Vienna, Austria ... May 23, 2009

So, for Ryan's birthday, we took him to Vienna and Bratislava for the day. We know how much he will appreciate this trip in a few years! We started the day driving the hour and a half to Vienna and then spent another 45 minutes trying to find a parking spot. Finally I dropped off Heather, Julie Hall, and the kids at Stephansplatz and used my skill and precision to find a very close spot about 15 minutes later. I met up with them and we proceeded to make our standard trek from the Cathedral to the Opera, past the Hofburg and finally to the Volksgarten. We stopped for a few minutes at the Mozart statue to let the girls run around a bit. I love this walk and it never gets old for me to take in the atmosphere, the architecture, and the sounds of that wonderful city.
We decided to get Brats for lunch and eat them in the park. However, after passing about 25 ATMs on the way to the Ringstrasse where we were going to purchase our lunch, I still had no Euros so had to find an ATM. I left the girls and went wandering. About 20 minutes later I found an ATM and made it back to the family. We ate lunch in the park and I watched Ryan walk for the first time (I missed his REAL first steps because I was looking for that stupid ATM!).
We walked through the Volksgarten, which is beautiful this time of year. When I lived here in 1996 I would just sit in that place on a bench and read and it was wonderful. Admittedly, with 3 kids, it is not as peaceful a place, but it is still awesome.
We walked back past the Hofburg and the Roman excavation site and finally to Zanoni's, where we topped off the city visit with some good gelato (Ryan had his first Zanoni's and LOVED it, of course). I will seriously miss being able to just hop into the car randomly to visit Vienna...especially Vienna.