We got moving fairly late today, which is probably why it was smoother than normal. Also, because anything HAD to be smoother than yesterday. Our first destination today was the National History Museum via the trolly car. The museum was awesome with a capital A. Housed in the most beautiful building, it’s exactly what you’d imagine the world’s most beautiful history museum looking like, but even better than that. Romeo’s favorite parts were the dinosaur bones, and the taxidermy animal displays.
I was blown away by all the artifacts they had from, for example, 500 bc (and older), that were so detailed and beautiful—objects that you would want to buy today (bowls, pottery etc.) It reminded me how there are certain silhouettes, and beauty that really are timeless and never change—that have an eternal usefulness about them. I was also seriously impressed with what they could do that long ago—kind of mind blowing really. I was also big into the rocks, which they had displayed, in part, by color (which made it even more beautiful).
We had a fully engaging experience, and there was no fighting whatsoever. Although they did set off the “do not touch it” alarms at least several times—but they weren’t the only ones I noticed….those prehistoric men done in wax with the realistic hair all over, how do you NOT want to touch them?? Everyone loved it overall. That’s pretty amazing. Even more amazing is that the entire thing was 20 euros, or just shy of $25 which is clearly fantastic right there.
From the museum we headed to Mariahilfer Strasse to stroll up and down, window shop, and eat lunch. It was Pho for lunch (Romeo had at it with some chopsticks and it was not pretty), and vegan ice cream for dessert (at least for John and I)…I had some coconut caramel concoction that was sweetened entirely with coconut sugar. I have to say, both Budapest and Vienna have cutting edge vegan resources….grocery stores, restaurants galore, even an entire section of it in the pedestrian drugstore DM is dedicated to the vegan peeps. It’s pretty awesome really. I’m only a pretend vegan because I do seek it out since I don’t eat dairy, but I DO eat meat, so I guess that makes me not vegan at all, but a friend of the vegan who is deeply appreciative of their non-dairy ways.
We found two amazing areas that I want to explore tomorrow, where there were little boutiques, great coffee shops and loads of my kinds of eateries and places to investigate. Mariahilfer Strasse is a huge shopping destination, but mostly big box stores. Lots of action there, but I wasn’t tempted to buy anything. Plus, Romeo drove me crazy for a solid 30 minutes (which might have killed any shopping inclination I might have had) because he wanted a chocolate for dessert (he didn’t opt for the basil vegan ice cream—shocker). Seems like we pass chocolate stores every 10 feet here, but as luck would have it I kept putting him off, telling him we’d stop at the “next one” and then there wasn’t one f-o-r-e-v-e-r. During that “forever” he complained and bugged us. Relentlessly. His words: “You know mommy, who’s the worst mommy and daddy in the world? You mommy, AND daddy. You hear me mommy?” This is what I love about kids. You can love them with such fierce, adoring love, and you can also want to clobber them 5 minutes later—the fact that those two strong emotions can co-exists side by side in the same 10 minute span just blows my mind. It's also crazy making.
The older girls once again shopped and strolled separate from us for a couple of hours after lunch and then just met us back at the apartment. The rest of us went and had coffee and people watched. There we saw the oddest group form of maybe 8 people who were walking down the street and then morphed into this contorting, dance-ish sort of movement where they took articles of clothing in bright colors, and they used them as props in this weird modern dance thing where they wove in and out of each other and wrapped themselves in and out of the articles of clothing. It was like a flash dance mob, if it married a weird modern dance cult group of poorly dressed people. Very strange. I snapped a picture in case I learn that this is the latest trend when I google it later. I really hope not.
As we neared 4 p.m., the skies opened up once more. It’s like being in the tropics where you get the afternoon rain shower -- except it’s not as warm and therefore, not as fun. Apparently it’s the norm here. Moral of the story is don’t plan anything between 4-6 p.m. unless it’s indoors. I think in the end we are quite lucky that the weather has been so mild, it makes it so much easier to walk around.
Tomorrow I want to try to find some treasure to remember Vienna by, we want to see the Palace, and ride a carriage drawn horse around the center of town (which seems to be a must-do touristy thing here—at least in Gia’s eyes.) Here’s to hoping we have a nice smooth day tomorrow too, and the fact that I just typed that didn’t already jinx it.
Signed, ME {lv}
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