“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time” T.S. Elliot
Wow, this one is gonna be packed. So much has happened in less than 24 hours, as we expected, due to us doing three excursions today plus another last night right after the ship docked. First let me bring you up to speed with a bit that happened on the cruise day, which by the way, I think we could have almost done this whole month and been content. Something about drifting upriver while indulging like an ancient greek just speaks to my soul somewhere deep. Anyway, the tea time was awesome! We had coffee instead with this Austrian chocolate liquor and little finger sandwiches and trifles amongst other things, more than we should have eaten to be sure. I’m worried about putting weight on during this trip regardless of all the activity and walking…. still, we ate and continue to. The apple strudel presentation was wonderful and cute, they had two little old ladies they picked out of the group to do it while they directed their actions. Also after the demonstration they had Apple strudel with the tea and cake and little adorable finger sandwiches, of course we had this too.
We also went through our first river lock! Well our first while awake, apparently we are going to go through 63 locks throughout our trip! I somewhat remember one in the night but still battling jet lag I cared not to see it more than the deep emotional love I was currently feeling on my honeymoon looking deep into the linen eyes of the fabric of my pillow case. Nothing was lost as we did not miss out on the next day while waiting for the strudel presentation we got to see the raising of the ship in the river lock anyway and will have many more still yet to see.
We arrived in the late afternoon in Vienna and having partook in the kitchens fares so much though the day figured we’d skip dinner and have the late evening snack planed on the sun deck at 10:30, so in this particular case of time, moon deck. We boarded our bus and took it into the heart of Vienna, to one of the most prominent and important opera houses in Vienna, as we were told the long and intricate history of the sites we past and the opera house itself. We had a private concert in an absolutely stunning concert hall with gilded gold and ornate ceilings where they played a collection of Mozart’s and Strauss, two prominent profound composures, especially for Vienna. The show was adorable and not in the least bit stuffy which in all honesty was a concern, a concern that became more inflated after walking into the 70 some foot ornate ceiling and gilded gold carvings. They had singers and dancers that accompanied the pieces and even the musicians had little acted out interactions with each other and put on a separate show of fun bickering and jesting with each other in between and while playing the pieces. The show was a refreshing take on classical music that they were able to cultivate an such an atmosphere in a room that would cost as much to build and decorate that could easily build a city block of houses and presented it in such a way that allowed you to feel comfortable to take in and experience songs you may have heard but with a new appreciation. It tapped into a blue vein of music and allowed it to flow red providing connection and grounding it for any audience spanning age, class, or taste. If you you would attend and not find humor and enjoyment then you deserve neither. Sorry, not sorry.
The following morning we woke restless due partly to a banging that was coming from a loose mooring rope that would seem determined to pound through the hull. While it failed in its diabolically anarchistic Neptunian purpose it did succeed in waking us and so, begrudgingly, we went to breakfast and quickly there after to our bus for the morning tour. We saw a church that looked like a Disney castle and then I saw something even more breathtaking, I saw a one armed janitor. From here I lost track of the points of interest the guide was telling us about and I dived head first, much too quickly in imaging the story of this mans life. I thought of how hard a profession like that is in general and then trying to do it with only one arm. Around this time as well, a little before and then again the guide was answering questions about the country of Austria. Their unemployment rates and tax rates and general behavior and collective beliefs of its people. First, let me say the city of Vienna is stunning! Part of this might be a side effect from spending revenue from the crazy pills they seem to be taking called their taxes. 11k€ or under and you pay no tax. From there is ranges from 25-55% where if you make around 55k€ I believe she said the government takes 55% of that away for you. She also mentioned that around 20% of the housing is subsidized by the government as well. Now they do sure get a lot of nice things, so its not that the government takes and the don’t revive but geez! Anyway, I wonder how much this guy could make when he could do probably better off not working where they would still pay him, and then I thought it’s because he’s a badass who don’t take no shit, a living one armed boxer who’s taking home at least one golden glove. Actually I fabricated an incredibly in depth and interesting story about this man but to hear it you’ll have to buy me a drink.
We started our walking tour and we did just that, we walked. We saw some places, we some some churches, then some more churches, after that we saw some more places and some more churches. Alex and I accidentally got caught in the middle of a service while taking pictures of one of the churches. We saw a crazy monument erected after the Black Death with a baby angel with sharp teeth that was impaling a demon with unrestricted zombie breast with what I believe was the flame and light of god? I think zombie tits was a representation of the plague, hence the vile complexion, and the baby maybe meant to represent new life being sent from god liberating them from the terrible affliction? Anyway, people got dark but who wouldn’t, it was called the Black Death, and rightly so. We broke off from our group for a short time and explored several back alleyways. We found a courtyard that was totally empty with a cube shaped monument in the center placed in memory for the Austrian Jewish people killed in the holocaust. We also saw throughout the day many locations where businesses and synagogues once stood but were destroyed during the crystal night, “the night of broken glass”. We went back to the boat and on the way learned that the city of Austria in an effort to limit graffiti they actually allow it in certain areas which is a nifty idea. All the area down by the river is allocated for art is people are so inclined and it is covered, some very good in fact. We also saw the oldest operating Ferris wheel and wanted to ride it but decided we need a nap more and so followed the sirens song back to our ship and slept, for about 40 min. Then it was back up and out to go see the famous Lipizzaner horses.
We got to the famous Spanish riding school and were able to do a behind the scenes sort of tour. We were able to sit in the “royal” seats and the gallery seat and see where they perform. Unfortunately for us in the summers the performing horses get a holiday in the countryside and so we were not able to see them in the act of their famous routine. We did however get to see the training grounds and back stage areas and then with the tour through Viking we were able to go back into the stables and see all the horses that weren’t off on vacation. We got to see the staging room where they keep all the riding gear and got walk about the courtyard which was really something to see. Even being build originally to house the horses and back when weapons and spare rooms it was still pretty elaborate, by today’s means at least. Next we took a lovely stroll down past a courtyard with a big hole in it, what was in the hole? Ok, I tell you. It was a bunch of crisscrossing Roman foundations. They found them when doing some work and decided to leave some of it exposed. We continued our walk and mad our way to the central cafe where, that’s right you guessed it! You really are getting good at this, we had coffee and cake! I had a orange and chocolate and Alex had a double chocolate. She also got to experience her first real European coffee and was apparently not believing me in the strength in which these people take it. On the way back to the bus we saw a €100 million house and more impressive a city park with acres of rose bushes and tress, the smell was so sweet it made me want to abandon all plans and just lay in the grass until winter comes to this land. Alas my will was too strong and we once again returned to the boat.
From here, yes from here, trust me we are maybe only halfway there folks, we did the port talk and boarded a new bus to go partake in an absolutely wonderful tradition, a Heurigen dinner. Its kinda like a tapas at a vineyard. You get small plates with all different kinds of foods that’s served family style and you get four or five different glasses so as to get throughly sloshed. From here I will take a short tangent to talk about the Austrian people, a wonderful, beautiful and utterly intriguing people. I have heard a joke made before about this region and their lesser amounts of humor and while that’s not totally true as I met the most jovial man of the trip on the street today on the way to the coffee shop a good deal of people give clarity to this belief. Each of our guides have a strong proclivity to the use of adjectives. At first you don’t really notice but after hours of tours it became more clear. Pushing against the soft lull of their voices and fighting the lullaby of the vibrato, something unique to this accent I believe, in there as well I realized they would use words to describe feeling and for the life of me I could not hear what they meant from the way they said it but I had to listen for it. This was true except in one area, when they spoke about their country of Austria or their city of Vienna. When it came to theses the love and pride seemed almost presented more as factual then stated opinion and it seemed as though they almost were trying to contain themselves on a small level from being over excited. Where everything else was matter of fact sandwiched in between “lovely” or “very nice” or insert any other set of describing words on this topic their adjectives got quite a bit more direct. This is both lovely and terrifying. I’ll leave you to figure that out.
We got to the collection of houses that made up the vineyard about four houses over the years that through marriages have come together and have been serving since the medieval times I believe the guide said. Where we were, was the Wolf family or vineyard not sure what how how they call it? You can really tell when you walk in they were just old houses. There is a serving area in the front where you can buy their wares and we walked past down a hallway into the back where we came into a beautiful courtyard with cobblestone paths and climbing vines up terraces. We went up some stone steps and had a private sitting area as we were a rather large group when mostly in the courtyard there were only groups of two or four. We ended up on a rooftop patio overlooking the small town in the area. There was a violinist and accordion player that were absolutely spectacular. While they were clearly pandering to us Americans by playing songs from the sound of music and even Frank Sinatra none of us seemed to care more than we were enjoying the music. At one point one of our host mentioned how all the wine was grown right behind the wall and thought to myself “ahhh look at that! This cute little family place grows everything in that little garden there!” As we were up on the roof top I could slightly see over the walls edge and see a little garden on the back hill leading up to a tree line. Then our most generous host asked who would like to go back and tour the vineyards? And of course we obliged and we were led back down old weathered stone paths and through the courtyard. Back up the hill the house was set upon up three separate landings of stone steps to the thick tree line where we followed a small path pressing through the trees and BAM! A whole damn mountain side of grape vines! This was no little vineyard, no, this was a full fledged wine making escapade! Needless to say even though I’m saying it, I felt kinda dumb thinking they were making all that wine in their little garden which later after I actually looked over the wall would have realized could have never produced near enough grapes with even the slightest amount of detective work. Regardless I was three glasses in already and the shame was but fleeting. We took in the beauty and took some photos and made our way back to our tables for more music, three more courses of more food and quite a bit more wine.
We drank, we drunk, reds and whites, sparkling wine that tickled our noses, strong wines that sunk to our toes’es. We were merry, we sung songs, we laughed and we drank some more, we also ate more! We conversed and squeezed every bit of juice out of this little grape of life as the sun surrendered the day and the small town behind the lights of the courtyard lit up the little village. Upon our departure we acquired a few bottles for the journey ahead of us and while the trip in was maybe about 100 yards from the bus, the return trip follow the path of the snake and ran more to the sum of 300-350 yards if I had to guess. While the group funneled their way back onto the bus I attempted to my small talk with our guide, a small giant of a man. I on two other occasions in the night attempted to chip away at his stoic Austrian exterior, one in discussing his height as he was one of the tallest Europeans I had encountered on this trip, an attempt that ended in flames as all his responses were in metric and I could figure out what the hell he was saying, again, wine. In this case I was discussing German phrases and attempting to learn about terminology or slang that might refer to our group. When I was in college as was taking Latin it helped to learn the plural by using y’all because it did so mind your own business. Anyway, I asked if there were any slang phrases similar or fit to this nomenclature. He was less than interested in discussing my topic any longer, we exchanged looks, he tried at a verbal joust attempting to make me feel silly for my choice of pronoun, which was far too easily parried and in my inebriated state I pointed out his silliness and climbed back upon the bus with a sort of “don’t start no shit ain’t gonna be no shit” sort of swagger. In reflection I could have handled it with a bit more tactfulness but then again I attempted at every step to build bridges while he gesticulated from the shore to build the foundations from sneers and snickers. After a full night emptying the reserves at a family winery two things became clear, we should have no fear for the boat as our new buoyancy would keep us afloat and Austrian wine is really damn good.
Erroll & Alex's European Honeymoon Trip! 
The pictures look incredible – gorgeous architecture, statuary, and landscapes! I’m glad you guys are having so much fun. Also, 2nd person plural ‘you’ is Euch (informal) or Sie (formal) in German. In most circumstances, you can’t go wrong with Sie when speaking when elders/authority figures/service people. It is not as casual as ya’ll, but means the same thing – you (plural).
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