Bratislava and Halloween

Today is All Saints Day in Vienna, which is actually a public holiday...and once again, the Grays were not thinking about groceries in advance (all the stores are closed on holidays here to actually give the employees a day off. Novel concept, huh?). We have learned, however, that a few stores have licenses to be open in the city--especially those in train stations (fear not, we were able to make tacos for dinner with tortilla chips of questionable quality with the ingredients found at the Interspar Pronto). We learned this for last week's holiday, the Austrian National holiday, celebrating the beginning of the Republic of Austria following the departure of all Allies in 1955 after WW2. Austrians actually have a holiday on a set date, which can occur in the middle of the week, instead of the American version: celebrate dates on a Monday, Thursday or Friday so we can have a long weekend.
In the past week we've done some Vienna tourism and one overnight to Bratislava, Slovakia, which is actually only one hour away. Arlene departed early Monday morning, and our kids have been doing homework the past few days mixed in with soccer at the park.

Last Friday we visited the Albertina, which is the largest art museum in Vienna. The Albertina specializes in drawings, and the exhibit of Pieter Brughel, circa 1500s, was especially interesting--much of what we saw were replicas of his work, but occasionally we would see originals. Below you can see Scott and me channeling our favorite muses in one of the salons that doubled as a ballroom.

Bratislava (pictures on the next page), the largest city in Slovakia, did not have the glamour of Vienna, but we still enjoyed walking around the old town and Bratislava Castle in the afternoon and evening. Bratislava has added in some statues around the plazas which were quite cute. You'll notice a different kind of church...the Blue Church was Art Deco style. Our weather has turned chilly, warmer by just a few degrees than MN, and coupled with the rain (and wind!) it has curbed our zeal for walking outside to get to know a city.

Of course last night was Halloween, and both Fiona and Harley were longing for the sugar haul that rewards a few hours of ringing doorbells in Eagan. We spent the evening at Wurstelprater, the amusement park in Vienna, which featured face painting (Fiona is modern art, below), a Halloween parade, some vampire love songs between costumed divas, and the lighting of the Calafati, a wired-meshed cardboard 9 ft tall figure of a Chinese man which is the mascot of the park (it had been continually doused with some form of petrol and was ready to go at the end of the parade, for sure). We rode the ferris wheel (the Wiener Riesenrad, next page), which has cars holding about a dozen people. The coolest date ever...you can rent one of the cars for a private candlelit dinner for two for 1.5 hours, going round and round. Will run you about $400, and we saw several couples taking advantage of it.

We ate dinner at Prater at a restaurant that was an absolute dream for any Destination Imagination team: the Rollercoaster Restaurant. Our food was delivered by a robot which sent each drink or main course via a container following a rollercoaster track throughout the throughout the restaurant (below lit up in purple). Each person ordered their dinner via a tablet and took a picture of the number designating the position of their seat within the restaurant to give the robot an address. The cooks added a barcode onto the dish, always a covered pot, and buckled the dish into its track guide. The robot sent the pot down the correct path to each person's table spot. Drinks were also sent in covered glass bottles. The beer bottles had the cutest helmets ever to travel down the track. The engineering! The possibilities! So much fun.

Wednesday was a day off for me, so we went to Haus des Meeres, a large private aquarium/zoo featuring about 10,000 animals. Very well done, very clean, animals well kept, and the free-range monkeys were very well behaved...and the nibble fish were very effective at exfoliating Scott's hand. One of the most unique aspects of this aquarium is its location: it is an excellent use of a former flakturm (flak tower). Vienna has six towers that were used as bomb shelters and anti-aircraft platforms, built during WW2 by the Nazis. The buildings, very tall, all have walls that are 2.5 meters thick concrete. Austria was unable to tear them down after WW2 without serious damage to the surrounding neighborhoods, so there they are for all eternity. Scott and the kids have had several quests to find all the flakturm towers in Vienna. One is used by military currently, and several are just unused (not especially beautiful architecture...). The aquarium featured 11 floors of exhibits and great views of the city.