We also went up in one of the bell towers (not the highest one, but the one with a still functioning bell).
Us at the top of the tower
After the church was more general wandering and I took him to the Manner store so he could buy many tasty wafer cookies and walked him past the Lipizzaner stables to marvel at the ultra classy horses (I don't know if the horses themselves are classy, but their genes must be). Of course, this led to much amusement of Aaron when he saw a store that stated Lipizzaner: the Better Taste. We also saw Hero's Square and Michael's Gate before I had us hop on a tram to go out to a Soho. Here there were cocktails and kareoke (not by any of us) and Aaron got to meet some of my buds, which was nice. However, time was cut short as we then had to go pick up Kristen and Elise and take them to Dominik's. Dominik would be one of my totally awesome friends who didn't even hesitate when I asked if the girls could sleep at his place and just answered "yes," which I greatly appreciated. This was also despite the fact that he was doing field work. Anyways, he was too sleepy to go out with us that night so we just all went to Tunnel for the weekly BOKU international meeting.
This....was not a good plan. Being in that I got us horribly horribly lost and it took twice as long to get there as it should have, oops. On the bright side, we were all prety hungry so I'm sure all our pizzas were extra tasty. Although, our waiter was a little strange in that once she heard us speaking English she kinda refused to speak German, even though her German was better than her English. But oh well. We didn't stay out too late, and the return home was uneventful with the only significant thing being Aaron vowing to get a kebab from the (supposidly) best kebab stand in town.
The next day I have many more classes (yucky) so during my break I met up with Aaron to show him where our grandpa had lived. Then we swung by a cafe for a quick coffee and another apple strudel before I stuck Aaron on a tram and sent him to find Kristen and Elise (which he did with no problem). Apparently they went to Museum's Quarter where there were some....interesting statues of various parts of anatomy.
After my classes I met up with them to go to a tasty Pakastani place and then we dashed over to the State's Opera to get some standing tickets for The Flying Dutchman. Our places were not ideal as we got there a bit late and poor Aaron had to stand in the aisle where he couldn't read on the translation of the singing on the screen. But we filled him in later. As two hours of standing (with no break) left our feet a bit sore we left to find a place to sit for a bit and ended up going to Loos. This is a bar that is supposidly the birthplace of the cocktail. However, I was just amazed at how freakin' tiny the place was!! I'm guessing 20 people could fit in there, and that's pushing it. The drinks themselves were ok, but nothing spectacular so we left after our first drink.
And then I got us lost again.
But hey, in the process we got to see the Sacher Hotel (where the Sacher Torte comes from) and a lovely student protest/drum dancing party that was protesting tuition. I have trouble feeling sympathetic for these students though, as their tuition is still not 1/4th of what ours is.
On the way back Aaron did manage to get his kebab of legend, which I believe he said was ok.
Friday was the day of markets, since I took them to both Brunnenmarkt and Naschmarkt. First was breakfast at Tunnel and then we quickly wandered through Brunnenmarkt so they could see all the yummy foodstuff and complete randomness of the vendors who were selling clothes. Sadly, the market itself was a little sparse in the number of vendors. I guess they won't really return in full strength till the warm weather is here to stay.
After Brunnenmarkt we went off to Prater, which is Vienna's amusement park. Since the park was pretty much closed we just wandered around a not at all creepy deserted amusement park. There were some of these nifty, victorian-ish games to play though, all games of strength.
One involved punching things
The other involved getting this little rocket around the wheel as many times as possible
After Prater I took them to Naschmarkt to wander around a bit but the weather outside was getting frightful so we ducked into a cafe for some food and coffee before returning to my place. Here we simply chilled for a bit and watched some ski jumping on tv (not suprising, they're playing it like ALL THE TIME). After that was another cafe where not only did we get apple strudel, but also sacher torte (I have a hard time disliking a city where it's part of the cultural experience to eat lots of pastries :-D). Then, we went to Dominik's and we all decided to make dinner. It got down pretty close to the wire, since the grocery stores close at seven and it was already five to seven, but we managed to get all the food we wanted and Aaron even broke out some fancy cheese he had bought earlier.
This is the fanciest (and only) appetizers I've had all year
Elise and Aaron did all the cooking. Look at them go!
Aaron explains what exactally we're eating (Nunu is the girl on the far left)
See what practial knowledge we learn
This face.....I have no words
On Saturday Aaron had to depart to return to his stupid life in Boston :-P, so we grabbed dinner at a cafe near Brunnenmarkt. It was pretty tasty but I think we scared the waiter because after he took our original order (and heard us speaking English) a different waiter came to take our food order. Also it was super crowded so service was kinda slow and I was getting worried about catching Aaron's flight, but it all worked out. Also, Aaron got to see Brunnenmarkt on Saturday, when a lot more people are there and there's much more hand-made things. I got some lovely pussy willow branches (they sell them everywhere here around Easter) and walking back we ducked down a street that turned out to be an Easter market. It was rather small compared to the others here, but Aaron got to get a schaumroll (like a pastry dough hollow log filled with marshmallow cream) and I'm wondering if he's actually eaten that yet.
The transportation to and from the airport was very smooth, though I did get a little saddened when I had to hug him goodbye, but I'm ultra glad he visited as it was super fun.
In the evening I met up with Kristen and Elise again at a Turkish restaurant where I ate way too much delicious food. Which was a tasty mistake. Then we went back to Dominik's to chill for a bit before going out again.
He had glogi (Mulled wine)!! I was so happy!!
The brief chilling kinda led to some people falling asleep and others deciding to dogpile upon sleeping person.I'm not nameing names here
Eventually, we went for a walk around the neighborhood to scavenge some food, and we did eventually find a kebab stand though the quality was less than good. At this point the wind had really picked up and I had definitaly missed my last tram so I just crashed on the floor, choosing a slightly uncomfortable floor to freezing, strong winds.Gooooooooood morning ladies!!
Sunday was Sigmund day!! Sigmund Freud that is, as we went to the Freud museum. Guess where it is!
It was actually pretty cool and had several rooms full of Freud's stuff and writings. One of the rooms was even re-created to look like it had originally with Freud, furniture and all.Elise looking at Freud stuff
Kristen also looking at Freud stuff
After that I decided they should try some of the lovely gelato we have here so it was off to a place near Stephansplatz. However, what I didn't remember was how many flavors there are and since we were getting a style that is 3 different flavors, it took us a while to choose. I think the ice cream guys were getting a little impatient, but I feel like all Viennese vendors are. The minute you enter a store it's "Wie bitte? Wie bitte?" Which is kind of like "how can I help you?" This is kind of annoying because even if you tell them you're just looking they give you the most confused face. Mmmmmm Gelato
As it turns out we kinda all forgot about Elise's lactose intolerance (it's not super bad) so I ended up finishing off her ice cream, which turned out to be a mistake. I was STUFFED!!! We ducked back to Dominik's so they could pick up their stuff and he was nice enough to make lunch for everyone, proving he is still awesome even when even more tired from doing field work all week.
Getting to the train was kind of interesting as we got there essentialy JUST in time, but they boarded and I returned back to my room to recover from a week of pretty much walking all day long.
All in all, fantastically wonderful visits from both parties and hopefully despite all my mistakes they had an ok time.
Anyone else want to visit? Eh?? Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehh??
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