Gnurple dot Net

We took it easy today. We were both nerds in front of computers this morning. I had one last slide to add to my training material; Terra had some catching up to do. We picked up a few missing necessities at the Billa.

Here’s something odd: though the Billa is open, some products are not available on Sunday. The sign said that due to certain laws, not all products are available on days when the store is closed (odd translation error, which I take to mean that those products are only available on normal business days). In particular, the shelves with laundry soap and such were caged. Oh well, another day.

We had a late lunch in a little cafe off the OBB — the big train / u-bahn / metro stop thing at Praterstern. Then we wandered around Prater for awhile, letting Talia roam freely. Took a couple of video clips:

I tried to pick up some Euros at a couple of bank machines but these particular ones don’t like my Visa card it seems. Oh well — I hope the VIC has friendly bank machines or else I have no Euros for lunch! Terra’s got lots of sandwich fixings and stuff in the fridge so we’ll be okay ’til after work tomorrow.

Woo! First day of work-related stuff tomorrow! Clothes all ironed, I believe I’m ready to go!

MTK

PS: “MTK” (more to come) is also sekrit code for “if you read this, leave a comment or click ‘like’ on Facebook or otherwise let me know.” As of now I’m just writing these for my own memory to look back on in years to come, show Talia that stuff she won’t remember, etc. If I get the idea that people read these things I might put more effort into making them read a bit better.

Today we spent moving from one apartment to the other and doing touristy stuff.

We spent the morning packing and moving the rest of our stuff to Marcelle’s so that we’d be out of the old place by 11h00.

Then went out looking at sights, such as St. Stephen’s Cathedral (see earlier post for pics). Picked up contact lenses for Terra. Lunch at Figlmuller’s where they serve a delicious Wienerschitzel and (as with most places in Vienna) a delicious dessert for Terra (see Terra’s Facebook for pics).

Then to Marcelle’s place to fetch our fridge stuff, walked over to Karlsplatz and took the U-bahn to Praterstern. Saw a shop in the subway area – Karlsplatz has some shops and a small eatery – selling hats on the way out, but we were running late so decided to return later.

Got to Praterstern and walked to the apartment, which was all of 2 minutes’ walk away, met the landlord, got our keys and moved our fridge stuff in. The Praterstern U-bahn (OBB) has a bunch of shops including the only Billa open ’til 21h00 every day of the week (most shops are open ’til 18h00 and close on Sundays).

Terra headed to the Bipa (kind of like a Shopper’s Drug mart, without the drugs — if you want drugs you go to an Apothek) to get saline solution, and Marcelle and I headed back to Karlsplatz to check out fedoras. I’ve been looking, but so far all that I’ve seen have been priced very high – 150 Euro and up. These were reasonable for my price range, and I ended up getting a nice fedora-style hat.

We visited a couple of touristy-type stores (and I found another hat I might like, leather fedora-style, didn’t confirm the price, might go back), picked up some postcards and visited the flagship Swarovski store to get a couple of prezzies.

Wall of mirrors in the Swarovski store.

Headed back to Marcelle’s for drinks and to figure out what to do for dinner. Called a taxi to haul the rest of our stuff to the new place. It arrived 4 minutes (!) later. Moved our stuff in. Talia slept through the taxi ride and wasn’t happy with being woken up after, so we decided to hit the Billa and get ingredients for dinner at the new apartment.

MTK!

Today’s big attraction: Haus des Meeres! It’s an aquarium type zoo with nine floors. First, you go up to the top and admire the view of Vienna:

Then you go down one floor at a time, checking out the exotic fish and animals in the various aquariums and terrariums.

 

I took several videos with my cellphone as well. I squished them all together into this one YouTube video:

 

We headed back to the apartment, spotting these random bits of awesome architecture on the way:

Got back to apartment (picking up some dessert at a bakery along the way), made a quick late lunch of sandwiches. Not enough time to go out picture-taking, so we went to the Billa (nearby grocer, a bit bigger than the Spar we’ve been going to thus far) and picked up ingredients to make dinner at the apartment: pork-in-marinade package, potatoes & parsley and a salad of lamb’s lettuce with cucumber and grape tomatoes.

Moved some things to Marcelle’s place as we’re moving to the new apartment tomorrow. On the way back, I decided to snap this photo:

In the foreground you can see bicycles that you can rent for a few Euro, dropping them off at any other place which has these rental stalls. In the background, notice how several bikes have milk crates attached.

Quickie post!  St. Stephen’s Cathedral:

… and this one I like just because of the sun effect:

We are lazy folk, especially in the morning, and today was no different. You might think a couple of Canadians vacationing in Europe might get up and out early to see as much as they can, and lots do, but that’s just not our style.

This is our apartment’s washing machine. We’ve been trying to use it since day one. It’s not a translation problem; I’ve translated all the options and Marcelle has confirmed, so we understand what it’s supposed to be doing.

The main problem, which we needed the landlord to figure out, was that the lint trap inside the machine was full, including several tags from other people’s clothes. All this stuff was keeping it from draining properly, so little safety sensors prevented it from operating.

Once we cleared that, it started working. Sort of. Now it runs and pauses mid-cycle, once on spulen (rinse) and once on schleudern (spin-dry) so far. Once resumed, it does complete and we get clean clothes.

Enough of laundry. Adventure time!

The Vienna state opera house is across the street from our apartment. On our way to the Albertina museum we stopped to do the tourists-snapping-photos thing.

There’s a matching fountain to this one on the other (east) side of the building. They’re turned off for the season.

Today we visited the Albertina museum of impressionist art. You know, Monet, Picasso, Renoir, Gignac and others.

We didn’t take any pictures within the museum except this one:

One of the rooms has statues of Apollo’s nine muses. Thalia is the Muse of Comedy. We couldn’t resist.

After visiting the Albertina we met Marcelle at her apartment and went looking for dinner. Unfortunately, there seems to be a large congress (conference) in town and the places we wanted to visit were booked solid.

We found a little pub which seemed nice, but unfortunately Talia was too fussy so we decided to go back to the apartment and order takeout from Akakiko, a sort of Japanese / Thai / Vietnamese (pan-Asian? Asian-fusion?) take-out. They have a really nice online ordering system, complete with order tracking. Delivery was really quick, just 15 minutes after placing the order.

On the way back to the apartment for dinner we stopped to get dessert:

We stopped at Hotel Sacher’s Cafe Sacher, one of the few places you can find original Sachertorte. They were kind enough to put some whipped cream in a box like this one for us. Sachertorte is traditionally served with (unsugared) whipped cream, as (according to Wikipedia) “most Viennese consider the Sachertorte too ‘dry’ to be eaten on its own.” (I like these folk!)

Day 3 Ende

Lunch!

Boursin was 1,99€.  Maybe 1/3 the cost at home. Other options than just garlic and fine herbs, too.

A quick post to share more pictures and experiences
(before we head out to collect more new pictures and experiences :)

(didn’t turn out great … cell phone camera only focuses in the center, which in this case is a dark doorway full of no contrast … there is no half-press focus :( )

Here’s a video from Cafe Central where we stopped for dessert last night. Yes, that’s right, there’s live piano.

(I used the unusual portrait orientation to capture the amazing detail of the ceiling)

Some things I’ve learned here:

* You can drink alcohol in public. Did I mention that already? Brilliant!
* Numbers are confusing. 24,49 Euro would be “four and twenty, nine and forty”. In German. I have no chance. Hooray for digital displays.
* Customary tip is 10%.
* Cheddar cheese is a specialty / gourmet item, not a standard cheese. Still trying to find out what your average Viennese citizen picks up at the grocery for the week.
* Vienna is more bike-friendly than Ottawa. (then again, most cities are, especially in Europe)

2-egg omelette with leftover Kangaroo fajita fixings and cheese, toast with field-berry jam (blueberry, blackberry, raspberry), some lychee juice (not a fan) and coffee (definitely a fan).

MTK

We spent our first day in Vienna getting settled in the apartment and then having a nap.

That evening, our friend Marcelle who’s lived here for a couple of years stopped by, taking us through the local grocer (a Spar just across the street) for some basic stuff, and then taking me via the U-Bahn to a local mobile telco shop to get a pay-as-you-go SIM card for my ‘Droid.

We ended the evening at a cafe just a few doors down from Marcelle’s place and then back to try and sort our internal clocks out. Talia was up during the night for a bit; Terra didn’t get a good night’s sleep; but I ended up doing alright.

DAY 2

This is the local basic brand coffee, which is to good beer what our local grocery store brand coffee is to Coors Light.

Talia’s internal clock is not quite sorted out — she keeps trying to fall asleep — so we took her to the Kindermuseum.

(That’s the kunsthistorischemuseum (Art History museum) in the background, at the end of our street, whose architecture is typical of the area. Imagine walking around being surrounded by beautiful architecture like this as everyday scenery.)

The Kindermuseum is full of activities for kids. Most are for ages 3 through teens or so, but the only one available today was the Ocean program which was perfect for Talia (0-3yrs). Started off with a quick group activity (in German so we understood nothing but played along) for about 5 minutes and the rest of the time is for the youngsters to wander around and play with things. The area is divided up into sections which are sea-themed (a boat deck, submarine, etc.).

On the way back to the apartment we stopped for a photo op:

I managed to pooch my cellphone at the museum — it crashed and needed to be rebooted. When it comes back up, it needs the SIM PIN code (which I thought you only needed to do once). I’d forgotten the code, and after three wrong tries the SIM was PUK-locked. Fortunately, back at the apartment I have the PUK code and with some Googling was able to unlock my phone again.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the apartment. A late lunch:

Radler is best described as a cross between lemonade and beer. Great summer drink.

Speaking of beer, in Vienna you can walk around on the street with open alcohol.

Marcelle joined us for the evening. Dinner was at Crossfield’s Australian (yes Australian not Austrian) Pub. See two earlier posts on that topic.

The evening is pleasant so we wandered about the area:

(Found on Augustinerstrasse near Hofsburg Palace)

Speaking of Hofsburg Palace, here’s the north side view at night:

Lastly, there’s always room for a mustache on a horse-crossing sign, ja?

We stopped at Cafe Central to relax and listen to some live piano while Terra had some sort of complex dessert whose name eludes me. I’ll try and share the video I took later.

… complete with fried egg (?)
#AustriaOrAustralia night.

… and we ended up here.

Miscommunication or brilliance?