Klimt and Koalas oh my

We arrived in Vienna in the late evening, and were very nearly pickpocketed! Whoa! That is the first time that has happened to us! We were buying tickets for the bus and this man came up and was asking for change for a 2€ for the phone and as he was asking Scott, a man came up to me pointing at a map and speaking rapidly, I kept telling him <I do NOT know where you want to go, I do NOT know the city, all the while trying to keep my eyes on Scott and trying to get them away... They did go away, but we could see them keeping their eyes on us, and I saw them follow us to the bus stop. I glared at them and one of the tried to follow us on the bus and grab scotts wallet just as we got on, but Scott always keeps his wallet in a secure closed front pocket! Those jerks!!!

However, the rest of our stay in one of the most beautiful cities in the world was delightful! We were staying with a couchsurfier named Florian who lives in a big old apartment building that his father owns, having been passed down the generations, and he was a delightful host. Very Austrian... he is a physicist and wears wire glasses, which, as I told him, is CRUCIAL if he wants to be an Austrian Physicist!!

We spent our days walking around, in awe of the architecture. Every building there is STUNNING!! Seriously, you could think you were looking at a royal palace and it will be a box factory or something.

We went to the Haus der Musik- a museum of music and sound which was pretty cool, they had interactive games, though a lot of them did not work quite right- too many bratty kids playing with them!! There was also an exhibit about a lot of classical composers who lived in Vienna- Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn....

We went to some art Galleries, Like the MOYA- Museum of Young Art, which has new and interesting art with an artist representing a european country. And it was FREE!! We went to the Leopold, which had a lot of Egon Schiele, who I had never seen before... he was pretty cool. They also had an exhibition of how women have been presented in art from the 1600s to present, and it was not presented chronologically, which was very interesting to see, to be able to compare a classical painting with a weird photograph, sometimes in the same theme! We also went to the Secession building, a crazy art nouveau building with an Gustav Klimt in the basement and weird painted dolls on decorated wheelchairs upstairs...quite a contrast!

Guess what else we did! Go on, GUESS!!! We went to theeeeeeeeeee ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! YYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!! and we saw lions and tigers and bears and yebras and sea lions and giraffes and pandas and crocodiles and a rhinocerous and hungry hungry hippos and elephants and ant eaters and giant turtles and flamingoes and koalas and camels and PENGUINS!!!!!

I bet you are jealous... I would be, if it wasnt me that went!!!

In the evenings, we hung out with Florian and listened to rad music. We left knowing that there was plenty for us to see next time we come to Vienna- enough to feel like a different city!!!