Auf Wiedersehen Austria!

Hello all - We are a bit behind on our posts. The Hungarian girls arrived and we had a blast with them and I must say that celebrating my birthday here in Prague was a once in a lifetime experience. Thank you for the birthday wishes! More on 4 blondes and 1 brunette gone wild later.... Now for Austria. We spent 4 days and 3 nights in Vienna, Austria, truly a beautiful city. We were very fortunate and were able to stay with two Servas hosts- Rita and Ilse for the entire time. This made Vienna(who uses the Euro) affordable. The Austrians are very proud of their history, in it's glory days the Austrian empire aka the Hapsburg Empire was the most powerful European entity since Rome. The waltz is still the rage here, they speak German, and the mood is mellow and relaxed. On our arrival the first day we traveled out to the 17th district via the tram. The city is sectioned by districts, with one being the city center. Districts 1-9 are inside the first ring and 1-19 are in the second. We stayed at Rita's flat in a separate living area with a bedroom, sitting area and bathroom. Her daughter in law from Thailand and Rita's two cock a toos were also there. Our first night we went out for a traditional Austrian dinner and had Wiener Schnitzel - yummy. We then walked over and picked up Rita's pregnant daughter in law from driving school. Three interesting lessons from this. 1-Rita loved calling her unborn grandchild "Franz" after the Austrian Emperor. Very proud of their history. 2-Getting a drivers license in Austria or Europe for that matter, is expensive, about 2000 Euros and two weeks of intensive classes. Rita says this is because of all the deaths on the highway caused by young, inexperienced drivers. 3-We are the only Servas members she's had who drink wine. (2 bottles with Rita) On our second day we moved from Rita's to Ilse's flat in the 19th district. This is when we came to the conclusion that we'd made a packing mistake. All of the research we did said to not bring bags with wheels, well, phooey, bring wheels. Carrying a bulging, heavy backpack around works for about a block. Anyway, Ilse's was beautiful, located on a quiet street near a park. We ventured out to the first district where we traveled the Ringstrasse by tram, hopping on and off seeing the city hall, the Emperors Palace, the Opera House, St Stevens and most enjoyable, coffee and tea at Cafe Dremel on the famous Kohlmarket Street. I love my coffee and know my(Julie) Mom will understand how much I enjoyed Vienna's cafe culture. Kohlmarket Street is where the who's who of Vienna shows their stuff, people and dogs! As you saw on the blog -- Melissa was going crazy over the cute dogs. We then spent the evening with Ilse, a German teacher at an international school. She prepared for us a home cooked meal of pasta, salad, wine(yipee) and strudel. Very pleasant evening. The next day we took in Schonbrunn Palace, the spectacular summer residence of the Hapsburgs. Julie now insists on being called - sissy, pampered wife of Emperor Franz. Oh brother. The gardens at Schonbrunn are similar in grandeur to Versailles our travel book says. Neither of us have been there. From here we began a mad search for "wheels." Our goal was to find two luggage carts and bungee cords to secure our packs on. So we rode the u-bahn train until we saw shops and off we went. Finally, after many wild goose chases we found a small luggage shop with 3 resident dogs and a very Austrian man who spoke no English. Unfortunately, Rick Steves doesn't provide the word luggage cart in his travel book. So after a very healthy round of charades, I'm sure you can imagine how funny that was, we got our luggage carts AND bungee cords. Even the dogs were howling from all the excitement. From here we had yet more coffee and tea at another cafe, visited the local farmers market and headed back to meet Ilse. Our last night was a treat. Ilse took us to a "Heurigen" or a wine garden. A Heurigen is uniquely Viennese. It's wine and a place to drink it. You order wine, fill your plate at the buffet, more like a deli counter where they dish up for you, and drink great cab sav merlot blend. More wiener schnitzel for us. Yum again! The next morning we boarded the train to Prague at 6 AM. Early to get there before our new friends from Hungary arrive. Prague is located in the heart of the Czech Republic. Off to Praha(as they call it over here)