V is for Wien!

H and I arrived safe and sound in this lovely city.  The trip was uneventful.  Luckily for us, our connection in Frankfurt was delayed by a half hour, so we did not have to do the two kilometre run from one end of the airport to the other.  

It was great to see snow falling in Frankfurt.  Sadly, no snow in the forecast here, but I remain hopeful.

Our tiny little flat is right by the Prater, which is a very old amusement park here in the city.  The ferris wheel is the oldest operating ferris wheel in Europe, if not the world.  It's an ancient, rather rickety structure that looks totally unsafe.  I can't wait to go on it.  It's huge and the view must be spectacular.   In anticipation of being here, I had a wonderful evening watching "The Third Man" Friday evening.  There is a great scene in that movie that takes place on this ferris wheel.


The woman who greeted us at the flat was kind enough to show us where the local grocery store is and recommended a great little restaurant, where we polished off meat and gravy and spaeztle, oh, and a bottle of wine.  We were starving and so everything was especially tasty.  

Pleasantly full, we wandered over to the grocery store.  Both H and I love visiting grocery stores in foreign places and this was no exception.  We stocked up on the basics, but also threw in cheese, some lunchmeat, chocolate pudding from the dairy case and a bottle of prosecco.  Some things are so ridiculously inexpensive.  Our litre of milk was just shy of one Euro, the aforementioned chocolate pudding (which was delicious and tasted like I had made it at home--crappy Jell-o pudding take note) was about 75 cents each.  The prosecco was less than four Euros.  I can't wait to go back again.  It was extremely busy this afternoon.  Shops here are closed on Sundays and I think that's why this place was so crazy.  Walking around our neighbourhood was great.  It was so very quiet, it was almost eerie.  Apparently everyone was at the grocery store. :)

Lots of building photographs to come.  The building this flat is in is very old, with the kind of crumbling walls and wrought iron bannisters that would be condemned in North America, but here just hide very cool, very modern apartments.

A few snaps from earlier in the day.  We are very, very tired and will be having an early night. We both adored the restaurant dog.  He wandered out, checked out the people who were eating, barked at the table who decided to leave and then flopped down and snoozed in the middle of the restaurant.  Everyone just smiled and stepped around him.  I wish we were more relaxed about these sort of things where we are.