Something to do with Manchester.

OK,  this isn't some slimy way of getting unsolicited hits,  it's just that there was another Manchester in the news on the very day that our recent guests left Wienerland on their way to Manchester,  UK.
Not as much gun play up there,  thankfully.
Considerably worse in the weather department though.
We were very fortunate to have pretty good weather for the whole six days they were here.  It did rain one night,  and threatened on a couple of occasions,  but it can rain all it wants at night as far as I'm concerned.


 On a somewhat unpleasant note,  we may have lost one of our stars and been dropped from four stars to three,  due to a miscue on the air-conditioning in the one guest room,  as the remote was somehow on the wrong setting.  Didn't work worth a damn.
Since there is a certain amount of city noise,  once in a while it can be pleasant to close up and put on the air,  but it didn't work on Sunday night.
Oh dear.
I don't know how it happened,  but once I actually put my glasses on the next morning and consulted the manual,  it was painfully obvious that it was set to "heat",  and not "air condition".    Gah!

 I'm thinking if it had been set to "do sweet bugger all" instead of "heat",  that would have at least been some consolation.

Oh well.

 Won't be falling for that one again.


 All in all it was a very pleasant visit,   with days spent either seeing sights or shopping,  with evenings spent yakking by candle light on the terrace.  Like I said,  the weather was just about perfect.


Don't get the wrong idea though.  I'm not really all that enthusiastic when it comes to hours of shopping,  so on more than one occasion I gave them a set of keys and sent them on their way.
We're close enough to everything that there really isn't any need to take public transit if one is willing to meander far enough,  and they went all the way down to the first district on Monday unsupervised!

I know!

The expression that I like to use in reminding my lovely travelling companion when I'm about to set visitors off on their own is,  "They're not TWELVE".  

 I mean really,  if a person has somehow figured out how to get here from another continent,  they surely don't need me to help them get back to the apartment.

 At least I hope not.




 

What you're seeing above,  is the inside of the Musik Verrein,  which is pretty much in keeping with the insides of most buildings in Vienna.  There's always a lot of either gold leaf or marble involved.
 Since everyone coming to Vienna really should have a dose of Mozart,  I ordered tickets a while back and we went on Friday night.
 I had been putting off going to one of these Mozart concerts mostly out of protest,  since they are rather touristy in nature,  but the orchestra did a fine job,  in spite of the goofy costumes.

Yes,  the musicians dress up in period costumes.    I guess that's OK,  and it seems to be something they're truly proud of,  since there was some boasting in the program that they had recently acquired some "genuine" period outfits at auction not long ago.
 Whatever floats yer boat.
 And for the picky purists out there,  no they did not play a complete Mozart program.  There was after all,  The Danube Waltz by that Strauss guy,  as well as the Radetzky March at the end.
I try not to roll my eyes,  but there is no way any concert anywhere in Vienna is going to end without playing the Radetzky March it seems.
 I'm not overly big on audience participation is all.
 If you're desperate for a Strauss fix,  you can have a listen to the March here.
It's just a slightly bigger orchestra. 
(Vienna Phil under Georges Prêtre)




I'm not going to bore you with all the details of the visit,  but I'll throw in a couple photos and you should be able to fill in some blanks.

One last thing.

  This seems to happen just about every time we have visitors.   It's also one of the nice little side effects of having visitors.  Each and every time someone comes here,  they discover something or other that up until that point we had no clue about.   New stores get discovered.   Products get found that I had given up on.
 Magda found a hardware store on Mariahilfer Strasse that I didn't know was there.   These folks found the brand new Merkur underground by the subway station at Neubaugasse.  I might have found these places eventually,  but the Merkur had just opened up at a site that is still undergoing some renovations,  and I had figured I wouldn't be going back there again for a while, having frittered away an afternoon looking for something or other a couple months back.

 Kind of handy having someone out and about poking around I suppose.











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