Vienna

Remember when this movie came out? It's still my favorite. We listened to this song on the record player yesterday. It sounded magical.

So we went to Vienna. I bet you never would have guessed that. I know. Surprise!!!

Here are some pictures. I will try to have some commentary. But I also know that gets boring really quick. I think my favorite part about the whole trip was when I did a Google search for "American restaurant chains in Vienna" and I totally found a TGI Fridays. It might have been the best day of my life in the last 2 months.

We first checked into our hotel. Holiday Inn baby! I told david that's one of the things I wanted most, was comfort. Which for me, meant familiarity.  David racked up many a loyalty point since he stayed in the Army IHG hotel during his training at Fort Huachuca. Therefore, we are going to continue on that path. He earned a certain status which got us an Executive room on the highest floor (sounds MUCH fancier than it really was) and free Wifi. That was a super deluxe bonus. 

Our next stop was the Prater (public park, more like huge-almost-like-Disneyland park)  in Vienna. The Riesenrad is super well known by anyone who visits the city. I didn't know about it. So I guess I'm not anyone. ha. Anyway, it was super fun. The entrance to the park is free and the rides are really fairly priced considering how nice they actually are. I love the set up. You get to pick and choose what you ride and therefore it was a lot more budget friendly than say a one stop shop ticket would be. I always want to remember the one time David wanted to take Jackson through a walk-through dinosaur experience. Um. I'll have to have him tell you about it. Let's just say it wasn't a leisurely activity enjoyed by all. I'm pretty sure there were tears involved. Maybe from both parties. Jk 

Mom. These are magnets. A whole wall of them. I did NOT get you one. Haha. I plan on bringing you here. To this Ferris Wheel. Where you will pick out your own. :-) 

e

The next day:

We woke up late and headed to a kid friendly place to eat. I'm pretty sure anyone who has lived in Germany knows exactly what I'm talking about when I mention how uncomfortable it is to go out to eat with kids. The Germans like to stare. And everyone has assured me it's not that they are being rude, it's just in their nature. So I'm totally not used to that. And I'm not used to being okay with our kids being so loud. i feel like everywhere we go, we are the LOUDEST people on the planet. That and we have a million kids. Well according to them we do. lol. So anyway, we wanted to go somewhere and feel normal. We found the place!

It was a cafe situated right in the heart of the museum district of Vienna. It was very kid friendly. There were low to the ground tables and chairs and couches and there were balloons! The menu featured foods like hot dogs and spaghetti and hamburgers and it was all very reasonably priced! It's called the Dschungel Cafe (Jungle Cafe). Here's some more information. It's attached to a theatre house which would have been cool to see a show at. We walked outside the front door which goes directly into a courtyard where there is plenty of seating and fun chairs etc. They had a life-sized fuse ball table game going and Jackson jumped right in. So fun! While he was playing I jaunted over to the children s museum to see what that was about. They offered programs and information in English. Looked fun but we decided we should probably not waste our time inside when we were in Vienna! So we devided on the zoo instead! lol. But really, we thought it was a good decision.

Trendy Eis menu. Cute too! 

The live fuseball game! 

a cute gallery piece. I swear I'm gonna make this someday. Can someone Pin this for me? lol. 

MuseumsQuartier

The Schonbrunn Tiergarten is the most beautiful zoo I've ever seen. I mean, does that surprise you? 

Read the sign! It made me so happy! And it made me laugh too! 

So this zoo though! The picture below, is a picture of the imperial breakfast pavillion opened in the 1700's. There are 13 animal things surrounding the pavillion. It's amazing. You can see the curve of it all in the pic above. You can eat in the cafe that is now situated inside the pavillion. 

The Flamingos were one of my favorite pieces of the pie in the menagerie. 

So after the zoo we decided to walk and hike to the Schonbrunn Palace and the Neptune Fountain. Just pictures. I'm sure you are tired of hearing my boring voice.

view from the ground

Do you see that WAY up there? We hiked all the way up there! 

Here it is!!! 

Can you please ignore our amazingly glowing faces. My stupid phone automatically puts on "Beauty Face" mode when taking a front pic. I think they assume all front pictures are for Selfies. And they are. But how awkwardly obvious. And my tooth looks like a buck tooth. Which it kind of is. 

Selfie! 

Theres this guy relaxing! 

Then theres this guy taking a selfie too!!! 

Then comes the TGI Fridays. Pure. Happiness.

Ice! 

That's the building the TGI Fridays is in. You can see the sign. 

Another view from the same stoplight we were at when we took the restaurant picture

Next day:

We drove home. Almost. We decided to take a detour down to the Grossglocker High Alpline Road. Go check out the website! It was seriously crazy beautiful and we didn't even make it all the way through the mountain road. Next time!

We ate at this amazing restaurant on our way out of town. The food was SOOO good. It was so refreshing. It tasted good and it tasted normal. And it was SO cheap too!

View from our table at the restaurant! 

Also at the restaurant! 

ŵ

So that's pretty much it! We drove all the way home. Got home Monday morning at about 2 a.m. It was worth it. And so amazing. I feel like the end to this is so anticlimactic This trip wasn't though!

There. Closure!