HandS Travel

Our final day in Vienna was not as eventful as the day before since Sheila didn’t sleep very well the night before due to a stomach ache (may have been caused by drinking tap water from hotel) and Henry got a strange headache later in the day (may have been caused by dehydration).  But all was well late in the evening because we went back to eat at Einstein Cafe for the 2nd time!  Henry got an au-gratin pasta and salad and Sheila devoured a hearty skillet stew of sausage, ham, tender beef, carrots, dumplings, peppers, and mushrooms.

Our first tourist attraction was a tour of the Austrian Parliament.  Since it was built as Austria was becoming a republic for the first time, the House of Lords and Commons’ rooms were quite large.  Now, after a sequence of historical events took place including:  dictatorship taking over in the early 1900s, the Austrian-Hungarian empire breaking up, Austria being invading by the Nazis, and a new republic being reformed, only one side of the building is used and the former House of Commons is used for ceremonial purposes only.  The Hall of Columns was a beautiful entrance to the building, with dark red and green marble pillars.  We were very fortunate for 2 reasons:  (1) we got an English tour guide for just the 2 of us and (2) we found the visitor center entrance at the front of the building.  They are not allowed to advertise their visitor center for some odd reason.  Many of the members of Parliament from the old school just prefer a quite place to work I think.

Next, we traveled across the Danube River to visit the UN but unfortunately it wasn’t open since it was Boxing Day.  This is one of four major UN office complexes, containing many important agencies.  The most important is the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).  The area wasn’t the nicest, but we walked to McDonalds to get Sheila a coffee and hung out with the locals.  Henry wasn’t feeling well so we trekked back to our hotel on the other side of town so he could take a nap and Sheila could do some much-needed reading for school.  After feeling better and dinner at Einstein, we took pictures of the Shloss Schonbrunn, a palace built to out-do the Palace of Versailles near Paris.  Since we had already visited Versailles and the addition of a zoo to the Schloss was not enticing because of our visiting frequency at the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo, we decided not to go in and visit.  Back at the hotel we wanted to check out the pool and hottub, but unfortunately they didn’t have a hottub and the pool was freezing cold so we only stayed for about 4 min.  The woman at the front desk wasn’t the nicest, just like every other German-speaking person, Sheila thought.  She first told us that it was past 10 pm and that she was no longer on duty, that we should call the front desk.  We said that we had just called them.  She that we should still call them.  She finally took our room number and called them herself.  When Henry asked for towels, she reluctantly found the “last two” towels sitting right beside her.  Now Sheila knows why her ancestors were cold people at times (as her relatives tell her), oh Germans… We finished off the night by calling our friends and family members since it was a mum’s birthday.