Searching for magnolias

It is finally properly, actually spring in Wienna. What better way to spend a day off (actually I am off until next Tuesday) than walking around with my camera. I started off by my house and had a good old nosy at the Hundertwasser thing (not sure exactly what it is)

 And then walked along just smiling at the spring.

 I know I must be nearly a grown up now, because before I never used to like flowers much.

 Now I can't get enough of them!

 There are lots of interesting things down by the side of the Donaukanal.

 This man must have been really really bored, because why else would you want to climb along the side of a wall?

 Yellow tulips are ever so lovely, maybe my second favourite flowers in the world (after white roses, if you were wondering)

 The purpose of my wanderings was to find something I have not seen before- the Augarten.

 It seemed very Viennese to me. Despite this, I quite liked it. It was full of random things. There was someone sleeping in a hammock, some people slacklining...

 ... a big Baroque palace and the famous Augarten pottery. Oh, and two MASSIVE Nazi flak towers left over from WW2.

 Somebody must have had a moment of clarity and realised they dislike their Mountain Delights as much as I dislike mine.

 I will never stop taking photos of fences against the sun and clouds. Sorry about that.

 Not only are the Austrians incredibly racist, they seem to be a bit sexist too. Beer is only for men, don't you know?

 After the Augarten I decided to go wandering a bit more, it was too early to go home. So off I walked up Schottenring. Still no sign of any magnolias.

 There are so many nice doors in Vienna. This one had a lady on one side and a French looking man in a beret on the other. How romantic.

 Now it's parsley time! This is something cute and typically Austrian. Once something is in season, it has to be used in EVERYTHING.

 Aus außer bei mit, nach zeit, von zu (gegenüber). Chances are that unless you have studied German to the level where you need to be able to use prepositions properly, you will not know that those are the prepositions that take the dative case. To a tune. That tune is the Blue Danube by good old Strauss. On Schottenring there is some kind of memorial about it.

 Some more blossoms caught my eye

 And suddenly, there it was:

 the lovely magnolia I had been searching for. There in Sigmund Freud park, just in front of the Votivkirche.

 Maybe they are my second favourite flowers actually. OK, so you should know that my search did not begin completely randomly, I actually knew there was a tree there and I wanted to go and take some pictures before all the flowers died.

 Across the road, right next to the Votivkirche was another lovely blossom tree.

 Somehow I ended up back by the Rathaus.

 The daffodils are lovely and made me think of Boyo. Even though their national plant is a leek. How attractive. Ha. Ha. Ha.

So that is all from this episode of Springwatch, join me next time when I will upload another load of photos and mindless ramblings!

A Day Out in Bratislava

When it is 25 degrees and the sun is shining, what could be better than a trip to Bratislava for a Tesco picnic by the Danube?

 The answer to this question is... A trip to Bratislava for a Tesco picnic by the Danube with a camera to capture some of the classic sights of Slovakia. It seems that the penchant for tiny dogs has spread east of Vienna, except rather than carrying them in a little bag, the general consensus is that they look better in clothes. There were dogs wearing jeans, skirts, t-shirts (none of which I managed to photograph sadly) and then on the other extreme there were these hideous specimens:

 Possibly the most disgusting dogs on the planet. We tried to keep our laughs under wraps as the man was quite a beefcake and could possibly have beaten us all up, but his t-shirt said "we are delicate" so maybe we didn't have too much to worry about.
If you are from Slovakia, Sunday is the day to go out and about. It doesn't even matter if you forget to put your trousers on. Just go cycling in your pants!

 Or put on your best single colour outfit and go for a stroll.

Or dress your baby up as a leopard and take it to the jungle to do some exploring.

I am not sure if Slovakia have Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, but if they did I think these girls would LOVE one more than anything else in the world.

 We took a trip to the shopping centre but unfortunately we didn't get far as we were all on roller skates and didn't really have anywhere to hide our guns, so we were not allowed to go in.

 Laurie had a little ride on a Segway because "to try is free" and he was quite good actually, much better than the people who did it on Coach Trip.

 And of course no trip to Bratislava would be complete without going to say hello to the little man in the ground.

 There was a little one man band playing all the classics (can't remember which songs now, but they were definitely classics) and he had a very enthusiastic supporter with a shaker.

 There are some quite interesting delicacies available in Bratislava, this one in particular took my fancy.

 In one corner of the square were a lot of paper cranes. I thought it was a very nice way to say "we are thinking of you, Japan." I am thinking of Japan and it is all ever so sad and it is sad that the Parents can't go for their trip and sad that Mr Boring can't return and sad that Boyo and I will probably not be going. Though obviously none of that is as sad as what is happening to the poor Japanese.

 We went to see the Blue Church which is very random.

 Inside it is quite blue too, though if I were them I would have gone for a blue carpet in keeping with the theme.

 Outside the Blue Church there is a lovely statue. Obviously it has some kind of meaning but to me it was just funny.

 And after that we went for a riverside beer which was €2.50 which is very expensive for Slovakia and then the trip was over and I had to go home and deal with my sunburn. Yes really, sunburn on the 3rd of April. Summer is here!

When Corinne came to stay

Another week, another lovely visitor. This time it was Corinne, who had spent a month in Kologne but could not resist coming back to the homeland for a quick visit. I was pleased because Vienna is definitely much nicer when you have friends. We wandered round the Belvedere and pondered the eternal question "what does the extra bit of sticky out plastic on my camera lens do?"

 The answer is that it stops too much light getting into the lens when you use the flash. I bet you are all fascinated to learn that aren't you?

 We got on the wrong tram because I forgot to look which one it was. Luckily we did not get lost because it just went round in a little circle so we got off and went back to the stop.

 We had dinner at Centimeter with Joe and Corinne revealed the true me by telling lots of stories from my first year abroad. Ohhhh, how I miss those times. I could spend a lot of time reminiscing, but that would be bad as I am supposed to be planning a lesson and I am not sure that many of the stories are blogworthy come to think of it!
I had to work on Thursday which was a bit rubbish but afterwards we went for cheap pizza 1€ a slice! and to the Prater where we took about a zillion photos:

 Alastair, your friend is still there. I think he is waiting for you!

 The weather started to get a bit less sunny, which was sad.

 But to remedy the situation we decided to go for posh cake. You know it's a good cafe when it's being advertised by other shops:

 This time I had an Erdbeer Schnitte which was an unusual choice for me as some of you will know, I am not normally a huge strawberry fan. To be honest I think it was the redcurrants that swayed it.

 The evening's entertainment was a trip to the opera. It was Madame Butterfly and I LOVED it. The music is lovely, the singers were good and it is set in Japan so of course the scenery and costumes were beautiful too. I was warned that I might cry but I did not because I am hard. Here are some more pictures of the opera house because let's be honest, you can never see too many:

 Friday at school was rubbish, I basically waited around for three and a half hours to talk to a girl about Twilight. Ugh. But after that there was some nice wandering and photo taking.

 Demel is a lovely shop. Everything is ever so fancy and wayyyyy out of my price range.

 The Kaiserschmarrn, however, if fairly reasonably priced.

 Especially considering that it is the best one I have ever tasted. Even better than Klosterhof in Linz, and that is saying something!

Friday night was spent old school style (with apres ski and drink) and then Corinne had to go home which was sad. I do not have anyone visiting this week which is going to be the worst thing ever. Though Boyo is coming next Monday and I am v excited about that. I know I haven't mentioned him for ages but he is still there, it's just that he has not really done anything blogworthy of late! That is all for now dears, until next time!