Lainzer Tiergarten

Another week come and [almost] gone here in Vienna. This week, Eric and I finally made it out to the Lainzer Tiergarten. We didn't have any big trips or tests to worry about and it was quite relaxing to just have a few days to just spend peacefully in Vienna. The Tiergarten was the perfect choice. It's a great wildlife preserve out it the 23rd district of Vienna (out it the country). It's so beautiful out there and it was really nice to get out of the city for a while. We also picked the perfect day head out because it started snowing at noon today and it's suppsed to snow for the rest of the weekend! We discovered some fun, new animals.

There was the Damwild (or Fallow Deer, in English)

and the Mufflon (aka: Mouflon)

and even European Bison.

Aparently, the Mouflon is a kind of wild sheep or “goat antelopes." We learned that it is thought to be one of the two ancestors of modern sheep breeds! They were pretty cool, but not nearly as friendly as the Fallow Deer. In fact, one of the deer came right up to the fence and after a little sniffing, one of them let me pet him!


He was terribly cute! Then two adorable little kids with their grandma came over and we all pet/fed the deer.

The little girl was just darling! She looked about three and she kept picking "mitten-fulls" of grass and then she would hold it out to me and say "Bitte, bitte!" (Asking me to feed it to the deer). [Note: Fallow Deer prefer clover to grass; just in case you were wondering.]


Right now is getting to the end of the "Rut season" for Fallow Deer and we got to watch a few chases. One of the males was being rather territorial and would chase off all the other males. He chased one poor female all around the field (and was joined by two other males), until she had the sense to go back to her group of girlfriends - then the guys left her alone. Sounds just like humans! I think the best part was the lady's explanation to her grandchildren of what the deer were doing and saying. "Er sagt, 'Ich liebe dich, ich leibe dich'!" It was quite fun.

After thoroughly enjoying the deer and the sheep, we went looking for the wild boar that they apparently have in the park. Unfortunately, the only other animals that we saw were European Bison, or as Eric would say, "Sissy French Buffalo". It wasn't nearly as exciting as frolicking boar would have been, but I guess that just means that we'll have to go back in the snow and look for them again!

**This sad little pile of snow is all that is left from the snow that we got last Sunday. Hopefully next time I got to the park there will be a little more snow than this!**

Dublin, Prague, and then some...

Ok, here I am, late again with my posts. So much has happened in the past couple weeks! Two weeks ago was our last group trip… to Prague! Our train ride there was lovely. The countryside through the Czech Republic was so beautiful! There were so many cute little villages with cute little houses! It was great! I didn’t really know what to expect once we got to Prague. I had been told how wonderful and beautiful it was, but other than the Charles Bridge, I didn’t really know what it had to offer.

It was amazing! The weather forecast had predicted rain for the whole week, but somehow we got lucky and only got a 5 minute sprinkling on the second day we were there. (Taylor claims that since her offering of an apple core to Mother Nature back on our trip to Melk, the weather has been in our favor…) Although it didn’t rain, it was cloudy and overcast the whole time we were there and it made all of the colors seem so much more vibrant. I loved it in Prague. Every couple minutes I would have to just stop and remind myself that I was really there.

We had a tour almost every morning with our wonderful tour guide, Vladimir. The first tour took us around the city, mostly to get our bearings. The next morning we went down to the Jewish Quarter. There were some interesting memorials and a really cool cemetery. It was more of a tombstone forest than anything else. Our tour the next day took us up to castle hill and on a tour of St. Vitus and St. George’s Cathedrals, to name a few. I think, for me, the one of the coolest things in Prague is the different architecture and design. Every building is so different and just standing in one square you can see styles ranging from Gothic to Romanesque to Art Nouveau to Cubist to Baroque. It’s really fascinating. I also think that Prague has one of the coolest skylines – sticking out above all of the other buildings are hundreds of different spires, including those of the “Sleeping Beauty” castle. We saw the Powder Tower, the Charles Bridge, the Old Bridge Tower, the Prague Castle, St. Vitas’ Cathedral, St. George’s Basilica, Wenceslas. Square, etc…. One of the things that I got to see while we were there was really interesting. It was a museum of medieval torture devices! I’ve never seen one and it was disgusting, sick, terrible, heart-wrenching, cruel and unusual, and all around fascinating!

One of the things that Prague is known for is it’s beer. I couldn’t tell you from first-hand experience, but apparently Pilsner Urquell is some of the best in the world! Every meal in Prague consisted of beer and maybe some food to keep you from getting too sick the next morning. (actually, they even make soap, makeup, and bath products out of beer!) The Czech Republic is also one of the only places in the world where Absinth is even legal… and they sell it everywhere! According to Eric’s “Cheap Eats” book about Prague, Absinth is a very strong alcoholic drink to say the least. It is made from wormwood and side effects range from hallucinations, to seizures, to amnesia, and the flavor has been compared to bilge water at it’s best, to toxic waste at it’s worst. In case I really need to say it, Prague is a rather drunken city. Our first night in Prague we went to dinner and our waiter so completely drunk – he could hardly walk straight! He had a hard time taking our orders, and then later, figuring out how to give us our bill. While we were there, he broke a huge mug and then a set of salt and pepper shakers. Then as we were leaving, he took our plates in the back and immediately we heard a huge crash! I kind of felt bad for the guy, but it was really funny!

Along with drinking, a very popular pastime in Prague seems to be defenestrating people, or in other words, throwing each other out of windows. Apparently there have been multiple “Defenestrations of Prague.” We were very lucky and got to walk right under the window where the 2^nd Defenestration of Prague took place. “….and threw him out the window, the window, the second story window….” It gives such a new meaning to the old nursery rhyme.

Another of my highlights was our lunch adventure on Friday. We went to a little restaurant in the more residential area, where we were the only people not speaking Czech. That was fun enough in itself, but then I saw the menu for the daily special. They were serving vareyky! I was so excited! I’ve been craving some good varenyky since I was in Ukraine and this definitely fulfilled my desire (now I want more… oh dear). Even better though, I got the very last – as soon as I ordered, they crossed it off the menu board! It was great!

We got home from Prague and that gave me a couple days to get my laundry done, get packed and ready to leave for Dublin, and brace myself to go from one drunken city to he next. I thoroughly enjoyed those couple days of soberness. We took a bus to Bratislava and it was kind of cool to get to look out at the city as we were driving through it. The last time we were in Bratislava it was raining so hard and we didn’t get to really see a whole lot. Bratislava looks like a pretty cool place! After a little confusion with our tickets, we got on the plane and we were off to Ireland! It was around this time that we remembered it was Halloween. We knew that in Austria they don’t celebrate Halloween and we wondered if was just an American tradition, or if other European countries (Ireland included) celebrated Halloween. Boy, were we in for a big surprise. As we flew in over Dublin, we could see huge bonfires and fireworks going off everywhere! It kind of reminded me of the view of Butte from my house on the Fourth of July where you can see fireworks going off in almost every direction! It was so cool to see fireworks from above. Once we got settled into our hostel and started walking around town, we saw so many people wearing costumes! Many more teenagers and young-ish adults, and not as many children. We decided that the interpretation of Halloween in Ireland was to see how much leg you could show and still be legal. Most all of the girls were wearing mini-skirts in one form or another, and we even saw a couple guys in mini-skirts. That was a little disturbing.

Dublin felt like a mix between America and Europe. It was kind of strange. Most of the signs were written in two languages: English and Celtic, although most everyone speaks English there. And then there were European restaurants and stores, with a scattering of things like McDonalds, Quiznos, TGIFridays, etc… So fun! Another rather interesting thing is that, just like in England, they drive on the left side of the road! I didn’t realize this at first until I walked past a parked car with someone sitting in the drivers’ seat and it was on the “wrong side!” It was so crazy! It didn’t really affect me when we were walking down the road, but it was the little things, like remembering which way to look when crossing the street that made me really confused. Luckily for us, at the crosswalks, they had little things painted on the road saying “Look Left” or “Look Right” or there would be a picture of an eye with an arrow showing you which way you needed to look. They were very helpful! I guess they had too many tourists get squished so they put in signs. Our first full day in Dublin we spent in the city, seeing all the sights. We started our day at Phoenix Park and then went to [part of] the National Museum of Ireland. My favorite exhibit there (of course) was the one that was specifically furniture and design. They had a beautiful exhibition of a style that I have never seen before! It’s called Neo Celtic. It’s very cool! It seems to incorporate a few different styles, but mainly uses different Celtic patterns and designs. I really like it, and it was really cool to see something completely different. We also went to see the Guinness Storehouse, the Christ Church Cathedral, the Dublin castle, the Book of Kells, and then instead of taking a tour of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, we heard that they were having a special musical service for All Saint’s Day that evening, so we went to that. The music was absolutely beautiful! We got to see so many other things while we were walking around as well.

Then on Friday we got up and did a little bit of shopping and stuff and then we caught a train to a little town called Howth. It's right on the coast and everything was so beautiful! We started walking towards a lookout point that we had seen when we were getting off the train and ended up walking all over the place. We had a lovely little picnic lunch on the extremely green side yard of a little church that we past. Then we kept walking. After quite some time we figured we had probably gone too far or something and we were going to turn back, but then we saw a horse. With 5 girls, Eric was slightly out numbered and so we stopped to feed, play with, and take pictures of the horse. Finally we turned around and went up a different road. That led us right where we wanted to be. We found a lighthouse on the edge of the white cliffs and right next to it we saw a little staircase that went down the side of the cliffs right to a little beach. Of course, we went down to it and climbed on the rocks and played in the water. It was so fun! It’s been so long since I was at the coast and it was really nice. The water itself was cold, but not freezing. Actually, the weather there was really nice the whole time and everything was so green! Yes, it is the Emerald Isle, but I didn't expect it to look and smell like spring in November. There were even flowers everywhere!

Overall, I loved getting to spend time in Ireland. It’s someplace that I’ve always wanted to go and now that I’ve had a little taste of it, I can’t wait to go back!

DUBLIN

HOWTH and THE COAST