Orchestras, Zoos, Markets, oh my!

I'm sitting in Starbucks, yet again. Oh the shame of being so "American" but the frappuccinos are so good and the internet is reliable. We decided that offering Wi-Fi is the only way places like this and McDonald's can lure in American tourists.

Vienna has been a lot o fun, although we've been a tad lazy. We're kind of taking a vacation from our vacation because we've been sleeping in and just being very laid back about what we do. The orchestra the other night was absolutely amazing. They had people singing and the music and the singing brought goose bumps to both of us. It was entertaining with a guy playing anvils and such too. I especially enjoyed watching an old violinist in the front. He was getting into it and you can tell he just felt the music.

Yesterday we wandered around to the market next to our apartment. We have been trying our best to communicate with those who don't speak any English. When we were in the butcher shop, the lady helping us was talking to another customer and nodded her head towards us and said "English" and the customer nodded her head as if that explained everything. We also found a supermarket an got some stuff for dinner and some snacks. Then we went to another larger market where they were selling everything you could think of...meat, fish, cheese, wine, bread, fruit, veggies, spices, nuts, wasabi (which was really cheap..Andrew and I were tempted to buy some) and gelato (which we did get a couple scoops of...it was wonderful!) We ended up only getting our gelato and a bag of dried fruits for train snacking.

We also just wandered around the city for a while. We went to Museum Quarter, which is an area of town that has about 4 or 5 museums. We were burnt out on museums, so we didn't go in any of them, but we did stumble across an Indian orchestra rehearsing for their concert tonight. The rehearsal was awesome, so we're going to the actual concert here in a few hours. We had planned on going to an organ concert at St. Peter's cathedral at 8 last night, but apparently we read the sign wrong the night before and it was actually at 3, but we still toured the cathedral, which was beautiful.

Last night we...well Andrew...cooked dinner. We'd bought some brats and sausages and potatoes, an onion, bread, and stinky feet cheese along with some olive oil. Andrew sauteed them up and we threw the cheese on it and microwaved it for a few minutes then accompanied our dinner with a bottle of wine. It was really really good although the apartment smelled like brats and onions all night....it was well worth a home cooked meal.

Today we went to the Zoo. I know, we can go to any ol' zoo, but this one was the worlds oldest zoo. We had a lot of fun and it really is one of the best zoos that I've been too. You could get incredibly close to the animals. We came at the right time of the year because there were all kinds of baby animals including polar bears and a baby panda. The animals were also pretty active for zoo animals and they had a really good aquarium. This orangutan was funny...it was trying to get a little girl to throw him her ice cream cone. Seriously...it was banging on the glass, then pointing to the ice cream, then pointing to the top of its cage where there were holes. Obviously, that's how other people had fed it. The little girl ran away, it was really cute.

This evening we're going to that Indian concert and then maybe trying to go to the top of the Danube tower. We have seen every city we've been to from a high view, and apparently this tower has the best view of Vienna. We went out there last night, but the place looked dead (although they were supposed to be open until midnight) so we thought we'd try to go out there a bit earlier tonight.

We're also going to pack and clean the apartment tonight because we're going to Prague tomorrow for the day/night. We had an extra day to "play" with (meaning we didn't have a place to stay booked) and instead of staying an extra night in Vienna or in Munich, we decided to hit up another place. We have heard all sorts of great things about Prague from other travelers and it's only 4 hours away. We were going to have to find a place to stay anyway, so why not in the Czech Republic? Our train out of Vienna leaves at 6 tomorrow morning so it will be about noon once we get to the hostel that we are staying in. We can either leave Prague for Munich around 1 on Saturday or around 5. Depending on how much we want to see and do will depend on what time we leave. Our time will be short, so we will probably spend our day just walking around the city.

I have filled up one of my memory cards with pictures which means I've taken about 1100 pictures so far. I haven't figured out a way to "mass store" them, so for now you guys will just have to "deal" with what little we are able to post on here. (I'd post some now, but I'm running short on time). If I figure out a way to upload them quickly and get them to you, I'll let you all know. If not, everyone will just have to come over when we get back for a "vacation picture party". Haha.

Andrew's sitting here napping beside me. He was too tired to update even though it was his "turn" to. He sends everyone his love and he'll probably update next time we are on. We'll have pictures soon and I'll keep you all updated on Prague! There shouldn't be any more "surprises" as far as our travels go after tomorrow (as long as there are no more strikes in other countries).

Keep the comments coming, we love them.