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Trip Start Jun 05, 2006 Previous
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  Vienna, Austria
Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Hello once again from across the sea. Yesterday was a pretty active day of straight American tourism. We got up once again to the lyrical sound of jackhammering, and decided to go to the Stefanplatz area, just bustling with people at noon on a Tuesday. We knew it would be a bit pricier there, but for some reason we thought we would like to get some kind of a local atmosphere. Well, there were mostly Germans at the cafes and whatnot, but it would seem that aside from London (where you spend 2 bucks for every pound), this is the most expensive place we've stayed. I paid 2€, or the equivalent of about $2.60 for a tee-tinsey shot of mocha. This caffeine addiction of mine can really cost an arm and a torso. Anyway, we had some reasonably priced fish sandwiches after walking around this great gothic cathedral--the Stefankirche, where we sneaked around behind this English-speaking tour to get a few details about how the church was reconstructed after being partially destroyed in the war

1 out of 10 Pikachus prefer the sleeper cabin

. Then we walked to the southside of central Vienna, to the "neoclassical Karlskirche, complete with an ornate turquoise, Barroque-style dome." Though we had to pay to get into that one, it was really cool, because they were restoring the murals inside the dome, and we could ride an elevator to the top of the scaffolding, then ascend another series of stairs, to a small platform with a good view of the city. See, we do climb something in every city. I was truly amazed by the handiwork on the mural though. I can`t even imagine how they must have spent hours cantilevered there, 150ft off the ground, where I felt a little uncomfortable behind a secure steel barricade and wasn`t even trying to paint a realistic bible scene in three dimensions on a curved surface. Well done 18th Century!

*As a side-note, Jon and I kept hearing this slight squeaking as we were descending, and were like--What's that?! It was then that Jon realized that it was the support that was keeping the entire structure from moving side to side, as it was completely supported at the bottom. And I said--Oh, so it was the support system to this scary scaffolding that was making that noise, huh? And Jon said--Yeah, I guess so. And we descended very slowly and quietly.

After that we walked around the more western area, where we saw a TON of impressive buildings, from neoclassical to Gothic to Barroque, with a few socialist buildings mixed in for variety

a cool poseidon fountain near stefanplatz

. That part of the city has the most impressive architectural collections we've seen in that compact an area. It was like, literally everwhere you turned you wanted to take a picture. And with four digital cameras at our disposal...we did. So we headed into the palace to try and arrange to see the famous Lipizzaner Spanish dancing horses practice in the morning. (OK, I won't act like I didn't just learn about them yesterday. Apparently they're these horses that come from Spain and start out black, but turn white at the age of 6 or so, and are trained from foals to do really cool dancing stuff, although apparently not waltzes, as they prefer the horsetrot...sorry for that) As luck would have it the entire palace complex would be shut down the next day (today) because George Bush was coming to some kind of summit with the EU. So it's actually lucky we even got to see the palace at all.

So after that disappointing revelation we decided we were hungry and went to a place Frommer's recommended near the University. It was DELICIOUS, and it was the first place we`ve eaten at that didn`t have an English menu, so we finally got to use Kelly`s phrasebook.

So for today, we've just checked out of our hotel and I guess we`re going to do some more touristy stuff before our overnight train to Florence leaves at 7:30. We're all looking forward to Florence, but it seems like we just keep trading places being sick. This time it's Jon, who during the course of doing laundry last night began losing his voice, and within the next couple hours, was reduced to whispering. I`ve never seen that happen that quickly. He seems fine other than that, and everybody else is good, so it could be a lot worse. Well, till Florence.

Cheerio,

Matt

ps--Still no computers that let me upload photos...hopefully I can find one in Florence

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

All the crowd control cops near the palace	can you spot jon, jill, and kelly?	candle in the stefanskirche	Detail of one of the mural scenes
here is jon again in his wheelchair	I give the former Chancellor a noogie	Jill and Kelly in the Stefanskirche	Jon in his apparatus in the Nat Hist museum
jon jill and kelly in front of the kalskirche	jon punches the man and his horse	Jon's nasty swollen foot	Kelly in der fooden markt
Kelly makes a face on the metro	Local fruit market	Me in front of the National Library	navigating--in front of the palace gate
Pikachu decides to call home	really cool, ornately molded archway	silhouette of maria teresa, former head of austria	stained glass in the stefanskirche
statue of athena	This is where Pikachus come from	View from the scary platform in the dome	view from within the palace area

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