Nick had rented some life sized soccer balls from Vienna, Austria one Friday morning for a squadron event. He drove up and back in one day to and from Vienna. He also had to return them the next day. That's a total of 22 hours of driving in 2 days. Let's be very clear. This was not my idea.
On Wednesday, Nick had asked me to do some research on Vienna or somewhere around there, so we could return the balls Saturday morning and then take advantage of the weekend. I thought it would be interesting to see a new area, so I researched Bratislava, Slovakia. It's less than an hour away from Vienna. After doing extensive research for 2 days, he told me we couldn't go there. :(
I don't usually need any motivation to go on a trip, but it definitely took some coersion on his part to get me to go to Vienna. We had been there less than a year before, and I remember it being cold. We had already seen the main sites. Did I mention I had just done 2 days of research on Bratislava?
Literally, minutes before he left on Saturday, I packed my bag and jumped in the car with him. I hate to miss an adventure. :)
We drove up in the rain at 1pm on Saturday. We've had about 8 consecutive days of rain. Eew. We dropped off the balls at 6:30pm and arrived to our hotel by 7.
We researched some dinner options quickly. We thought about having a traditional Austrian meal, and then we saw the 3 words, "Ribs of Vienna," and we quickly changed our mind. It took about 30 minutes to reach our restaurant...it was torture. We were so hungry.
Once we arrived, we ordered 5 sets of ribs that were different flavors: traditional, provence, diablo, onion, and ginger. I thought I would like the diablo best, but I loved the ginger. It was almost sweet. Nick's favorite was also the ginger. It makes me hungry just thinking about them.
I'd say the trip was off to a good start!
Sunday, November 9th
The next morning we checked out of our hotel, and rode back into the city to get breakfast. The cafe we'd researched was closed, but we found a Starbucks around the corner. It was like finding gold!! It made me so happy!
We'd purchased tickets earlier for the Spanish Riding School's Lipizanner show near the Hofburg Palace.
For some reason, when I buy a ticket I imagine that I'm going to get a seat. This was not the case. We paid 23 Euro each to watch a show while standing. There were a few seat options, but they were VERY expensive.
We weren't allowed to take photos during the show. This was taken right at the end.
The stallions were remarkable. We saw the young horses that were still black and grey, before the older white horses performed.
It was so good even Nick liked the show!
At this point, I needed some proof that I was in Vienna. This was taken just outside the palace heading back toward the main square, Karlplatz.
These advertisements were everywhere. This poor girl. That's a terrible photo to have plastered all over a city! I couldn't help but mimic it.
We stopped at Konigsbacher for our last meal in Vienna. We had goose liver creme brûlée. It. was. so. good. (If you like foie gras) I would go back to Vienna just to eat at this restaurant.
Happy creme brûlée face.
We were a little sad that none of the Christmas markets were set up yet...and then we found one right around the corner from our restaurant.
The evil Krampus was back out to scare all the bad children into being good!
Despite being sad that we didn't go see Bratislava, I still had a good time in Vienna. I'm always up for an adventure and Vienna didn't disappoint.
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