Vienna day 2

Well, Tuesday was a lot better than Monday. The Landlorg people gave us a little more privacy (we had 3 visits) and we were able to get a little oriented with the city.

We bought a week pass for the city transportation system and took the subway to Stephansdom.

There were tons of tourists and a bunch of guys dressed up like Mozart who were trying to sell tours. The Stephansdom building is really incredible. We walked around the whole thing before we went inside. The limestone is being cleaned, you can see in the picture it got all black from soot and other stuff in the air, so they are scrubbing the whole building clean!


There were at least 100 horse drawn carriages waiting outside for all the tourists to get out of a Mass that was going on inside. All of the pews were totally packed! It must have been some special event besides just a regular mass.


The choir was being broadcast on several large flat screen TV's throughout the main chapel. The whole church smelled like those little votive prayer candles. It was really peaceful and calming to walk through and see everyone sitting so reverently and listening intently to the choir.

This is the main part of the church. We weren't able to really look around, so we're planning on going back sometime when it's less crowded. Sean is really excited about seeing the Catacombs.

We were starving (that seems to happen to us a lot these days...) so we walked down the road a little ways and found a McDonalds! We both got a delicious cheeseburger and found a small ledge outside a building to sit on and eat. There is NOWHERE to sit in this country. At the restaurants, they have these little tables that are elbow-high and you have to stand and eat. Sometimes there are tables, but mostly just at expensive places. And around town, you really have to hunt to find a decent place to sit down.

Have I mentioned yet that everything here is little? Little cups, little fridges, little stores, little roads, little cars, etc. Well, little compared to what I am used to. The only things I have seen here that are bigger than what I am used to are the Beer-steins and the pretzels. Other than that, I feel like we've transported ourselves into some kind of a cobble-stone covered world where people love everything to be very little. And apparently they're not into drinking fountains or sitting down.

After munching our burgers, we rode the subway to the station closest to our apartment and found a really nice park that is probably a 2 minute walk from our apt. There are tons of hammocks hanging in the trees and lots of fun things for the kids.

It's nice to be here at an apartment that has like 3 times as much room as the hotels we've been at. It's just a little bigger than half of our apartment in Provo, but I love being able to put the kids to bed in one room and go relax in the other.