Thanksgiving in Vienna!

I'm living in Vienna with my labmate Arunima from PSU also - she's here working on a different project. We're sharing an apartment that belongs to one of the postdocs in the lab who's out of town. Jim, Arunima and I decided to introduce our lab here in Vienna to the wonders of Thanksgiving last week! Here are some pics...


Oh food - fried chicken, stuffing, carrots and parsnips, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy, and pumpkin and apple pies... and our guests brought salads and bread and cheese...

Arunima & Mario eating dinner

Alix & Arunima



More feasting... Sigrid, Jim and Renate

Laura and Sigrid...

I think Thanksgiving now has more fans :-)

The aquarium!

One of the people in the lab I'm visiting works parttime at Vienna Aquarium. The aquarium is housed in a building that was built to launch missiles during the 2nd World War, and is one of the tallest buildings in the city. He took us up to the roof for a gorgeous view at sunset...
There's also a little tropical house at the aquarium - I love birds. This one hopped right up to us and tried to steal the dangly thing on Arunima's cell phone.

He also gave us a tour of the seahorse breeding aquariums! These are little tiny baby seahorses.
This is a remora on a shark - the remora cleans the shark. The weird thing is that the cleaning part of the fish - the part that's attached to the shark - is the TOP of the fish's head. That's his belly on top - he's got his back pressed up to the shark's back. So strange...
Vienna at night...

Reisenrat in the Prater

In Vienna there is a very large ferris wheel that takes about 15 minutes to do one loop. Some pics...

The view from the top!
The inside- you ride inside little cabins.
And there's the wheel!

Jim's in town!

There's an elevator in the Stephansdom Cathedral that brings you to the top of the north tower. The view of Vienna is amazing! And a little bit scary - the elevator stops and drops you off in basically a wire cage with stairs that you can take to nice solid stone beneath your feet...
We went to this wine cellar called the Twelfth Apostle (in English) - it was built some time in the 1100's. So beautiful. And Muskateller is an amazing wine.

This is in one of the shopping districts in Vienna - all the Christmas lights are lit now in the evenings, and it's really beautiful!
And again, the view from the top of the Stephansdom tower... We're really high up!
Sachertorte, apple strudel and melange... Vienna rocks.

More pics :-)

I don't remember the name of this church either, but I think it's St. Michael's

Random opulence...
I think this is Rathaus Cathedral also

Beautiful painted buildings...

More sightseeing pics

A plaza with a holocaust memorial.
Inside Stephansdom- no flash, so no good pics but you can get the idea.
Rathaus Cathedral in the background

Death to the fish!
And more random beauty

Pics from sightseeing Sunday

High over Vienna is Stephansdom. For an absolutely enormous cathedral, I had a hard time finding it - look at the roof though for some very cool tiling effects...


The Graben (which means ditch) - a major shopping area with stores like Versace. In the center, with the gold top, is the plague memorial statue.



They take the library seriously here in Vienna, and that's only a tiny part of the building.

Random beauty, everywhere...

Singing

I was exploring in Vienna, went into a small-ish cathedral, and this choir came in after me and started singing...

Blogging from Vienna

Vienna, things they have in:
-beautiful cathedrals
-friendly people
-amazing coffee & pastries
-Christmas markets
-the greatest hits of the 80's and 90's
-good beer
-good wine (for cheap!)
-amazing music, everywhere, even in empty churches
-culture where pedestrians rule
-and more to follow...

This is the Rathaus Cathedral and KrisKrindleMarkt.Nachtsmarkt and buildings

I don't remember the name of this cathedral but it's telling that it merits only a sentence in the guide book!

These statues are to honor Vivaldi - how cool is that???

In the Rathaus ...

I love Vienna.