Devastated one day, full the next

First: With the accent here, "baroque" sounds an awful lot like "Barack" so while I should be getting all cultured I feel like I'm getting some subliminal messages from the other side of the pond.


Moving on:
The walk from Ann and Tobi's place to the Staatsoper (the big operahouse) takes only about 15 minutes (she wasn't joking when she said "very, very central")! On our way there I was telling Ben about my extreme excitement because I've never had an experience of idolizing a living person so to see my idol--in her element--was mind blowing. But I didn't want to get too excited because there's always the chance she'll break her leg (knock on wood) and won't be able to go on. I had been looking forward to seeing Diana perform for months!

... and she was ILL. Unable to perform. The understudy was fine; she hit all the notes in her Staatsoper debut, but she lacked Diana's power and energy and spunk. I think Diana should have just popped a Ricola and dragged her ass to work--at least for me--but that clearly didn't happen.

Today we visited Schonbrunn Palace, which was the Hapsburgs' summer residence. We toured the palace and the grounds and watched a demonstration of apple strudel being made in the bakery (sample included!). We also walked through other parts of the city, visiting the famous Karlskirche, Naschmarkt (a market that we plan to visit again on Saturday when it gets crazy!), and various monuments. It will likely rain for the rest of our stay so we are planning to visit many museums throughout the rest of the week.

Tobi and Ann (and their roommate Bernard) made dinner for us tonight! Viennese specialties that were just wonderful ... and it's my first home-cooked meal in a long time! We had a traditional soup (broth with carrots and "fried peas"), a green salad with dressing made with pumpkin seed oil (which is DELICIOUS and will become a staple in my diet), and essentially Austrian mac'n'cheese (kind of like German spaetzle) with a dessert of apple strudel! I was well-fed with Austrian food and thoroughly satisfied. With dinner I had a bottle of Radler, which is essentially beer mixed with lemonade (beer for the bike, apparently) and I'm in love with it. It has a nice, light taste and a lemonadey after-taste, go figure. What a delightful evening!