Mom, Hungary, Piber and Vienna

My month of May was filled with week-long meetings in Vienna, which made the time go very quickly. Then came the next set of visitors: my mother and a friend. Anita has been a family friend almost forever; she was even my baby-sitter when I was about 4 or 5 years old. They were in Europe for a month, and had an ambitious itinereary including Vienna (!), family in norhtern Germany, Dublin, friends in the Black Forest and in western Austria,Vienna again, Hungary, horses (of course), and Vienna one last time. Phew!

When they arrived in Vienna after the German part of their trip, I took a week off to spend some time with them. This was for 2 reasons: (1) I actually consider my Mom a friend and enjoy her company; (2) I had a big concert with my choir that week and had to take time off for rehearsals anyways.

OK, concert first: This was with all 5 choirs of the University of Vienna, over 250 singers, and a full orchestra of 104 instruments. We performed the Carmina Burana to a sold-out audience of 1800 (and it turns out we could have filled the hall a second time)!  What a fantastic experience! The sound was incredible, the location of the final rehearsals and then of the concert hall were fabulous (even some Klimt paintings on one ceiling), I just loved it!

The day after the concert, we took off for Hungary. First we drove to Budapest and spent a day ad a night there. Another beautiful city! It was somewhat jarring to see some buildings completely restored to their earlier splendor, right next to others that were practically falling down. A question of money, of course, in a country that is definitely not rich.  The best part of that day was a sunset cruise on the Danube. Gorgeous!

The next morning we drove down to Pécs (pronounced Paytch for you English speakers). Another lovely little town. Our main reason to go there was that Mom's old boss was living there for a year. So we visited the town, chatted with Francis and Françoise, and just relaxed. 

The next day we were off again, this time looping back towards Graz, in Austria.  On the way, we detoured to Héviz, a town just off the west end of Lake Balaton, with a great mineral spa. We soaked in the mineral lake, had some lunch and got massages. Wonderful! The only downside was that most of the staff didn't seem to speak any English, or even German. Made things a tad difficult, but we worked it out. I almost felt guilty at the price of the massage, it was so low, about 18 Canadian dollars. I imagine that the massage therapist only got a portion of this, so we decided to give them a nice tip - 1000 forints. Sounds huge, right? Well, the exchange rate is about 190 Forints for a Canadian dollar, so that works out to about 5$ tip.

We got to Graz at then end of the day, with just time enought to eat dinner and collapse into bed in our fantastic hotel suite. The next day we woke to grey and threatening skies. We had planned to visit Graz and then drive out to Piber. This is the stud farm for the Lippizaner horses. But since it was the farm we were really interested in and the weather was very iffy, we cancelled our Graz plans and went straight to Piber.  What a nice place! We saw great installations, beautiful horses, a bunch of knobbly-kneed foals. The tour was informative and fun.

Foals are born dark brown and take 7 years for their coat to turn white!

This poor little guy couldn't figure out how to get his head back out - quite funny, really!

We then drove back to Vienna by way of secondary and smaller roads. I am grateful that Mom did the driving on this part, too winding to be restful. Plus it was the only time I didn't do the driving, so I got to enjoy the scenery.  I of course took over the driving before we came into town, as Mom doesn't like driving in cities. On the way, we came across a number of storks on their nests. This fascinates us Canadians who have read about them (and about their baby-delivering job) but have never seen any.

The last few days of their stay in Vienna were the usual tourist things - Schönbrunn, St. Stephen's cathedral, Lippizzaners, Vienna Boys Choir, cruise on the Danube, etc.

The Blue Danube

Special light show inside St Stephen's cathedral

Summer Riding Hall for the Lippizaners

I went back to work for a few of those days. One evening, I came home from work to find Mom had very kindly vacuumed one room where construction people had tracked dirt. Unfortunately, she had shoved the microwave table against the wall, not knowing this would upset its balance. (I was stupid and had installed the microwave oven on a too-small, wobbly table). So when I pushed the button to open the oven, the whole thing came crashing down... on my foot. I have a sprained foot, ankle and big toe, and a broken 3rd toe. Ouch! 2 weeks later I am still on crutches, and likely to stay that way another 2 weeks. Sigh.  (The upside, I guess, is that I am developing nice muscles in my arms.)

All in all, a nice visit.  Come back soon!

Dome in the Szechenyi baths

A butterfly just fluttered over and landed on my hand.

Anonymous chils. Perfect summer moment!

Best dessert I've had in months!

Ah, vacation!