The Cubicle is empty!!!

Where: Vienna, Austria
When: Sept. 13, 2005

After all the hubub last night, we all took it easy this morning. The garbage trucks actually woke me up this morning around 6am and couln’t go back to sleep. So I washed up and dressed and took a morning walk while everyone was still asleep. Or so I thought.

On the way down. There were two guys lined up to go in the sex/erotic shop on the second floor. The boardinghouse (4th floor), residence (3rd & 5th floor) and the Birds Nest erotic shop share a common entrance from Mariahilferstrasse. Evertime we go out, we pass by the door to the erotic shop. There are no displays to see. Just a buzzer to get in and credit card stickers that they accept. But these guys were lined up early and I just bid them Guten Morgen and gross gott this as I past them by. Gross gott is the more common greeting that Viennese use to greet each other. It’s only used in Vienna.

Anyway, I just took a walk in the neighborhood. Headed downtown to the old city and took a different street back. Things don’t really pick up until around 9am. Just like in our country, the blue collar workers are out early and the white collar workers don’t really start until 9am. Interesting.

I counted 3 starbucks and 2 McDonalds on my walk. Viennese love their coffee. I think starbucks figured if they can capture a good share of the market in Vienna, then they can confidently capture the coffee market in Europe. Most of the clientele I noticed though are the young variety. The old folks probably are still loyal to their coffeeshop. But I’m sure that Starbucks are just biding their time until when ´most of the coffee drinkers in Vienna had their first coffee at Starbucks. The local shop have also started to have coffee on the go. Something that they did not offer until Starbucks came to town. So, Starbucks had made an impact on the coffee drinkers of Vienna.

We didn’t get going until after brunch on a place around the corner. Good breakfast of ham and cheese on a hard roll with soft boiled egg. Yummy!!!

We met Tina, the owner of the place we’re staying at, at Starbucks. It’ on the first side street to the left heading towards the old city. Deanna had a nice chat with her until she had to get going to meet her friend for coffee. She did give us directions to the post office. We’re planning on mailing some souvinier(sp) and not needed material home. So we don’t have to lug all those extra weight. Hoping to keep the cost below 100€. Yikes! But I think it’s worth it not lugging the extra pounds around when travelling. I not only carry my backpack and daypack, but I also have to lug Mary’s LUGGAGE. That thing weighs at least a ton. I think all she forgot was the kichen sink. Since the parental unit can’t move as fast, we have to pitch in to make it safer to hop in and out of trains, steps and escalators.

We saw the Hapsburg city residence today but just the outside grounds. The museums in the compound were closed today (Tue). Today is when they do all the cleaning at the museum. Nice grounds with beautiful parks and gardens. The Statues of various Hapsburg royalty and composers sorround the City palace. We only took a picture of the statue of Mozart the boy genuis.

After touring the grounds of the Hapsburg City Palace. We took the Vienna Opera House tour. All the tours for the different languages started at 2pm. So needless to say, there were a crowd at the doorway and when they openned the doors there was a mild rush to the ticket window. I purchase 5 tickets with 2 tickets at senior citizen discount. Unluckily, I could not qualify for the ticket discount.

The place was impressive! Operas and Ballet performances are played every night except certain holidays. The stage is huge with 4 different elevators. It also has a fire protection screen that can last for 60 min to hold off any fire to protect the stage. Most of the balcony area are made of stones. The opera house was damaged in WWII and you can see all the remodeling they did after the war. It took them 11 yrs to complete the remodeling. The place sits around 1000 people and they are sold out for the yr. You can only purchase standing only tickets 1hr prior to any performance at 4€ or less. The bad news is that there are only about 100 or so of those tickets available and there are several more hundreds people that line up each night hoping to be in the front to get those tickets. Risky proposition unless you’re willing to stand in line for 2 to 3 hrs and stand another 4 hrs during a performance. Lots of standing around to me. So no deal on that tonight. The place was nice to see but the tour was relatively short. About 35 min. They didn’t even show what it was like inside one of the balcony booth or whatever you call them. They showed the art that sorrounds the 3 main intermission halls. Whoop-de-doo. Then the coup-de-gras was that they exit you through the souvenier shop. Wouldn’t you know it. After that lame of a tour, I tried very hard not to buy anything and I didn’t. It’s a nice place to see, but it only gets a one star in my book. Skip this tour if your crunched for time.

We then headed to the place (I can’t remember at the moment) where the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra plays. They are not in town as they are in Switzerland doing performances. But we scheduled for a tour at 1:30 tomorrow and bought tickets for a performance of Mozart pieces for tomorrow night.

Don and Mary as I mentioned before are diehard classical music afficionados. They have watched the Vienna Philharmonic at New Years for ages and they are big fans and theý have some performances on cd’s I’m sure. So, needless to say this is one of their must see places. Don was beaming ear to ear when he found out about the performance tomorrow night. I don’t think anything can top tomorrow night on the rest of the trip.

Called it the day for tours at this pt. and Deanna and I looked for the post office near our boardinghouse. I asked to two elementary aged girls where the post office was and they were gracious enough to lead us there. We then purchased two boxes for stuff to send home.

Had dinner at Biem Novak. Typical Austrian fare. Had some beef with wine sauce and onions. Lots of it. That also come with potatoes. Now we’re really in the meat and potato part of the world. With two big glasses of beer. Ausgeseighnicht!!! Alles gut!!! Wunderwa!!!

Until next time…………….

Auf weidersehen!!!!

Tags: C The Trip

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