Back for a Couple of Days

Between Venice and Nina’s impending arrival laid a few precious days in Vienna to catch up with friends and see more of the city. I went and saw Hundertwasserhaus (very much what Gaudi is to Barcelona) which is considered to be a chaos of the absurd, with the girls. The architecture is crazy, funky and colourful – it looks straight out a picture book. I also went back to MUMOK, a museum in MQ and lost track of time watching short films in their latest exhibition, “Changing Channels”. I caught up with the church kids for the LAST time at connect – very saddening – I hate all these farewells!

On Friday we went to Le Bol – best restaurant, and spent the afternoon shopping around, checking out the tree with nails (called Stock Im Eisen Platz, where according to legend, every locksmith's apprentice who came to Vienna in the course of his wanderings had to hammer a nail into the tree trunk for good luck – Con Gavrilis told me this was a must-see) and headed to Lydia’s for a kitchen party. This was my first visit to Pano (took me a long while but I finally made it the trek out there!)

Saturday morning, the sun was shining and it appeared that summer had returned so we started the day on a hike from Neustift, Heiligenstadt, through the vineyards but we somehow got lost and ended up in Klosterneuburg. Luckily we found our way back to Vienna and Lydia Pointer picked me up to take me on our farewell adventurous afternoon. We went to the heritage listed town of Rust after stopping off for some Stecklerfische (wood fired fish on the side of the road – very Austrian) and fresh strawberries. We ended up at the lake and paddle boated around – such a divine day, topped off with the opera at night – Orpheus in der Underwelt – with Nikilicious. Sunday = Nina’s arrival day – woot! I’ll be up early to escort Miss Lydia Driscoll to the airport – a sad farewell followed by a joyous reunion with my cousin – talk about an emotional rollercoaster!!!