Dirndls, Lederhosen, and Schnitzel

We arrived in Vienna fairly uneventfully yesterday afternoon.  Our driver met us at the appointed location, drove us to Tanya and Markus' apartment where we managed to locate their buzzer and enter the building. A tiny little lady then helped us figure out which floor we should go to and then proceeded to enter the tiniest elevator with the 2 of us, our 2 large suitcases plus carry-ons (no word of a lie - we have had to kick Markus off the elevator as the 4 of us put it over the weight limit).  Upon our arrival, we met Markus' father, Helmut, who was standing at the door waiting to let us in and give us a tour of the apartment and point out all the sticky notes that Tanya had left for us.  Tanya had sent him a photo of us, as requested, to ensure that he was letting the right English-speaking couple named Pam and Robert into the apartment at the appointed time.

Once Tanya arrived home from work, we proceeded to giggle and chat and ended up heading out for our planned itinerary a couple of hours later than anticipated.  We still managed to see the Opera...(okay, it was just being broadcast on a screen outside but still...), visit the famous Bitzinger Wurstelstand for a giant hotdog...

the Sacher Hotel for the famous Sachertorte and hot chocolate...

and met Markus, Helmut and a few of his friends at the Rathausplatz for a Steiermark-Fruhling festival.  We learned about traditional Dirndls and dirty dirndls and lederhosen.

This morning we also ended up a little behind schedule but headed to Baden, a small spa town near Vienna.  Apparently it is quite wealthy but it was quaint and beautiful.  I think Markus, who may have had a little too much wine last night, was not quite as into the photos as the rest of us but we all had fun anyways.

This is the Trinity Column, erected in 1713 by the plague survivors in thanks.

The house where Beethoven created the Ninth Symphony.

This is Robert and Tanya acting out the fairy tale of Undine, as in the fountain created in 1903 to commemorate the completion of Baden's water pipeline system.

We had lunch at the restaurant where Markus and Tanya celebrated their wedding lunch (although it was a Hungarian restaurant at the time and is now Austrian).  We ate weiner schnitzel, chicken schnitzel, and some trout appetizer thing.  We all liked the weiner schnitzel best.  We also had a delicious and refreshing 'Prosecco with Aperol' cocktail.

We were completely stuffed but still managed to find room for coffee (or a  chocolate chai latte for Robert and a summer something tea for me) and dessert.  I tried an apfelstrudel with vanilla cream.

Afterwards, we went to the casino where we pretty much broke even overall.  It was pretty fancy; Robert had to rent a jacket for 3 euro as he wasn't wearing a collared shirt.

 I forgot to mention that you get a free cocktail with your entry fee for first time guests.  Robert's was called "Refresher" and mine was a "Blossom".

We then returned home in Markus' 1990 car that needs a repair of the exhaust system, somehow ate more, and played some games.

Here are some other random photos of the day...

Let's see what tomorrow holds...