Five sleeps till Papacino and Nanny Rita!

Happy Birthday at the Grander Schupf

 

And it went so quick that finally we were on our way to meet our first set of visiting family members from the airport!  If you’re wondering who Papacino is, it’s my Dad!  A nickname given to him before Amelia was born as he thought Grandad sounded too old so we suggested Papa as we already had a Poppy and as he loves going out to café’s for a morning cuppa, so Papacino came about and just stuck!  And Nanny Rita is self explanatory!  It’s a bit of a mouthful though.  Papacino and Nanny Rita.  Thought about combining them in the way that Tom and Katie became TomKat and Brad and Angelina became Brangelina!  So how does PapaNana sound?  Or The Cino’s?  Sorry Dad, had to give a bit of an explanation as it’s a unique name for a GRANDAD! But we couldn’t imagine you with any other!

Gorge Walk

Anyway, he hired a great little car, and all my anxiety about him driving on the wrong side of the road was a waste of energy as he handled it no problems, apart from very nearly sideswiping a few posts and kerbs which had me ducking for cover.  Amelia and Noah were so excited to see them and equally excited to open the bag of presents, which included a fairy that flies on her own (magic!) and lego for Noah.  They were straight to bed though as it was late and school next morning.



The weather was great while they were here, a couple of quite hot days, around 30 degrees, when they took the opportunity to visit the swimming pools and get some exercise and bath in the sun.  Rita’s birthday on the Thursday we took a drive into Kitzbuhel, a ritzy expensive little town with oldy worldy charm and really expensive clothes and jewellery but averagely priced coffee and cake in which we indulged.  In my excitement of having a long awaited day off without the kiddlies I overdid things by ordering a Café Grande, not expecting it to be served in a soup bowl.  Three coffees in one left me with a bit of a frown clutching my stomach and keeping a close eye on the whereabouts of the public loos.  That evening for Rita’s birthday we had dinner at the Grander Schupf restaurant, the very same in which we spent our Christmas, the one with the slide going down to the toilets.  I realized at this visit as my German has since improved that the slide is for people with ski boots on, as it’s pretty impossible to walk down steps, and you are supposed to sit sideways with your legs dangling over the side.  Now it all makes sense.  Bit disappointed in Nanny Rita though as she can speak German but still rode down 4 or 5 times, feet first, squealing all the way!  But her German did help us out with ordering, and she actually got something that wasn’t even on the menu and we were all delighted with our dishes even though it was an hour long wait! 



Rescuing Noah from the Kneipp

Knocked out after Dads Thai Red Curry

Poured of rain on Saturday but Sunday we took a drive out with the intention of spending a relaxing day at the second largest lake in the south of Germany, Chiemsee.  In the madness of preparing for the trip with two children Maciek had said to anyone listening, “It should be good, it’s got the longest beach on the second largest lake in the south of Germany.” which I later relayed as (remember I was running about like a chook without a head and hadn’t given this statement a second of thought) “It’ll be great there, it’s got the longest beach in the world!” and only as the words escaped did I realize that once again I’d been tricked by my husband into saying something completely stupid and nonsensical!  So back to the point, we had forgotten our Sat Nav, so failed to find ‘the longest beach in the world’ and failed to impress The Cino’s who were happy to sit in the warmth of a café with a cup of tea (just kidding!) and an apple strudel!  So after an hour of driving we changed our plans and headed to Innsbruck (“Is it old?” asks Dad, “No, course not, we’re smack in the middle of Europe and everything is completely brand new and modern.”  I replied.  He he he!) only to realize that Munich was half the distance so headed there instead.  And after all the kerfuffle of the morning, we ended up having a brilliant day in Munich, the sun came out, we wandered around, HAD A COFFEE, and finished the day in the Hofbrauhaus for steins of beer and giant pretzels and more apfel strudel and big brass band oompa loompa music!



Munich

We forced them on a short hike, you have to do it while you’re here!  Not far, just down that path and round a bit and up that hill!  Very nice, along the river and into a gorge.  And after we ended up in the village hotel/restaurant/café for a … can you guess?....Wrong!....Icecream!  Again a long wait but worth it in the end as it was absolutely massive.  Imagine the biggest icecream fruit sundae you’ve ever had and triple it!  After that we walked to the Kneipp.  A kneipp is a shallow pool fed by water running down from the mountain, and words can’t describe how cold it is!  The purpose is to go hiking and then do a lap in the Kniepp, great for circulation and general health.  Apparently.  It really hurts!  Half way round if feels like your legs are going to drop off!  Well impressed though with PapaNana, then both did it without complaints, even twice if I remember correctly! 



Munich

It was all over too quickly.  Only five days.  But lovely to see family again, it’s been a whole year since we left home!  And it was a lucky escape too with their suitcase packed for Phuket and one jacket just incase, as the next day it snowed!  Great bit fat fluffy flakes of it!  From 30 degrees to snow in the space of four days!  So Dad and Rita, you’re almost home sweet home now.  Hope you had a fantastic trip and we look forward to seeing  you again sometime soon! xxxx

Hooray Shoulders!!




K

Random April

A Day in Zell am See

So not many punters on the Pippi Longstocking hairdo then?  Except for one (not sure who it was?) who was close – but the answer is – Pencils!  I stuck pencils into the lackies closest to her head.  So there you go.

Since then, Maciek started back at work as a tiler.  As expected it knocked us about a bit and we were all tired and grumpy for a couple of weeks, earlier starts, longer days, kids missing him as they’d gotten used to him being around in the afternoon.  For about two weeks Noah was asking him if he had any chocolates when he came home from work, as he used to nick them from the hotel!  But now we are used to it again and I just have to make the effort to take the kids out in the afternoons or they go crazy in the apartment and drive me insane!  But the good side is Maciek is now occupied and is not ‘ghosting’ me around the house wondering what to do with himself! (er did the washing, cleaning the bathroom or vacuuming cross your mind???)  No, he did make pretty good house husband while it lasted, but wouldn’t be making a career of it!

Pool party in April

Cake in style

We were invited to our first Austrian kids party, one of Noah’s little friends from the Kinderkrippe, turning 2.   Bit of a stress as we were running late as usual but then found the road we needed closed due to roadworks with no diversion on offer, no Sat Nav, and it was then I realized I had also forgotten my phone!  The alternative route would have taken us maybe 45 minutes at least but Maciek was having none of it and so took a punt on a tiny turn off heading up into the mountain and God knows how but we got there but we did, and arrived at a grand place with a huge front terrace with stunning views and an infinity pool, only not really an ‘infinity’ pool as it doesn’t continue into the ocean but you know the ones I mean?!  Very different from our typical Australian kids parties.  It started at 3pm with a slideshow of pics on the big screen (creatively put together to music) of the little boy from baby till now, followed by the presentation of the cake and blowing out candles and Happy Birthday songs, then cake and coffee consumption, and after that mingling while the kids played and swam.  The barbeque was then cranked up and we ate great food around the table on the terrace drinking champagne with the sun setting.  More like a civilized dinner party than a kids party.  No pass the parcel, no musical statues, no lolly bags, no buffet table full of sweets and fairy bread, no gathering around the birthday kid for the ceremonious opening of presents (these were just ripped open randomly as people arrived).  So a very different experience for us but we had a fantastic afternoon, not sure how we keep ending up at houses that look like they belong on ‘cribs’!  And we weren’t even the last to leave at 8pm. 

Just a couple of ‘Maciekisms’ to finish:

Zell am See

Maciek sat next to me on the couch, and offered me a plate with the last piece of cake on it.  He continued to stare at me while I took the slice and bit into it, and then he said “That was a rhetorical question.”

One evening once the kids had finally gone to bed I suggested we watch a movie.  We had recently gotten a hold of that one based on the books by Stieg Larsson.  And so Maciek said “Let’s watch The Girl with a Tattoo of a Dragon on her Back.”  Hahahha!!

Next post:  Dad and Rita’s visit J

Schwarzsee and the Wilder Kaiser

Easter

 

Bit late for a post about Easter.  Perhaps I should save it and combine it with Christmas and do a ‘Celebrations of Jesus’ special!  Or not.

Easter tree at school

A few differences between Australia and Austria for Easter.  Australia:  aisle after aisle full of hundreds of brightly wrapped chocolate eggs in all shapes and sizes in various brands, mostly packaged in elaborate boxes accompanied with a toy or a gift of some sort at ridiculous prices, adorning the shelves just after Valentines Day.  Austria:  Milka or Lindt.  Small, medium or large bunny.  Couple of options for small individually wrapped chocolates in packets in the shape of eggs, chicks or bunnies.  Making an appearance a few weeks before Easter.  And that is all.  Australia:  Kids going hunting on Easter Sunday with a huge basket filling it with dozens of foil wrapped chocolate eggs and then receiving a massive egg with toy from every member of their immediate and extended family and even some from friends resulting in a pantry full of chocolate which makes mum fat and spotty and has to be used up in muffins before it goes off and before it’s added to at Christmas.  Austria:  kids with homemade basket the size of an adults cupped hand running around looking for coloured hard boiled eggs which they pile together in one big basket and then sit down together and eat one with a piece of bread for morning tea.  Accompanied by a tiny bunny (Lindt) and one gummy sweet given by the teacher.  Good Friday:  Australia:  Everything is closed.  You can only eat fish (fish and chip shop here we come).  Everybody chillaxes and eats and drinks and drinks.  Austria:  Everything is open.  You can’t buy fish, except a whole fish, scales and head and eyes and all, and there are no fish n chip shops.  Everyone goes to work, normal day.  Easter Sunday:  Australia:  Get together with family, eat chocolate, eat and drink and eat.  Do nothing.  Austria:  Go to church.  Eat boiled eggs.



We had boiled eggs coming out of our ears!  As with every season or occasion in Austria everyone puts homemade decorations at their doors and in their windows.  It’s a bit naff, but I like it, but then I am a bit naff myself.  Before Easter and at the start of Spring you can pick thin branches that grow by the water that bud little fluffy white things that resemble rabbits tails.  I can’t remember what they’re called but they’re lovely and everyone hangs decorated eggs on them.  Both kindergarten classrooms had one and each child had to bring in 3 blown out eggs to decorate to hang on it.  I had never heard of blown out eggs and so I asked the teacher to show me how to do it as Amelia needed to take some in.  If you don’t know, you get a pin, and carefully poke a tiny hole at each end (not as easy as it sounds) and then literally blow the gucky stuff out of it (not as easy as it sounds).  So this is what I did at home, and I felt like I was giving birth but trying not to, if you know what I mean.  Next day I went in to work where the teacher was preparing some eggs incase some children forgot to bring them in.  She used a little contraption not unlike a bike pump especially for blowing out eggs.  Well, why didn’t you tell me that before??  But I was impressed with the way she decorated them using marble paint, then threading through ribbon and beads to hang them on the tree.  The week before Easter we took the class out into the woods, had a picnic, and each child collected a stick with two prongs which we then took back to the classroom to make easter bunnies with, by adding two googly eyes and some fleece for the body.  Pretty cool idea. 

Easter hike with obstacles

Good Friday (school was closed and Maciek was unemployed) we enjoyed a bit of a sleep in (unusual) till about 7am and woke to a deer meandering across the field below us, from one bit of forest to another.  It was a wet and cold weekend, misty across the mountains, and we went out for a walk in the woods and a little picnic under the shelter of a tree.  It’s awesome in the woods on days like that, feels like being on the set of Lord of the Rings.  We had to negotiate our way around huge fallen trees, and all the debris caused by the heavy snow.  Easter Sunday the kids hunted for eggs, miniature kinder surprise ones individually wrapped in a packet is all I could find, and in all the excitement we didn’t even notice that it was snowing!  Nooooo!  We all said.  Amelia had been so excited about the prospect of being able to wear a dress and sandals, and we’d just packed away all our winter gear.  But it was pretty, and it didn’t last.  The next day it was gone. 

"Noah's got more than me!!"

Since then it has warmed up, so much so that for the past few days it has been 30 degrees, and this week it will be mid 20’s.  So Milly has realized at last her dream of wearing a dress again.  Also since then we have welcomed into the world our new little nephew and cousin, Lucas, born on Thursday 26^th April.  Congratulations Jo, Andrew, Jakson and Ollie!  Looking forward to meeting little Lucas soon.  XXXX

p.s  here is a pic of Milly dressed up as Pippi Longstocking.  Prizes for guessing how we got her hair to stand up like that!

Pippi





Spring has Sprung

 

The snow has almost all disappeared apart from a few die hard patches here and there.  The mountains are still holding on to it although even that has become patchy in the last few days and I think it’s probably the last of the snowsports.  Maciek has even packed his gear away (whaaat???) and has started out on his mountain biking already. 

Bye bye snow

It’s like the snow never was.  Hard to believe that a month ago the place was hidden behind walls of ice, and when the first bits of grass started to peep through it was quite exciting, as if we were seeing it for the first time!  People have been out sorting their gardens, all fences and fields, rooftops and rivers are fully visible and the first white flowers have lifted their heads to the sun.  I even had my first frightening encounter with ‘the first bee’ a month ago when everything was still buried deep in snow which was weird.  It ambushed me as I left the bank, waiting for me it was, the wicked little wasp!

Speaking of pesky insects, spring brings out the ‘ticks’ which live in the long grasses and in the forests.  They can carry a virus infects the brain and makes you very ill and I’ve heard of people who have died from it.  It’s apparently worse in other areas of Austria and not so common here, but everyone I speak to says they are becoming more common in this area and as we intend to spend time hiking and playing in the woods in Summer needless to say this has me worried.  There is an immunisation you can get to protect you against this virus but trying to find out the ins and outs such as side effects etc is difficult with the language.  But I have asked around as many people as I can and so we’ll be off to the doctors next week to get it.  I thought we left all the dangerous insects back in Australia!

The local brew

We have a birds nest in the eaves between our balcony and our bedroom and every morning with the first of the light one of them sits on our sill and tweets away.  Some might find this annoying but I love it.  It’s either that or Amelia and Noah fighting over a toy to wake me up, so I choose the bird!

The weather has been beautiful, a bit cold still in the mornings (-1, and we only have to scrape ice off the windows some of the time!) but warms up during the day and some days it’s reached as high as 20 degrees!  We walked through town on Thursday with some friends after school and bought ice cream, great value at E1.00 each for a delicious big scoop.

Damn you POO!

One thing that’s not so good about spring is that the farmers are back with a vengeance with their ‘cow poo spraying machines’!  The field directly below us was sprayed on Friday which meant we couldn’t even open our windows to air out the house let alone sit out on the balcony for our afternoon coffee.  I had to work late last week and to save maciek having to round up the kids again and pick me up, I decided to walk home, plus the sun was shining and it’s not like I couldn’t do with the exercise after months of hibernation!  Maciek warned me that it might not be so pleasant as the farmers had been out. ‘Meh’ I shrugged, and all was great until I reached the last leg of the hill that leads to our place!  Seriously, it’s like a cow has literally walked up to you, turned around, and farted in your face!!

On that note I shall leave you with greetings for a Happy Easter! Hope it’s enjoyable and delicious.  Until next time…..

Maciek boarding with Aussie mates

hot choc at mid station

The garden at school

The Native Speaker

Kids dressed up for carnival day, school in background

view from my classroom

It’s been three months now since I started my job.  I am really enjoying it although there are a few too many hours which left me exhausted at first.  The first week was great, I was a novelty.  Second week the novelty was beginning to wear off as the kids began to realize I couldn’t really understand them, and some of them became curious to see how far they could push the limits.  The third week was terrible!  If the teacher left the room, it was chaos!  It was like I was invisible, and mute!  They completely ignored me, and it was a real struggle with the language barrier.  In the first few weeks one little girl cried every morning about coming to Kindergarten – all because of me!  Because I only spoke English and she didn’t like me!  She gave me the foulest looks!  And one little boy wouldn’t even look at me when I tried to approach him, and apparently only referred to me as ‘that woman’!  It’s almost impossible to build a rapport with the children when you can’t speak their language.  Things slowly improved as the weeks went on.  I am picking up more words and phrases every day which has made a huge difference, but still half the time I have no idea what they are saying to me, and it must be frustrating for them if they need help with something, or have a problem with someone and I can’t help to sort it out.  There are 19 in the class, 3-6 year olds.  Some of them still ignore me if they are up to no good and I am trying to put a stop to their behavior, which is incredibly frustrating, but I think I am slowly winning them over with the gymnastics every second week in their P.E class, again extremely difficult and I am having to demonstrate much more than I am actually physically capable of at the moment having not exercised for months!  And miming and silly facial expressions and speaking broken English with a funny accent all seem to help!

Every second week during the winter we took the kids Eislaufen (Ice skating) at the outdoor rink.  This entailed helping 19 children put on all their snow gear including helmets, (this took 30 minutes), traipsing to the ice rink in town, helping 19 children take off their snow boots and put on their ice skates (all have different types of clasps and buckles etc which I am now an expert at!)(this also takes 30 mintues), being the tea and snack lady on the sidelines (beats making a donkey of myself on the ice!), and then helping them all take off their ice skates and put their snow boots back on (this takes another 30 minutes), and then traipsing back to Kindergarten, before helping them all get their snow gear off again and get ready for lunch.  All this for 20 minutes on the ice.  And I always broke a nail!

Everyday they play out in the garden (again during winter this entailed helping them all get dressed up in snow gear which takes about 20 minutes for a 20 minute play!).  The garden was under nearly two metres of snow.  The boundary, in the way of a fence, was invisible.  So much of the time was spent making sure kids didn’t wander into the carpark.   One of the weeks some areas completely iced over, and I went over on my bum a couple times.  Somewhat embarrassing!  And then the snow began breaking up and becoming unstable once March arrived, and most of us became half buried if we took a step in the wrong place!  This was funny because is happened to everyone and not just the silly ‘English’ teacher who had no water proof pants (that would be trousers for ‘English’ readers, not underwear!)  Speaking of pants, there is a doctor nearby called Dr Pantz.  And whatsmore, his wife works with him, so they are a ‘pair of pantz’!  As you can imagine this had me in a fit of hysterics when if first heard about it! (and while we’re on the subject, there is a law firm also called ‘Schlapper and Fuchs’!!)

So back to Kindergarten - Amelia had trouble at first with me being there and not being able to see me whenever she liked, and there were a few tears to begin with, also from Noah who could see me from his classroom when I was in the garden, which broke my heart!  But then Amelia’s ‘English’ teacher told her she was the luckiest girl in the kindergarten because nobody else’s mummy worked there, and after that she was great!

A few things are hard to get my head around, there are things that go on which in Australia and England would be unacceptable and leave me wide eyed and speechless, but it’s hard to know what is simply cultural difference (which I have to leave alone) or what is actually unacceptable only nobody is doing anything about it!  I am constantly asking ‘is that okay?  Is that allowed?’  Some examples:

·         Lunch is cooked at the school, lovely fresh organic food (my favourite part of the day) and sometimes during lunch the food runs out, and little 5 year old Annie (not her real name) is sent down to the kitchen to fetch a refill, carrying a hot casserole dish for which she was told to pull her sleeves down over her hands so she wouldn’t get burnt.  Another time 6 year old Susie (not her real name) brought up a steaming hot heavy pan of soup, which she was just about to drop before she laid it on the table.  The kitchen is two flights of stairs down, by the way.

·         In the snow filled garden kids use ‘slidies’ which they sit on to slide down little hills formed by the snow, one of which ended with a wall.  No-one told the kids they shouldn’t do this, or that it was dangerous, until one kid actually smacked into the wall which ended in tears, but the activity was still allowed to continue.

·         At gymnastics the kids are allowed to run around in the gym hall in socks, which has resulted in quite a few slippages!  They also played a game in the classroom where they ran around with their slippers on and at certain signals had to remove a shoe, the removed shoes being left where they were taken off, resulting on kids tripping over left right and centre.

·         We went to the park and six kids had climbed up a big tree at once.  I don’t think kids are even allowed to climb trees in Australia anymore?

·         ‘Kid A’ aggressively bit ‘Kid B’ and I jumped into the situation making out that ‘kid A’ was in serious trouble.  I took them to the teacher so that she could sort out the problem only to be told ‘well that’s because ‘kid B’ was waving his photo in ‘kid A’s’ face and ‘kid A’ doesn’t like this, so, that’s what happens’.  And that was it.  Whaaat??

Some of you may read that and think so what, not a big deal, but it’s a struggle for me after working with kids for such a long time in a place overrun with health and safety do’s and don’ts!

Anyway, I’m grateful to be able to work here instead of cleaning toilets in a hotel!  Apart from a few frustrating bits I really enjoy it.  My job is to expose them to as much English vocabulary as they are ready for and as much as they want to learn.  Some kids are really interested and want to do the English work all the time.  For a bit of fun I might start to teach the ‘How Now Brown Cow’ and ‘The Rain in Spain’ stuff, just to see if they can say it, and for even more fun I might teach them Maciek’s favourite – One smart fellow, he felt smart, two smart fellows, they felt smart, three smart fellows, they felt smart, and they all felt smart together!  Too inappropriate? (If you don’t get it try saying it quite fast!)

P.S  The little boy who wouldn’t look at me and called me ‘that woman’ at the beginning of the year, actually blew me a kiss the other day as he skipped out of the classroom to his mum!  Which was nice!

my little English section!

A Weekend in Wien - Photos



Picnic stop at Seewalchen

St Stephens (?) Cathedral

Horse and Carriage ride

Restaurant from 1477

Inside cathedral

Rathaus (?)

First ice-cream of Spring

Falling asleep on shoulders!

The fair cost us a fortune due to Melanie having beans for lunch!! Spot Milly and Noah through the glass....

Real horses for the carousel...??!

Schonbrunn Palace

......And some of the grounds

Weekend in Wien

The weather was set to be warm and sunny and I had Monday off work, so it was a spur of the moment decision to go to Vienna for the weekend. 

We left Saturday morning for the 4 hour drive, stopping along the way near a lovely lake for a picnic.  There were swans on the lake, taking flight and chasing each other, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen this before, their wings are so loud!  Amazing to watch.  Amelia and Noah chased each other between the trees and played hide and seek and weren’t the least bit interested in the food after I’d spent a whole afternoon and the best part of the morning preparing it to use up what was in the fridge!  It was great to be travelling again with Karen on the Sat Nav guiding us, the car packed up, passing snacks and drinks to the monsters in the back!  Brought back memories of our trip.  And it was nice to leave the snow behind, heading into regions where there was no snow left at all and we were excited to see grass!  We needed no thermals or puffy jackets, and it was great to wear normal shoes and a light cardigan instead of having to rug up so much.  There was much excitement about going to ‘the city’ and Amelia was telling Noah all about how we were going to ‘live’ in a hotel for two days!

We arrived about 4pm.  We chose the hotel for its proximity to the city centre and it was a great location but looked dodgy enough for the price.  The hotel was set on the 8^th and top floor of an apartment block and this is where the reception, breakfast room, and single and double rooms were located.  As we had booked the family room, this was on the 1^st floor opposite a rickety old lift big enough for one man and his suitcase and surrounded by other apartments belonging to God knows who!  It was old, with one of those annoying showers that’s not a real shower but a shower head attached to a tube attached to the tap with water taking turns being extremely hot and freezing cold.  Also there was no heating, until we enquired about it on the first morning after a freezing night and they fixed it for us.  But it was spacious and the beds were comfortable and it was clean, so no problems really.  Maciek was pleased as the T.V had Eurosport in English!  Not that he had chance to watch it.

We went out straight away to catch the last of the light and splashed out for the first time ever on a horse and carriage ride, and what a city to do it in!  Vienna is beautiful.  Brilliant architecture and museums galore.  It gave us a good start to get our bearings of the layout of the city and where we could go the next day.  And we finished off the evening with Nuggets and Chips at Old MacDonalds which is the only thing the kids were looking forward to about ‘going to the city!’  (And the whole time on the carriage this is all Amelia was talking about - typical!)

After breakfast the next morning (which was surprisingly relaxing and confirms our thoughts that we did our Europe trip one year too early as far as Noah goes!) we wandered back into the centre in luxurious sunshine and took in some of the sights we’d seen on the horsey ride in daylight and took our time.  It was such an enjoyable morning, with 20 degrees and sunshine keeping us warm and smiling, window shopping, Amelia and Noah running around happily (bit too loud for some Sunday morning strollers but oh well).  We felt like such country bumpkins!  Being in the ‘big city!’  There were so many nationalities around.  Weird and wonderful fashions.  Hundreds of cafes and shops.  Bums and beggars!  Smells of a variety of national foods wafting from restaurtants.  And we realized how we’d gotten used to ‘country life’, the quietness, no crowds, being able to leave your doors unlocked and return for a bag left behind after half hour and find it sitting where you left it, not watching your back incase of pickpockets, fresh mountain air (and tap water), no graffiti, no chewing gum gone black scattered over the pavement.  We loved the contrast and it was quite invigorating to experience the difference.  On the way back to the hotel Noah fell asleep on Daddy’s shoulders!  And after a rest (Noah slept and Amelia watched a DVD which gave us some rare time to chat, and eat cake, which was nice!) we caught the tube (WOW, the city has a train that goes UNDERTHEGROUND!) to Praters which is a big park with a fun fair. 

Didn’t think it was going to be so big!  It was unexpected in a city like Vienna, when you think of Mozart and the like, but it was a full on loud busy smelly fair like the Royal Show!  There was even a carousel featuring real horses, or ponies, which was weird, and quite cruel.  Not a big fan of that.  Is that even allowed?  Amelia and Noah enjoyed a couple of rides, and so did Maciek up on the giant swing, and we looked everywhere for that ‘turning head clown game’ as Amelia really wanted to win a prize, but we could only find crap ones where it’s near impossible to win like bursting a balloon with a dart, shooting the bullseye, or throwing rolled up balls of socks into a pyramid of tin cans, which is the one Maciek tried, so Amelia ended up with the booby prize of a fluffy heart on a keyring; she wasn’t impressed!  We ended the evening with coffee and cake in the main square next to the Catherdral, where we were surrounded on all three sides by Russians!

We left next morning so we could get back to ‘the country’ at a reasonable hour and also to have enough time to stop in at Schonbrunn Palace and Grounds on the way.  We didn’t go inside the Palace (for two little reasons!) but Maciek suggested trying to sneak in on the Japanese tour group until we realized we might not blend in as the Japanese have quite a unique fashion sense (he he!).  We walked the grounds which were extensive and you could imagine how stunning they would look in the full bloom of summer.  The highlight of the morning was walking the path through a wooded area to see squirrels scurrying about and one that came straight up to Noah and sat up on its hind legs looking straight at him!  “I saw his eyes!”exclaimed Noah, and Amelia thought it was so great that when we finally arrived home she drew a picture of the event which I have proudly displayed on the wall in the hallway!

It was a fantastic little getaway.  Amelia and Noah were so good despite the mileage their poor little legs did!  Don’t really know what all the buildings and statues are called, or the history behind anything we saw like I usually would, but we didn’t have too much time to read up about it with kinder in tow, but enjoy the photos anyway!  And if anyone knows why Japanese peoples always do the ‘peace’ sign everytime they have their photo taken when touring the world, please enlighten me….?

P.S  Photos to come......