After the false start on Friday, Ryan and I set alarms to get up and out for hiking on Saturday. We packed up, took the first tram to the second tram stop, ate breakfast at a small cafe, and hopped on the second tram for the 45 minute ride out to the hike. Ryan took on planning for the hike, and had settled on Staadtwedenweg 1 (city hiking trail 1), up to Kahlenberg. Vienna is in the foothills of the Alps, and there are many close hiking trails. Like the previous days, the weather was gorgeous. Low to mid 70s and sunny. Most of the hike was on paved narrow roads, through peaceful suburbs with lots of greenery and big trees and vineyards. The last part of the hike led us off onto unpaved paths through the forest, with steep switchbacks.

Path through suburbs

Vineyards in the cemetery

Lots of grapes!

More grapes

Buddhist temple/shrine on the side of the path.  Looked slightly like a bunch of junk.

These markers were all throughout the hike, still haven’t figured out their meaning.

At the top, I used what I described to Ryan as a futuristic toilet. I wish I’d taken a picture. The whole thing is metal. You walk in and close the heavy door, and push a button to lock it. The toilet is this massive basin, presumably so the guys can’t miss. There is a toilet seat up against the back wall, you grab the handle and pull the toilet seat down. Again, perhaps so guys don’t make a mess of it. After using the toilet, you raise the seat back up, and push a button on the right wall to flush. On the left wall, there is a soap dispenser and faucet built right into the wall, extending slightly over the massive basin. You push the button to dispense soap and turn on the water. When all done, another button is pushed to unlock the door. Overall, very clean and well maintained.

Also at the top, we walked around the small area of Kahlenberg, with shops, cafes, and a hotel. While we hiked, one could drive or take a bus up to the top. From the top, there were great views of Vienna and the Danube River.

We could have taken the little train up, but since when do we do things the easy way? This train picture is for Sam.

The hike continued back down the mountain. We passed through a fun ropes course with ziplines and considered trying it out, but decided it was too crowded. Instead, we continued the hike and stopped at a cafe and winery overlooking the vineyard with the city in the background. What a delightful place for a break and some refreshments! It would have been easy to just sit relaxing there all day. Reminded me a bit of the wineries in Mendoza. Ryan had a glass of Reisling, while I tried the sturm.

Raisins on the side of the road

Post-hike beer at the bottom

FaceTime with Sam when we got back to the apartment! He was involved in one of his favorite activities, moving water from one container to another, and then dumping it on Pumpa’s feet!

The evening consisted of Mozart’s Requiem in Karlskirche. Ryan and I grabbed an early dinner before hand and then wandered around the Busker’s Festival going on in Karlsplatz before finding Kate and Egg and going into the church. This was our first experience dealing with vouchers, which are quickly becoming a thing on this trip. Apparently we had vouchers for tickets for the concert, not the actual tickets. We had to stand in line to swap our vouchers for tickets, and then stand in another line to get into the church with our tickets. The church was a very majestic venue for the concert, and the symphony and choir were very moving. So moving that all of us except for Kate fell asleep at some point. I was probably the biggest culprit. Regardless, we all enjoyed. Afterwards, we watched a fire thrower perform outside the church (part of the festival), and attempted top stop for dessert/coffee/wine at a cool looking cafe on the way home. After sitting for 20 minutes with no one approaching us to take an order, we called it quits and went back to the Airbnb to go to sleep.

Some art we passed by on the walk home

Friday was another day of mostly wandering around and enjoying the weather. Ryan and I were originally planning to do a hike, but slept in too late. Egg doesn’t do nature, so he and Kate were going to hang out in the city and take in more sites. Once we decided not to go hiking, we walked over to the museum quarter and had a relaxing, delicious breakfast (except for all the bees).

Museum Quarter

Monument to empress Maria Theresa

Egg and Kate were unfortunately thwarted on their plans. They missed the 11am St. Stephen’s tour, even though they were there at 10:58, and were told that the rest of the tours for the day were cancelled due to an afternoon event. They then walked over to the Stadttempel, and were told that they could not walk in for a tour, but could come back with their passports and be allowed in to services.

Ryan and I wandered over to meet Egg and Kate, passing a few sites along the way. We walked into the part of St. Stephen’s Cathedral that was opened, getting a decent look at the cathedral and listening to a choir warming up.

St. Stephen’s Cathedral

The four of us then visited St. Virgil’s Chapel, a chapel located in one of the underground stations. Built in the 1200s, it had been buried and was only rediscovered while building the underground in the 1970s.

Ryan and I wandered back slowly to the Airbnb.  Vienna has beautiful buildings, churches, and statues at every turn.

Monument Against War and Fascism

Statue of Joseph Haydn

Time for FaceTime!  This was the first time FaceTiming with Sam since we left on Monday. Ryan’s parents drove down to Texas to watch Sam for most of our trip. And then my parents have him for the last few days. I was a little concerned, because Kris said Sam has been missing us, and I wanted to make sure he didn’t think we had abandoned him. His teacher at school said that when they talked about mommy and daddy at lunch, Sam started to cry :-(. Sam keeps walking into our bedroom looking for us. Kris told him we are on a plane, so every time mommy or daddy is mentioned, Sam does the sign for plane. According to Sam, we may be on an airplane for the entire trip. Luckily, FaceTime went pretty well. Sam told us what he ate from breakfast, showed us his Samstorm (tissue paper torn up that he likes to throw up in the air and lay in), and sang wheels on the bus. At the end of the call, he kept saying ‘No, no’ when we were getting ready to hang up, which was sad. He’s doing fine, I’m probably having a harder time.

Time to catch the tram and underground to the MuTh for the Vienna Boys Choir. This was my first time riding the public transport in Vienna. As Egg had said, actually paying for public transport appears to be optional. As opposed to the US, where there are gates that one must pass through, or a bus driver checking passes, Vienna has these small readers where you can validate your pass. The pass readers do not have gates and in no way stop one from entering. The bus and tram drivers also do not check or ask people to validate their passes. The public transport runs frequently and is very easy to use.

Here comes the tram! Great public transportation in Vienna

The Vienna Boys Choir was a lot of fun and very good. The conductor had a ton of energy (spunky, as Ryan said) and all the boys looked to be enjoying themselves. They sounded amazing and sang a few well known pieces by Strauss, Haydn, Rogers and Hammerstein (Edelweiss). The venue was very intimate and all seats had great views of the stage. At Kate pointed it, these incredibly talented boys could sing in unison, but are still kids and couldn’t manage to coordinate their bows. Every time they took a bow, it’s as if they would all sneak looks at one another saying “Now? Is now the right time?”. At one point, one of the boys went to bow and then made a motion to the others like “What are you doing”? Regardless, they sounded great and were a lot of fun to watch.

After the show was wonderful dinner at an Egg chosen establishment. Delicious dishes all around.

After 3 days of exhausting travel, Ryan and I slept in and we all took it slow. Egg was restless and headed out to breakfast. Kate did some work. Once I was up, she and I headed out to meet Egg near the Opera House. We went to a nearby cafe for breakfast, where Ryan caught up with us shortly, and then we all went over to the Opera House for a tour. The Vienna Opera House, Wiener Staatsoper, was originally built in the 1860s in the Neo-Renaissance style. The majority of the opera house was destroyed in WWII and had been rebuilt in the 1950s to match the original design. There were a few new sections built in more of a 1950s style. The stage was being set up for Carmen, opening that evening, so we were unable to get a backstage tour. We were able to sit in the theater and see the full extent of the stage and how deep it was, more than 2x the depth of the stage visible during a performance. The stage can drop down, and new sets moved in from the sides and the back. The sets for Carmen were pretty amazing. We also learned about the Opera House Ball held every year, which is open to the public for only 350 Euro. Our tour guide gives tours of the opera house during the summer. During the rest of the year, he is a professor at the university, he’s a medical doctor. The Vienna Opera House stands in stark contrast to the other opera houses we have toured, namely Sydney and Oslo. Both of those houses are very modern, energy efficient, designed to make a statement, be inviting, and complement nicely the natural beauty of their locations.

Big pink rabbit outside of the opera house. No clue on why

Set of Carmen

Playing dress up at the Opera House

Egg makes a much better opera singer

After the tour, we wandered over to and around Belvedere Gardens, enjoying the beautiful weather. From the gardens, there is a nice view of Vienna, though not quite as impressive as it sounded in the tour guides. As we discussed, Vienna doesn’t really have much of a skyline, and the gardens, while at a slightly higher elevation, was not really high enough to get a good view.

Schloss Belvedere

In the botanical gardens

Vienna from the Belvedere Gardens

We wandered through the Naschmarkt on the way to dinner. The Naschmarkt is a well known open-air market, containing anything you could want: nuts and dried fruit, meats, cheeses, olives, fish, fresh fruit and veggies, rice and grains, cafes, small tchotchkes, etc. Kate and Egg had gone through the previous day and enjoyed, but the market was closing and there were not too many samples available. Ryan was going to buy a dragon fruit, but the vendor wanted to charge him 20 Euro, so he passed. We have found that there are a lot of bees in Vienna. It was sort of disturbing to see all the bees flying in and around all the dried fruit. We grabbed some dinner at an Egg recommended cafe and headed home for the evening.

Naschmarkt

The plan was to take an American Airlines flight from Austin to Chicago, arriving in Chicago around 3:45pm, providing us a full 6 hours before our international flight on Turkish Airlines to Vienna with a layover in Istanbul. We would meet Kate and Egg in Chicago. Egg was bringing a delicious dinner of roasted vegetables, ribs, and tofu. We figured 6 hours should be plenty sufficient. The travel gods had other plans.

Immediately after boarding our AA flight, scheduled to depart at 1:15pm, the pilots announce that Chicago has bad weather, our flight has been delayed 3 hours, and everyone needs to deplane. Ok, 3 hours, no cause for concern yet, that still gives us 3 hours in between flights in Chicago. At 4:25, we all board the plane again. Once on the plane, the pilots tell us (in I don’t remember which order) that there is a ground hold in Austin due to bad weather, and then there is a hold on any flights departing for Chicago again due to bad weather, and we will be sitting on the plane for an hour. That time passes, at which point the pilots announce we are ready to go, just waiting for the luggage to finish loading. Huh??!! The plane has been sitting at the gate for 5 hours at this point and the luggage isn’t all loaded?! Luggage gets loaded, at which point the pilots announce they have reached their end of day and all passengers must get off the plane again. Ryan and I have been hemming and hawing about whether we were going to make the Turkish Airlines flight, but now it is pretty obvious.

Off the plane. The airport is absolute chaos. Our flight is rescheduled for 9:25pm, awaiting the arrival of an air crew coming from JFK. We go to grab food, Schlotsky’s for me and Salt Lick for Ryan, cause we are getting a bit cranky and have a lot of details to sort out before getting on the Chicago flight. As an aside, a bunch of new restaurants have opened or are opening soon in ABIA, including a Mad Greens, which I’m excited about.

First up, I call the travel insurance provider to find out the process for using the travel insurance. Slight language barrier, but I understand that we need to go ahead and make the necessary arrangements and then submit claims to be reimbursed. Second, update Kate and Egg on the situation. Call Steve Exo and let him know Ryan and I will be crashing at Kate and Egg’s for the night, to please leave out a key. Now for the fun part, dealing with Turkish Airlines.

I call the toll free number and connect to ticketing and reservations. I explain the issue and that we need to reschedule our travel to Vienna for the next night. Unfortunately, they are unable to do anything because I already checked in for the original flights. (I checked in online earlier in the day). I ask who can help me. The agent tells me that I need to talk with the ticketing office in Chicago. I ask for the number. Sorry, she doesn’t have the number and cannot connect me to the ticketing office, but she can provide the physical address. What?? I ask who I talk to that can help. She connects me with customer service. Customer service tells me that I need to connect back with ticketing, who should be able to make my changes. I get connected back to ticketing. Again no luck. I google the ticketing office in Chicago and call the local Chicago number. The menu has 4 options. I choose one after another, until I’ve tried all 4. Two of them send me to voicemail, the other two just disconnect me after a number of rings.

We are on the phone with Kate and Egg who are talking with the ticketing agent in Chicago. The ticketing agent is no help at all and provides the toll free number to call. I call back the toll free number. Back to ticketing, still can’t help me, forwarded along to customer service, who tells me I need to be connected back with ticketing, tell them to offload us from the flight. Back to ticketing, they offload us but still can’t change our flight to the next night. Back to customer service, he says it looks like only Ryan was offloaded from the flight, he offloads me. If customer service could offload us, why did they keep sending me back to ticketing?? Ok, back to ticketing again. Now we are offloaded and they can reschedule our flight for $2000. Are you friggin’ kidding me? Kate and Egg are now talking with a different ticketing agent in Chicago who says that he can get us the flight for $1800. Still ridiculous. Now the agent I’m on the phone with says she has it for $1800. Why did the price drop? The first time she had the system automatically choose the cheapest option and it came to $2000. The second time she manually put in the flights and it came to $1800. For comparison, our original flights were < $1200. With no other choice, we pony up the $1800. Luckily, travel insurance should cover most of it. An hour and a half later, we have finally resolved our flight issues and are scheduled to depart one day later from Chicago.

The above description of rescheduling our flights is no exaggeration. Actually, I am probably leaving out a few times transferred back and forth between ticketing and customer service.

Our flight to Chicago did take off at 9:25pm and we finally made it to Kate and Egg’s apartment around 1:30am.

Lessons Learned:
1) Do NOT fly Turkish Airlines. This is the second PITA interaction with them. Egg had a huge hassle choosing seats a few months ago.
2) Make all arrangements on the same booking. If it had been on the same booking, then the airlines would have had to figure out the rescheduling and we would not have had to pay. Ryan is awarded a big ‘I told you so’ on this one. Booking separately always makes him nervous.
3) Travel insurance is totally worth it.

While having to rearrange plans and losing a day in Vienna was pretty crappy, there was an upside to the travel issues.

We got to spend a fun day in Chicago playing with Nathan! He looked a little confused when I came out of the bedroom in the morning, but quickly warmed up to us and soon had us playing trains. We built huge circle train tracks, went to the park, watched the ‘L’, and read lots of books.

Circle train!

At 4pm, Nate and Deb stood outside and watched us get in a Uber and head to the airport. Exactly the same as they had done the day previously when Kate and Egg left. At check-in, I negotiated the extra leg room seats. We had paid for them originally with the initial booking but did not pay again when we had to reschedule. Our seats wound up being pretty good, bulkhead, with ample legroom. The game of the day was musical chairs before off . . . Something about multiple babies in the same row needing bassinets, not enough oxygen masks, asking if the guy next to us or maybe we could move, but they seemed to work it all out. Three hours into the flight, one of the flight attendants approached us and asked if we wanted to move to business class, again, something about babies and oxygen masks. The business class seats were middle seats, one in front of the other. Ryan and I of course said sure!

The next part was clandestine. The flight attendant explained that Ryan and I would go up to business class one at a time, she would bring our bags, so no one knew we were moving up there. As we sort of understood/figured out, they had resolved the babies and oxygen mask thing by having a married couple move, perhaps out of better seats. This couple was doing nothing but complaining the entire flight, so the flight attendants were trying to move them to better seats. However, because the flight attendants were annoyed with this couple, rather than move them to business class, the flight attendants were going to move them to our seats with the bulkhead and extra legroom, and move us to business class. No complaining here! The business class seats were very comfortable and fully reclined, so we could actually lay down and sleep. It was amazing! Breakfast was delicious fresh fruit, croissant, and choice of fried eggs or omelette. I could get used to that!

The rest of the trip to Vienna was uneventful. Layover in Istanbul wasn’t too bad. Airport was crowded but we didn’t find it as hot as Egg had warned us. Short flight to Vienna, gathered our bags, Uber to the Airbnb, where we met up with Egg and Kate only a day late. Ryan and Egg went out to get a doner kebab and we all hit the hay.