After Bratislava I went to Vienna. Lucas' family hosted a foreign exchange student from Austria when his Dad was a teenager. This exchange student is now a man named Wolfgang, and while in Vienna we stayed with him.
Before I go into everything I did in Vienna, let me start by thanking Wolfgang and his family for welcoming us so warmly into their home. It was a real treat to be welcomed by a family after so many weeks of hostels, cheap pasta dinners, and bunk beds. Wolfgang was an incredible host and did a great job showing us around the city. Aside from that, he also spoiled me rotten with all his delicious Austrian food (potato goulash, boar in lingonberry sauce, turkish coffee, apple and walnut strudel, sachertorte, frankenfurters, fresh bread, tea, and fresh sandwiches every night) and his very paternal advice (I've been a tad sick for a couple of weeks and it was at its worst in Vienna. Wolfgang very generously made me fresh tea and gave me some cough drops and concerned advice. Not surprisingly I was almost completely healed by the time I left) so that I was hesitant to reimburse myself into the world of backpacking.
Also, as it turns out, Wolfgang was a student at Lewiston High School when my great-grandpa was principal there. Small world!
On our first day Wolfgang took us around the major sights of the city such as the palace, the opera house, the treasury (so ornate!) and the zoo, which we only went to because I insisted. Neither Luke nor Wolfgang was particularly interested but I very much was.
As far as I can remember, I don't think I've ever been to a zoo before. I'm sure I have, especially since as a kid I was obsessed with animals (I had tigers on my wallpaper and bedspread as a kid. I was also really into sloths and hippos and was obsessed with the rain forest) so I'm sure I've been, but never in my adult life, so off to the zoo we went. Maybe it's because I haven't spent that much time out of New England, but I couldn't help repeating myself that these were real life exotic animals. I remember thinking "Wow! That's a real rhino! That's a real Tapir! That's a real panda!" I'm not sure what I was expecting, maybe some sort of mechanical replacement one would find in Disney World or Universal Studios (I remember going on the 'Jaws' ride and being so disappointed that the shark was so clearly a fake. The negative repurcussions of having a real shark as part of a horror-movie ride weren't really a concern at the time) but I guess the little kid in me was just so excited to be seeing all these amazing and gorgeous animals. Real life animals!
After that the bug I had got much worse and I couldn't breathe heavily without coughing, so the next couple of days are sort of a blur. I went to the MUMOK and saw some really cool modern art including a giant fuzzy spider and a Picasso. And lots of other artworks that are probably brilliant but to me just seem like a pretty elaborate hoax.
I also saw the Anchor Clock which is pretty typically Art Noveu and at a certain hour (I think it's noon but I can't remember exactly) they show likenesses of all the past rulers of Austria along with music that was famous during that time. It takes about 11 minutes and ends with Franz Josef (I think).
I'll attach some pictures later, although I'm embarrassed to admit that more than half of them are of animals I saw at the zoo.
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