Sunday, October 28th - Wednesday, 31st: Vienna, Austria

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Sunday morning we left Hallstatt and drove to Mauthausen Concentration Camp. That experience is something I'm going to write about as it's own blog entry... And I'm not going to do that now. So I'll skip over it and blog it out of order - for those of you who are Type-A personalities, I'm sorry. Also, these are all fun photos... I'll post some artsy ones of Vienna in a day or so.

So after Mauthausen, we drove down the Autobaun into Vienna. At one point, when it wasn't raining, when Sarah was asleep, when it was downhill and the wind was at my back, I opened up our Volkswagon Golf and got it to 180km/hr. Now I can mark "pedal to the metal on the Autobaun" off my list of things to do before I die(even if it was in a Volkswagon Golf).

We arrived in Vienna that evening and it was raning...

We took the subway into the town square and headed to our housing - a sweet little Austrian lady who rented out rooms in her flat. While she was super, super nice... our room was a narrow, long closet. We had separate twin beds (see one in the bottom right corner of this photo) and the room was so narrow that we couldn't put the beds side by side. Also the place smelled like smoke and old coffee... or maybe if you smoked coffee flavored cigarettes... or like if you made coffee from old cigarette butts...

The next morning we started out doing a tour of the city center via tram. We got off at certain stops that looked interesting, like this park with statues of famous musicians.


There were a couple of little old ladies taking photos in front of this statue before us. When I stood in front of it and posed like Straus, they started laughing so hard we got kind of concerned about them. But then, that happens sometimes when I'm around: my comedy genius blows people's minds... especially old people.



That night we dressed up to go to the opera. The Vienna Opera House sells Standing Room Only tickets for only 3 euros! So we got to go see classical opera in Vienna - how cool!




Come to find out, the opera was really long, and in latin, and we were standing, and some of the people.... smelled.

So this is us, leaving the opera, 30 minutes after it started.




We found our way to an Italian restaurant named Danieli and had better Italian food than we've ever had in Italy.



I don't care what anyone says. It is entirely possible to maintain your coolness while wearing a money belt...as demonstrated in this photo.




On our way home that night, we walked by this high fashion store and found a mannequin that made us laugh. She's the High Society I-drank-too-much-on-my-way-to-the-opera-and-fell-down model. We named her Tami and we spent the rest of the evening coming up with things that drunk Tami would say like, "who put those stairs there?" and "don't judge me!"






The next morning we headed up bright and early - earlier than Tami would be getting up anyhow. This is the old-school elevator in our building.






We walked down to the farmers market and spent some time perusing. They have the most incredible selection of meats, cheeses, and produce I've ever seen.

We bought some of the freshly prepared food and made a picnic... hummus, cheese filled peppers and olives, and falafel.







Then we were on our way to Schonbrunn Palace - the seat of the Habsburg's empire



Staying hot while staying hydrated...












That afternoon, when we arrived back in the city center, we went to Demel - the Tiffany's of chocolate places in Vienna. Fortunately, I like my sacher torte dry, just like I like my humor.





So we found out that the Opera house was having a ballet (instead of an Opera) that night, and decided to go back for tickets again. This is us sitting in line waiting for tickets.

I have a low tolerance for lines.




This is us waiting for the show to start (the stage curtain is behind us). I took of photo of Sarah and then she took one of me and we photoshoped them together...

It was a beautiful show and we stayed for the whole thing! Then we went to bed.








The next day was our last morning in Vienna. We decided to do a little shopping, and we started at an antique book shop. In Europe, the word "Antiques" mean items much older than in the US. We found some awesome books, but none we could afford.







For lunch we treated ourselves to our favorite Austrian food: The street vendor weinerschnitzel. For those of you who like a great dog... this is the dog to end all dogs. They take a perfect bun and puncture it with a warming rod. While they grill your weiner, the bun warms from the inside out. Then they put your condiments inside, slip the meat into it, and grill the whole thing. Just trust me - it tastes really great.








Our friends Johnny and Brooke, who are missionaries in Slovenia, drove up to Vienna and picked us up to bring us down to their hometown: Ljubljana. On the way, we stopped in a small town known for their restaurants and family owned vineyards, and had a great, traditional Austrian meal.





Our last event in Austria - with Brooke and Johnny! We ate family-style, trying a variety of unknown dishes.