Friends, food and the zoo

This weekend was mostly another success, even though the weather mostly did not cooperate.

On Thursday, we had the Seibersdorf summer party out at the IAEA labs (in Seibersdorf, of course) where I work. We had a wonderful 30 degrees, and lots of sun. The party took place in the lunch "area" next to the cafeteria,  little outdoor area with tables, chairs and parasols. At lunchtime, a few hours before the party, we had new visitors: swarms of dragonflies (seriously, swarms!). It was quite funny to sit at the  tables and watch the insect specialists come around the corner and stop dead at the sight of the swarms. These are people that if you tell them there's a bug on their shirt, they will carefully pluck it off and examine it, then discuss. But none of them ventured an explanation for the swarming dragonflies, in fact the lunchtime conversation was relatively bug-free. Curious.

The party was not bad, although the food was medirocre. But it was nice to relax and chat with everyone. Little did we know we'd just jinxed ourselves, and that was the last bit of summer. The next day, things turned cloudy, rainy and 15 degrees cooler. Yuck!

On Friday evening, I had a nice quiet dinner with Tony and Owen at Da Capo.  The restaurant is quite nice, both indoors and out.  What I found funny is the name of the restaurant next door to it: The Gulash Museum. Wonder what's on the menu... I will definitely have to eat there one day!

Saturday started dull and dreary once again. But I wasn't that bothered by it.  Every September when the weather changes, I get into "fall cleaning" mode. I like to go through my stuff, reorganise, clean, declutter, etc. So that's what I did for a good chunk of the weekend.  On Saturday afternoon, though, I joined Owen, Jérôme and his two daughters Iris and Wilma (I kid you not) at Schönbrunn zoo. I hadn't been there yet and heard it was one of the best zoos in Europe so even with the crappy I was looking rather forward to it. 

We had a nice time, spent about 3 hours there.  We didn't cover the whole zoo, mostly because progress with a 3- and 6-year old can be kind of slow. We did see lots of animals, and watched the sea lions getting fed, with much jumping, splashing and hilarity. 

(see below for more pictures)

I also found myself wrangling two monkeys of the human race. I can't help it, I love to play with kids and they seem to love me. And the zoo is the perfect place to do it, I can act like a 5-year-old and not get strange looks from other grown-ups.  6-year-old Iris reminded me a bit of my niece Annabelle. She has curly blond hair, is stick thin, and talks. A lot. Basically, she took about a half hour to decide I was nice and that I could speak French (her first language), and then she took my hand and started talking and didn't shut up for 2 1/2 hours. She was still talking when I stepped off the U-Bahn and they were continuing on! And Wilma was a sweet, tired little girl. I had a great time.
(Iris and Wilma)

After the zoo, Owen and I went to Figlmüller's for face schnitzel. God, I love that place! We of course went to our favourite ice cream place for dessert. (Owen is my usual partner in crime for evening walks/ice cream). Then we parted ways and I went home and read an entire book. Lovely!

Sunday morning was, you guessed it, grey and rainy. I peacefully puttered around my apartment until about mid-afternoon. Then the sun made an appearane, so I felt the need to go out. Mark came into town and we went for a bike ride.  Not knowing our way around Vienna too well, we rode up the ring, along the Danube canal, and then started in a new direction by basically stopping at intersections and saying: "Let's go... thataway."  Only, we ended up in a sketchy part of town. On top of this, apparently every road there goes uphill. Then we spotted a landmark we recognized, aimed for it and got the hell out of Dodge.

We ended up at the Rathausplatz (city hall plaza). All summer, the plaza in front of City Hall has been taken over by various festivals, mainly the music film festival. At night, they play music-themed movies, concerts, documentaries, etc. During the daytime, the booths are also open, offering a variety of food and drinks. There are cute patio-style seating areas and nice music.  We were supposed to meet Owen and Ludo for dinner at 7 PM.  Since it was only about 5:45, we sat ourselves down and had some drinks, mojitos for Mark and very thick strawberry daiquiris for me.  We left just as the weather was turing cold and drizzly again. Met up with the guys at a nice Vietnamese restaurant for dinner, and even coaxed Mark into having ice cream for dessert.

What a wonderful weekend! Only one bad thing happened...

On Saturday morning, my computer imploded and/or was possessed by the devil.  It ate just about all my files, and continues to do so every time I turn it off and sometimes when I log off too.  It insists on thinking it's new, resetting itself to factory settings, welcoming me and offering tours of my "new" software, and reinintializing software.  Considering this computer is about 6 years old, has been wiped and reformatted 3 times, has been updated, its usb ports are wobbly and its touchpad is over-sensitive, I think this the last straw.  I was hoping it would survive until Christmas so that I could buy a new one in Canada. But I backed up some of my files on Friday evening (thankfully); it must have felt threatened and broke down before I could get rid of it, just to get the last word. Stupid piece of ...

The thing is, it is extremely difficult to get a laptop with international or English keyboard here, they are all German keyboard. The only options are ordering from the Apple store or going through Dell.at (Austria). But Macbooks are much more expensive than what I was looking to spend, and I'd still have to wait for some weeks for the order to come in. As for Dell, the Austrian website doesn't allow me to select the type of keyboard.  I would have to call their service centre (in Ireland, I'm told!) and then again wait weeks for delivery.  And none of the other providers (Dell.com, Tigerdirect, stores, etc.) deliver here.  So I had a problem.

But now a potential solution has come up: I have a colleague from the CNSC who is coming to Vienna this weekend for meetings next week.  He kindly accepted to go buy me a computer in Ottawa and carry it here for me. What a nice guy, I really hope we can pull this off. Otherwise I need to go to plan B, except I don't know what that is yet.  Cross your fingers!

OK, some zoo pictures for you:

Fish in space!

Disapproving bird

There are actually 2 elephants in this picture - you can just about see one foot of the second one.

Happy polar bear!

Albino peacock!

Itchy king penguins

Weekend fun

Well, August is over, and the summer weather seems to have gone with it.  Sigh!
Luckily, I had 2 great weekends in a row, with fun outdoor activities, so I don't feel like I wasted nice weather.

A couple of weeks ago, Ludo, Owen and I decided to go for a bike ride in the countryside.  We went to Neusiedler See (Lake Neusiedl), the biggest lake in the area, straddling the Austro-Hungarian border.  It's a very strange lake, really.  On average, it's less than 2 metres deep; it actually disappeared on a few occasions in history!  Most of the lake is surrounded by reeds. Not just a few, I'm talking vast expanses here!

OK, so I met Ludo and Owen at their place, and watched - patiently - as they figured out how to set up their new bike rack on their car.  About 45 minutes late, we were on our way! I gotta say, for all that is was a BMW brand rack (to fit with their BMW car), it felt like the bikes were not that secure. But all was well, me made it safely to our destination, a cute town called Rust.

Rust is wonderful!  Very charming little town, old and colourful, with a pretty church and lovely sights. The best thing, though, is that it is the "city of storks". There are storks everywhere, real ones.  It made my day to see that they really do make nests on top of chimneys, it's the kind of thing I've only ever seen in drawings in books, not even in photographs!

Upon arrival, and after I made like a tourist and took a zillion pictures, we decided that we had already expended enough energy, and found a little restaurant to have lunch. Much yumminess, and great local wine too.

Once we were re-energised, I rented  bicycle and Ludo and Owen took theirs off the car.  We set off towards the next town on the lake.  I'm told the path went along the lake. I myself wouldn't know, as the reeds were over 2 metres high and many many metres deep, so I never saw the actual lake!  It was a beautiful ride, just perfect weather with sun and mild temperature.  We rode about 10 kilometres, and then we got to the border. We stopped to go up onto a lookout of sorts, where I had a view of fields on one side, and on the other... reeds, with little sailboats in the distance.  I couldn't see water, so it looked like the boates were floating on the reeds.  Our cycling path then took us a little ways along the border. In this picture, Hungary is on the left of the road, and Austria on the right.

We went up a short but very steep hill, and got to an old border crossing, which we crossed.  We got off our bikes and considered which way to go.  Looking into Hungary, we saw hills - going up; back the other way was nice, flat Austria. Guess which way we went? 

On the way back, we detoured to a summer beach-like area to have popsicles.  This was a tropical summer fun spot: you must pay to enter, and line up for things like the snack bar etc.  And hundreds of people everywhere. Not appealing, no matter how hot it could get, but the Austrians seem to like it.

We got back on our bikes and rode some more.  The area is really gorgeous.  It's full of vineyards, producing yummy (mostly white) wines. 

When we got back to Rust, we packed he bikes up and started for home, driving on nice smaller roads rather than the highway.  On the way, we at a wine dealer, tasted half a dozen wines in 10 minutes, bought a few, and drove on.

What a lovely Sunday afternoon! Thanks guys!

Ludo and me at the lookout (Hungary behind us):

Owen and Ludo at the lookout (Austria behind them, Hungary on the right)