out to see the Mozart house and opted to stay home.  Isabella still wanted to go, so just the three of us went.

St. Stephen’s Cathedral again. Mozart’s house is right off the St. Stephen’s square.

Isabella bought a little leather-bound handmade notebook for one of her friends.  Even the paper inside is handmade.

A few more shots of the shops and Christmas markets around St Stephen’s square.

[Photo below] Mozart’s apartments on the 2nd and 3rd floors.  

This museum was a disappointment.  We were hoping it was going to be like the Charles Dickens house in London, furnished fairly close to how the Dickens family would have had it so you can get a sense of what their daily lives may have been like.

In this case, the apartment is almost completely empty.  Mozart only lived there for 2 1/2 years and there are no written descriptions of how he had it furnished.   They don’t even know for sure what he used each room for.  One of the rooms, for example, said that historically it was where they figured he had his study, but recently have decided it was more likely to have been his bedroom.  Other plaques said, “This was probably a guest room” or “It’s assumed this was his living room because it’s the biggest room in the apartment.”

They did have some handwritten sheets of his music and some of his letters, which was really neat to see, but in the end you left without any real sense of what his life was like while he lived there.

A couple more shots of the buildings along the pedestrian area near our apartment.

After dinner Holden and Josie, once again, opted to stay home.  Isabella, Adam and I went back out just to see what was still open on an Austrian Christmas Eve.  The whole city was lit up and beautiful, although most of the shops and Christmas booths were closed.  A few of the fancier restaurants were open and they were packed.

St Peter’s Cathedral was open.  They were preparing for Christmas Eve services so we just took a peek and left.  Tomorrow night (Christmas day) they have an 8:00 p.m. organ performance accompanied by a soprano.  Adam and Isabella may see if they can get in to see that performance.

We wandered further than we expected we would …

… and ended up back at the big Christmas market furthest from our place.  It was still very much open and hopping with activity.

Some of those gorgeous glass Christmas ornaments.

Adam and I finally got around to trying the “punsch” for sale all over the city.  It tastes a lot like hot apple cider, although there are no apples in it.  Weihnachtspunsch – black tea, red wine, rum, sugar, lemons, oranges, cloves and cinnamon.  It was quite sweet and I ended up drinking most of it.  Adam doesn’t care much for sugary drinks and he hates tea.  The alcohol content (in this one, anyway) was so low I offered to share it with Isabella but she took one sip and declared it “gross.”  More for me!  It even came in a ceramic souvenir mug you get to keep.

Isabella chose this candied apple as her treat instead.  She thought it was going to be sticky, like a caramel apple, but the candy coating was rock hard.  It was basically an apple suspended inside a lollipop.  She had to lick a hole through the candy shell to get to the apple.

Even the trees in this neighborhood are decorated and themed.  This one was covered in hearts.  Another had guitars (which Isabella insisted were actually cellos and she may have been right), one had candy canes, etc.

Vendor selling fancy French soaps and assorted bath products.

The guitar/cello/giant violin tree.

Fog was starting to set in, which gave the church a misty, watercolor quality.

In what turned out to be the best part of the day, Adam’s camera malfunctioned and we don’t have any photos.

We were all in bed when every church in the city started ringing it’s bells.  I went up to our rooftop deck to see if there were processions of people or anything going on, and was treated to a magical view straight out of a storybook.  Every church and historical building as far as the eye could see was lit up and all the advertising signs and ugly modern stuff was turned off.  A misty fog made everything look like it was glowing.  The Opera House adjacent to our building looked like a jewel and we could see all the people dressed in their finery walking around. It was a painting from 1800 come to life.

I went back in to get Adam and the kids.  We all stood outside in the freezing cold in our pajamas, mesmerized.  Then, on the stroke of midnight, all the lights went out and the bells stopped ringing.

Friday, 25 December 2015 (Christmas Day)

We slept in again and got another late start, which is unusual for a Christmas morning.  That is generally the one day of the year the kids wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to go long before the crack of dawn.  We’re not giving each other gifts this year because this trip itself is pretty much the gift.  I guess the kids figured sleeping in was a better use of their morning since there weren’t any packages to tear open.

I made scrambled eggs, potatoes, onions and mushrooms for breakfast.  It’s the first meal I’ve cooked in this apartment and I ran into the same trouble I always do in AirBnB rentals — terrible cookware and knives.  I understand why they all have such awful kitchenware … the good stuff is expensive and people would either ruin it or steal it.  (If I were letting strangers stay in my place, I’d equip it with cookware from the equivalent of Walmart, too.)  It does make for some improvising in the preparation of meals though.

After showers and getting dressed, we headed over to the Albertina Museum – something open today.  Every other tourist in the city had the same idea. The place was crowded.

This month, the Albertina is exhibiting a special collection of Edvard Munch.  I didn’t realize The Scream was a wood print and there are several different iterations of it.  This is the one they had on display.  You can see in the photo below that Holden and Josie didn’t bother to look at it, even though so many people were trying to get photos of it that a huge crowd had formed.  People were queueing up and taking turns.

My favorite piece was this painting of a horse done by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.  He was only 17 when he painted it.  The description next to the painting reads in part:

“Due to his long sick bed in 1878/79 because of complicated bone fractures that eventually led to the deformation of his legs, Toulouse-Lautrec started drawing at an early age.  … Encouraged by his father’s passion for hunting and riding … Henri initially mostly drew dogs and horses…. This painting was made in 1881 at the Chateau de Bosc near Albi, where the artist frequently spent the holidays.”

Poor Toulouse-Lautrec was born into a noble family but suffered some sort of bone disease that stunted his legs.  The trunk of his body grew to normal adult proportions, but his legs remained weirdly short.  (He was only 4’8″ tall.)  He developed an affinity for drinking and prostitutes, which eventually led to his untimely demise at age 36.  He died from complications of alcoholism and syphilis.  His signature drink was a cocktail made from equal parts absinthe and cognac, and he had his cane hollowed out (which he needed for walking) so he could fill it with booze and never be caught without.

The Albertina was originally a part of a late 17th century palace built for royalty. One wing has been preserved with original rooms and furniture from the period, as well as the most significant pieces of art in the collection – originals by Da Vinci, Dürer, Rembrandt and Bosch.

I think the wall coverings are all made of silk cloth, but I’m not sure … these rooms didn’t have signs with English so I did a lot of guessing based on the few German words I recognize.

The floors were the most exquisite I’ve ever seen.  They are wood inlay, each room with a different design.  Most of them were covered with rugs to protect them.

Holden and Josie once again sitting on a bench instead of taking in their spectacular surroundings.  You can lead a child to great works of art and culture, but you can’t make them look.

The painting Young Hare is a 1502 watercolour and bodycolour painting by German artist Albrecht Dürer.  The hare is the unofficial mascot of Vienna and we’ve seen it throughout the city.  

View of the horse carriages from the steps of the Albertina.

On the way to the cafe for lunch, we walked down a new street and found several art galleries and antique shops.  They were all closed for Christmas so we’ll go back in a few days.

Then we suddenly found ourselves passing by the stables were they house the Lipizzaner Stallions of the Spanish Riding School.  This city has a delightful surprise around every corner.

Cafe Griensteidl – one of Vienna’s original (19th century) cafes – and open today for our lunch.  We had a fantastic meal here.  I ordered gnocchi in a pumpkin soup that was so good I’m going to try recreating it once I get back home.

After lunch we hired one of the carriages to take the five of us on a 30 minute tour around the city. The kids had fun bundling up under the blankets and seeing the sights in style. Isabella looks like she would rather be just about anywhere else, but she insists she was so taken by the scenery and the clip-clop of the horses — the whole sensory experience, really — that she was completely lost in thought.  When the ride was over, all three kids wanted to immediately do it again.

As for me, I realized while we were riding in the carriage that all this time walking around the city, I haven’t been looking up to truly appreciate the buildings. Everyone has a tendency to look down while walking, so you see mostly what is on street-level. (Navigating through crowds of people, too, you have to watch where you are going.) The carriage ride gives you a chance to sit back and look UP, and it’s well worth the price. You get an entirely new perspective on the city. Streets we’ve been walking through several times each day suddenly looked completely new.

By this time it was after 4:00 p.m. and I wanted a chance to relax a bit before I had to get started on dinner.  It was also starting to get really cold.

We went back to the apartment for a few hours.  I baked chicken tenders with butter and garlic, new potatoes and carrots with butter and garlic, and brussels sprouts with butter and garlic.  When you don’t have an extensive spice rack at your disposal, you can work miracles with butter, garlic, and salt.

A view of the Opera House from our deck.  The fog rolls in each night and gives the city a mystical quality.

Around 7:00 p.m. we headed back out.  Adam and Isabella wanted to see if they could get in to see the organ concert at St Peter’s Cathedral at 8:00 p.m. and the rest of us wanted to walk around the city and see what was there to see. It was quite cold this evening, so we got out our gloves, scarves, and warmest coats.

The chestnut guy outside our apartment door always has a crowd.  He must make as much money during the Christmas holiday as he does the rest of the year put together.

Every corner you turn reveals magical sights like this one.

We ended up back at the Christmas market Isabella, Adam and I went to last night.  They were still open.  Holden and Josie both wanted to get candied apples after they saw Isabella come home with one yesterday.

Here is the full Christmas moon!  Mere moments after Adam took this photo, we looked up and the moon was gone.  Clouds rolled in and simply erased it.  We got really lucky with the timing on this one.

Found the candied apple stand!

Isabella wanted to try something new, so she chose this enormous pretzel covered in chocolate and almond shavings.

One last shot of the Christmas market.  We read that it was closing down after Christmas.  We were actually surprised it was still open this late … a lot of the markets had already been dismantled and New Year’s Eve decorations erected in their places.  I was surprised at that — it means some poor schmucks had to spend Christmas day working hard outside in the cold.  I assumed they would just do all that tomorrow, but no.

On the walk home.

Giant ribbon on the building outside our apartment.

We ran into the Polish artist again on our way home.  We ended up buying another 5 of his paintings, with the idea of giving them out as gifts.

I got to looking at them once we got them home and became convinced they were from a printer — they were just too perfect. I was mad and pretty sure the guy had lied right to our faces.  I spent a couple hours angrily googling “how to tell if a watercolor is original or a print.”  In the end, someone said a sure-fire way to tell is to wet a q-tip and see if any pigment comes off the painting.  A real watercolor will re-paintify and come off on the q-tip, whereas printed ink won’t.  I tested one of them and it was definitely real paint.

Then I felt bad for thinking evil, un-Christmasy thoughts about the Polish guy … yet I’m still a bit skeptical in spite of the kinda/sorta-scientific test I conducted.  I don’t know how anyone can paint that precisely and evenly with watercolors.  If something is too good to be true, it usually is. Here is one example:  just look at how well he rendered the horses.

Saturday, 26 December 2015 (St. Stephen’s Day)

Austrians celebrate Stephanitag (St. Stephen’s Day) the day after Christmas.  In England, they call it Boxing Day.  Apparently Stephanitag is nearly as big a deal as Christmas itself.

Adam made several trips to the grocery store this morning thinking they would eventually open – but they never did open. Much of the rest of the city was closed, too.  I ended up cooking a batch of potatoes, onions, sausages and our 4 remaining eggs to make our breakfast because we were out of cereal and milk.

Our first destination was to take a ride on the Weiner Riesenrad – the oldest extant Ferris Wheel in the world. Built in 1897, it is a popular tourist attraction and has appeared in many movies through the years – from Orson Welles to James Bond.  The Wheel is part of the Prater park, which is much more of an amusement park than we thought it would be.  The kids were thrilled.

Holden looking at the city from inside one of the old ferris wheel cars, which looked kind of like 1/4th scale old-fashioned train cars.

Some of the cars (pictured below) were equipped with dining tables.  People can have a romantic dinner if they wish.

Our public car was much less romantic.  They packed people in.

Isabella, Holden and me enjoying the sights.  Once again, Isabella insists she was having a great time, listening to her music and marveling at her surroundings.

Next up was a funky rollercoaster.  We’d never seen one quite like it.  All of the rides cost €4 each and we’d told the kids they could do ONE ride.  This is the one they unanimously chose.

Riders lay down in a prone position on their stomachs, like Superman flying.  You can’t see from the photo, but their legs are sticking straight out behind them.

Off they go!

Slowly up the corkscrew …

… and then it goes like mad.

We left Prater park to find a cafe suitable for lunch.  Then we walked a few blocks to see the Danube.  It actually was blue.

Back near our apartment in Stephansplatz they have their New Year itinerary posted.  Each of the yellow dots is a location that will have a different musical artist performing.  Listed below are the artists and their genre of music.

With the grocery stores closed these last two days, we’ve been stocking up on “Nachtschwärmer” (means either night owl or nocturnal reveler, depending on which you prefer) sold at a nearby kiosk. Cheap! Careful when asking for that brand by name in your local store.

While in the subway station today, we bought a can of the cannabis tea to try.  We haven’t had it yet, but here is the picture to prove I’m not making it up.

I cooked a repeat of our Christmas dinner (chicken, potatoes, carrots, brussels sprouts, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms) after wine time.

For our pre-dinner Wine Time entertainment we watched Woman in Gold, starring Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds.  It’s (based-on) a true story of a wealthy Austrian Jewish woman forced to flee the Nazis at the beginning of WWII.  She escaped to America and settled in Los Angeles, but the Nazis plundered her family’s Viennese estate.  They stole, in particular, a painting titled Woman in Gold by Klimt, which was a commissioned portrait of her Aunt Adele.  As an old woman, she sued the Austrian government to return the painting (among others) in 1998.

A lot of the scenes were filmed in Vienna so we wanted to watch the movie while we were here.  The infamous stolen painting hung in the Belvedere Gallery for years as the crown jewel of their Klimt collection.  We’re going to the Belvedere Gallery tomorrow.

It’s so much fun to be able to watch a movie/show and then immediately go tromp around the filming locations.  A couple years ago we spent Christmas in London near 221B Baker Street, so we re-watched all the Sherlock episodes and then dedicated a whole day to retracing Sherlock’s steps around the city.  It was fun!

Around 6:30 p.m. we headed back out for our evening stroll.  We took a different route this time to see if there was anything new, but struck out.  The buildings were impressive, as usual in Vienna, but there wasn’t anything going on.

We did find this statue of Johann Strauss.  He looks nearly identical to Mark Twain.  We’ve seen pictures of him in various places throughout the city and each time I think, “Why do they have a picture of Mark Twain playing the violin?”  Here he was, larger than life, in statue form.  We had to get a picture.

Back outside our apartment the Opera House is broadcasting a live performance so everyone can see it.  They are playing La Cenerentola (Cinderella) — sung in Italian and shown here with German subtitles.  We have tickets to this performance next week.

If you are willing to sit out in the cold, you can see a world-class performance for free.  Quite a few people were doing exactly that.

From our rooftop deck you can see the Opera House and the projection screen.  We could hear the singing from inside our apartment, which was incredibly cool.

Later in the evening, we learned that Vienna has received news of a terrorist threat (along with several other unnamed European cities) to take place sometime between Christmas and New Year’s.  That news cast a pall over our evening.

I spent some time looking up all the details I could find, which wasn’t much.  The main New Year’s celebrations are taking place in Stephansplatz, just a couple blocks from where we are.  The city is shutting down most of the subway system after 10:00 p.m. on New Year’s Eve so that anyone wanting to get to Stephansplatz will have to walk there.  The subway system will be reserved for the exclusive use of the police and ambulance services so they can get around quickly if necessary.  The police have announced they will increase security but so far will not cancel any of the events.

Excerpt from article in The Guardian:  Police in Vienna have stepped up security around the city after a warning to several European capitals about a possible attack between Christmas and new year. They said that the warning, about a gun or bomb attack, did not specify any targets and that authorities in Vienna did not intend to cancel any specific events.

The warning did give several names of potential attackers, the statement said, but an investigation into the names had not produced concrete results.

Christoph Pölzl, a spokesman for Vienna police, said: “We do not know if these people exist in real life, or if they are only names with no real person behind them. We have no evidence that they are in Vienna, and we have no evidence that they are even in Europe.” Pölzl refused to say which other European capitals had received the warning.

City authorities said they would increase surveillance of places where crowds are expected to gather, including transport hubs, and pay closer attention to suspicious bags or suitcases.

Anyway, this is sobering and unwelcome news.  The New Year celebrations in the city center begin at 2:00 pm. and go through midnight.  Our original plan was to go out early in the afternoon before people started getting drunk and rowdy, then come back to our apartment for a dinner in.  We expect we’ll be able to see several different fireworks shows from our roof balcony, so we plan to view the festivities from up there.  Unless further news about a more concrete threat surfaces, we’ll probably stick with that plan.

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.

Living room, entry and kitchen in the background

View of living room from the staircase

Entry

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.

Full kitchen

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.

Isabella and Josie asleep in their loft

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

Holden asleep in his loft

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.

Main bathroom

Private deck

360 degree views from the second-level private deck. The building with the greenish-grey roof is the Opera House.

Skylights and rooftop decks of the other penthouse apartments

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.