We're here!

Getting to Vienna was rather unextraordinary. We left Luca to waves and our tears in the van and arrived at Dulles a little after 1:30 for a 5:35 pm flight. Our driver was a little early and traffic was pretty light, so note for next year, go ahead and leave around 1:30. The weather had been pretty rainy the past few days, but there was sun on our way up. That all changed around 4:30, about 20 minutes before we were supposed to start boarding, when a huge crash of thunder sounded and seconds later, a torrent of rain was unleashed from the sky. The airport actually closed for about 30 - 45 minutes. We stayed glued to the screen that said, "VIE: 5:35: ON TIME", willing it to not blink "CANCELED", as this was the only flight to Vienna. We ended up boarding about 30 minutes after we were supposed to and then sat for another 30 minutes for our turn to take to the skies. And just like that, we were in the air.

There were no less than 7 toddlers on the flight, ranging from newly-walking to about 3 or 4. There were a couple of screams but all in all, it was not disastrous like I'd half-expected. I think these parents were prepared!

While I tried to sleep on the plane, it wasn't very successful, so I settled into watching movies. I tried to watch Gangster Squad, but the first 10 minutes were too violent for me, and while I like to look at Ryan Gosling, I hated his voice in this movie, and I hope he doesn't normally sound so nasally, or anything I've ever said about liking him I take back. So I switched it to Parental Guilt, starring Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand. Cute. I've turned into one of those people. Heh. Ask hubby and he'll tell you I've always been on of those people - the kind who like B movies and only B movies. But after having a kid, I think so many things are violent. He was watching Django Unchained, and forgive the misspelling if it is, but holy cow. I know it's a Tarantino film, but the body count was staggering. Then he started watching Les Mis, and even that I found disturbing. So for awhile, I just sat and stared at my screen, tried to sleep, listened to a little music, turned around and around in my seat, and about an hour away from the end of the flight, got a little sleep.

Second note to self: NEVER travel on an airplane without Aleve. EVER. I think that's one reason I couldn't sleep.

Despite leaving about an hour after we were supposed to, we arrived in pretty good time, got through customs and out to our bus with relative ease. The hostel is just about a 7 minute walk from the busstop, so hubby is there now on his way to get the first round of students arriving this morning. Our room was ready for us, so we opened the door and were greeted by three beds - two bunk and one near the window in a space that's tall but not very wide - I'm going out on a limb here to say about 7 feet wide. We decided on the cheaper option of just beds and no bathroom in our room, so the room is quite a bit smaller. But now that I'm used to it, it's ok. It's nice and clean and the hostel is very well-run. The doors are a little thin, so I will be getting the kids ear plugs today at the local CVS-type store called dm, as they really helped me last night.

After freshening up, hubby needed to get a few housekeeping things done, so out on the town we went. First order of business: lunch.

This is chicken schnitzel with fries and a tiny bit of salad you can see in the back. This will be my standard meal here. And I love it. This lovely little restaurant, Levante, is actually a Turkish restaurant. John had mussaka, which is something we tried to make in Bosnia and failed spectacularly. It is typically a potato layed dish with cheese and sometimes meat. I'm not sure what all his contained. Since failing to make it properly, I've been happy to let others make it for him. While we were there, there was a couple with a 2 year-oldish little boy, and it was hysterical to see that they were having the same experiences with their child that we have with ours - they took turns eating so he could run around and up and down the stairs, he didn't really want to sit and eat unless it was dessert, and he even had a little temper tantrum when his dad tried to hold his hand. So we're not so different after all. 

After that, we got on the subway to the Westbahnhof, which is another metro stop, then hopped another line to buy tickets for the castle Schonbrunn. When we arrived, we were told we had to come back on the day we wanted to tour to get the group tickets. So then we went back and started our tour of Vienna so John was prepared for Saturday's walking around in the rain. 

And while we're on the subject of rain, it would seem that Vienna is about the same as Virginia - it will be 75 and sunny today, and tomorrow and Sunday will be rainy with a high of around 62. Nice, Vienna, nice. 

Random street we were walking down

I believe John said this was the oldest church in Vienna

Look at this art! On a building!

On our walking tour 

Back to the tour, we wound this way and that, not really getting lost but not finding what John wanted, and then he figured it all out. We also found gelato, so I was happy. Chocolate and raspberry mixed together created wonderful memories of Sheridan's, a custard restaurant in Kansas City that I adored. When I mentioned this to John, he said, "I'll take that as a compliment," because really, gelato is so much better than what we have in the States. While eating our gelato, we walked around some more, and then I finally said I was ready to head back to the hostel. We went back but then decided it was too early to just sit because once we did that, we'd fall asleep, so we asked the people at the front desk where there was some good Italian, and 15 minutes later, we found it. I Terrino is a little place off the beaten path that serves huge portions of food and also doesn't take credit cards. I had gnocchi, and I could have eaten the whole plate because it was so tasty, but we're talking around 40 or so pieces of gnocchi, which is not what my hips needed, regardless of how many miles we walked yesterday! But I was literally falling asleep at the table. I could not keep my eyes open. By this time it was 5:30 or 6 and we decided to call it a day. We went back to the hostel and showered and I fell into a blissful sleep for about 3 hours until people from outside woke me up. We slept with the windows open and the courtyard is directly beneath us. Not such a big deal - I did have my earplugs and had gone about 27 hours without sleeping, so it was pretty easy to fall back asleep again. I was awakened a couple more times by people in the hallway just getting in and by someone trying to figure out their door. Unlock, lock. Unlock, lock. Unlock, lock. I was seconds away from sticking my head out the door to ask if they needed help figuring it out when they apparently did and stopped clicking their lock. 

So far, besides the earplugs, the best travel tool I brought was my eye mask, which I actually call my eye patch because it makes John laugh. The window was blazing around 5:30 this morning with tons of sunlight, but since I had my eyepatch on, I was ready to go back to sleep. At 6 am, I noticed John was awake (did I mention these beds are twin so we are not sleeping near each other?), so I got up. Since our window is open, we got to hear an owl hoot repeatedly, and currently there is a plane overhead and a nice little chilly breeze. Ahhhhh.