When Heather came to stay

This weekend has been my absolute favourite one so far in Wienna, no exceptions. I had my first visitor (apart from Boyo) and it was fabulous! Things got off to a bit of a shaky start owing to transport confusion and Orange being the least helpful network in the world but we found each other eventually, dumped stuff at mine and then commenced jollity and merriment. First stop was the Naschmarkt for falafel from my usual man. Considering that it is probably my most eaten food in Vienna, I have done a terrible job of photographing it. Next time I eat there I will take a picture and post it to make you all jealous. Full of falafel-y goodness, we went for a wander round the First District. We gazed longingly into a fancy bakery window...

 ...picking out what we would eat if we were rich/Blair from Gossip Girl.

 At Stephansplatz, something strange was going on. There was a huge crowd of people, some soldiers (old fashioned ones, not actual fighting ones) a fancy car with Austrian flags and some posh looking people. My guess is that they were filming an advert or something but you never know in Vienna.

 It was freeeeeeezing, so we decided to have a nosy around Stephansdom. We didn't go far because we didn't want to pay, but we did see a man hoovering the statues. Yes, seriously:

 Our wanderings took us to Maria-Theresia Platz which is very pretty in the sunshine.

 This is the Kunst Historisches Museum (art history museum) One day when I am feeling particularly cultured I will go there, but not just yet.

 While it has been FREEZING in Vienna this week, I have come up with a theory. My theory is that it has been too cold for ice. I realise that this theory kind of falls apart when you think of places like the North Pole where there is loads of ice but I have seen very little considering the superlow temperatures.

 All that walking made us hungry so we decided to pop to a cafe for a drink and a cake. This is not a museum, this is the interior of Cafe Central:

 It became our favourite place of the whole weekend, I think it may actually be my favourite place in the whole city. Heather had a mango mousse with raspberry inside, all wrapped up in a white chocolate tower. The combination was so perfect "Jesus must have thought of it". That's how amazing it was.

 I had a raspberry and white chocolate concoction, topped with fresh raspberries, gold glitter and what appeared to be a bath pearl:

 it was actually a white chocolate ball with some kind of pearlescent pink coating. A French girl at the table next to us ordered the same dessert and to our horror she did not eat the ball. We contemplated encouraging her with a quick "C'est chocolat, nom nom nom nom nom" plus international hand signals for eating but decided against it. The whole cafe experience became even better (if that is even possible) when a man started to play the piano. I think we were possibly in heaven. If anyone wants to come and visit me, I promise we can go to Cafe Central.
In the evening we went to Centimeter. There was a big enough group of us for a 5 litre tower of beer...

 ...and a sword. This was the perfect end to a first day in Vienna.
After many pleasant hours of sleep we headed off for a day of culture and cake. We went the the Albertina, which I had heard is the biggest gallery in Wienna. I think this might have been a lie because we saw everything in about an hour and a half. Some of it was good but some was way toooo weird. The best part in my opinion was the toilets behind a secret door in the Imperial Apartments. Our cultural venture was followed by another Wiennese classic; Sachertorte.

 I have heard mixed reviews about this cake and having chosen to listen to the negative reviews I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it is actually very delicious. Nom nom nom nom nom

 Schönbrunn beckoned and in return for taking a picture for a very pretty but severely underdressed Japanese girl. she took one for us:

 The sun was shining which kind of took the edge off the fact that it was incredibly windy and FREEZING (I know I keep going on about how cold it has been but you really cannot imagine it!)

 The water in the fountain was all frozen. It looked quite thick but we didn't quite dare to stand on it with all our weight.

 After our Imperial visit we went to the Sky Bar on Kärntner Straße for a drink. We actually decided against it because it looked incredibly expensive but here is a picture of the view we would have been looking out on:

 After lusting after some sickeningly beautiful designer bags we went for a pre-dinner cocktail in DownStairs.

 Cherry Berry and Frozen Margarita (with complimentary peanuts) Deeeeeeelish.
After a meal in a traditional Austrian restaurant, we headed back to mine with all the necessary items for a very lovely Friday night:

 It is traditional for the Viennese to go to a Kaffeehaus for a big breakfast on a Saturday morning. I suspect most of them opt for the more traditional Semmeln with various meats, cheeses, boiled eggs, jam and honey, but we went for a huge piece of Apfelstrudel with vanilla sauce. Nom nom nom nom nom.

 A few more sights were seen, souvenirs were bought, then we went for Japanese food at the Naschmarkt. This is one of the few meals that I did not photograph. Sorry about that. This weekend has been an amazing opportunity for me to tick off things that are on my to-do list, so we went up the Donauturm. It is 252m tall, but the viewing platform is only 150m up.

 The view was still pretty good though. This is the UN Complex, something that is also on my list of things to visit before I leave.

 The last thing, and possibly the non-food related highlight of the weekend was a trip to the Oper.

 We had to queue for ages to get tickets but we did well (after a minor altercation with an old man who thought he could beat us to the good places) and had plenty of time for wandering around and taking pictures before it started.

It was by far my favourite opera that I have seen. The overture alone is amazingly brilliant, the story is good, there are some classic lines and the singing was very good. In fact, it was so good I am considering seeing it again. I think that is quite enough for now, I am going to go and have a serious think about how to make a weekend as good as this one just was!