Vienna Food Tour

We decided to try a Vienna Food Tour.  The tour promised to show markets and restaurants off the "tourist" track and in a few different districts.  We woke up Saturday morning, having already paid,  to pouring rain unlike any we had seen the previous five weeks in Vienna.  Undeterred, we dressed in layers, grabbed our umbrellas and headed downtown.

Our guide, Will - a British ex-pat, met the group at the 9:00 am start time after being out at the pubs all night.

We started in the first district at Café Korb where we had schnittlauchbrot (above) and a melange.  We also had kaiserschmarren, Austria's version of pancakes.  They looked like scrambled eggs but we all loved them.

We took the ubahn a few stops to the seventh district where we walked through Viktor Adler Markt and had  peaches, plums and zweigelt grapes.

Wurstelstands are sprinkled all over Vienna.  Our guide explained the the good ones have people hanging out outside.  He took us to one for kasekrainer - a bratwurst filled with cheese, waldviertler -  a dark and crispy sausage and debrenziner - a spicy sausage.

We stopped at a Turkish bakery, Oz Aslan for baklava.  Vienna has a large immigrant population so one can find great Turkish food.

Bakeries are everywhere here.  We stopped in Groissbock for a krapfen, a cream or jelly filled donut, and mohnzelt, a poppyseed dessert.

Finally, we went to the tourist filled Naschmarkt where we had Zotter chocolate (in a future post I will tell you how amazing this chocolate is as we went to the factory for the day).

Cafe Central

Determined to get out one Sunday afternoon, the kids and I decided to go to cafe Central to play chess with the ghosts of chess masters.  The Cafe was dubbed the "chess School" back in the early 1900s due to all the people who would play chess on the first floor.

Tourists frequent this hot spot today to enjoy coffee in the same space that famous people like Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Egon Friedell, Adolf Loos and even Adolf Hitler and Leon Trotsky sipped their coffee and made plans to, well... One story says that Stalin, Marx and Trotsky planned their revolution from this very spot.

From Emily: Hallstatt

One of the requirements of being in Middle School is you have to go on a two night trip to Hallstatt. Lucky for me, I loved going and felt only a little bit homesick. Here is a pretty good picture of the mountain view outside the window of the bus, and a picture of me and my friend Nele.

Our first stop was a hike 'up' a mountain. We didn't actually hike UP the mountain. We just walked on top of it. It was really cool because there were people that were jumping off the mountain with a parachute and we could see them in the distance. One guy was very scared but once he jumped he was fine. He even shouted "WOAHO!" because he was so happy. We were split up into two groups, one with Mrs. D's, Ms. Lemus and Frau Lutz's advisory (homeroom) and the rest of the advisorys were in the other group. The pictures below are (1) my friends Maya and Jonny, and (2) me in a 'picture frame' with the mountain view (Maya took that picture).

After the hike and the Ice caves, we walked back to the Hostel and set up our rooms. I was in a room with My friends Jinu and Ciele, and a girl I never met before whose name was Selma. 

We had dinner at the Hostel, and then played soccer on the Hostel's soccer field that the teachers rented for the night. What really surprised me though, is that the bus driver that drove us to Hallstatt, played soccer with us.

The next day we went to the Salt mines and shopped at Hallstatt beautiful town and then at the swam at the lake. Let me tell you about it.

The salt mine was amazing!! First we walked through the parts where the ancient salt miners once walked to collect their salt. We went on two slides, one was a short slide, the other was an enormous slide. I went on the big slide with my friend Julia. We were faster than light! After that we went on a small train ride through a tunnel.

After the salt mine, we went to the small town and went shopping. Nele and I first went to a really good ice cream shop. Then we went to a little store that sold ornaments, so I got a really nice bell ornament. Once we were done shopping, we all went on a really nice boat ride to the lake where we swam. The water was FREEZING. It was so cold, that even when my head was out of the water, I still couldn't breath.

The two pictures are, (1) the center of Hallstatts little town, and (2) The small famous church that was the center of the Hallstatt.

The end of the trip was just a long drive back to Vienna. The trip was a total success, especially since the weather was so nice. I had a great time, and I rate it five stars out of five.

Getting Settled

We are trying to find our grove as we settle into our new country with trips to parks, IKEA and golf courses.

We live near Türkenschanzpark.  The park opened in about 1888 with ponds, streams and fountains.  We walk by monuments to people like the poet Adalbert Stifter and the composers Franz Marschner and Emmerich Kálmán. The Yunus Emre fountain which was donated by the Turkish ambassador as a sign of Austro-Turkish friendship, sits in the parks front corner.

We discovered a great gelato place in the middle.

Our sponsors were kind enough to take us to IKEA to start our getting settled process.  We wanted an outdoor set for our large porch.

The kids are making friends and inviting them up for games and pizza

And Dave found a beautiful golf course to join.

First Concert

Before we moved Dave suggested we go to a Goo Goo Dolls concert in Vienna. I met his enthusiasm with a litany of comments, "I have to get up early for work. We will still be jet lagged.  We don't know if the venue is good.  How will we get there with no car. The crowds will upset the kids." A week after we arrived and in desperate need of a boost, Dave again suggested the 45 euro tickets. Since it turned out I had the next day off, I agreed to go.  I kept my negative thoughts mostly in my head though even as we walked out the door Dave reminded me I can stay home.

The moment we arrived at the venue I fell in love. I loved the outdoor space filled with graffiti art that surrounded the concert hall.

The inside felt like an intimate underground club.  I previously worried over our "standing tickets" as I imagined exceedingly tall Austrians blocking Owen's view and his complaints over tight, smelly places followed by "My legs are tired."  It turned out the entire venue was the same type of ticket and we luckily snagged four bleacher seats in the dead center. The kids could see everything.

We loved every second of the concert.  I had no idea the Goo Goo Dolls had so many hits. We can't wait for more shows at the Vienna Hall.