Good Evening everyone,
It's 11:30 pm here in Vienna (I imagine that for most of you it is probably early Tuesday morning, at work).
Joan and I have just returned from a concert at the Vienna Opera House with the Weiner-Hofburg Orchestra. They played songs and light opera pieces (music by Lehar, Mozart and Strauss) that were familiar to just about everyone present and it was fantastic - price of the cruise was worth this concert alone in my opinion. They had 5 singers helping out (2 sopranos, 1 mezzo-soprano, 1 tenor and 1 baritone. The crowd (about 900) gave all a standing ovation near the end - well deserved. We spent the morning on a walking tour of downtown Vienna and had about an hour or so to wander trying to get our bearings for how we want to spend our time when we return next week. Then this afternoon, we did the guided tour of the Schonbrunn Palace. This was the summer residence of the last of the Austrian royal family before they had to abdicate in the early 1900s. Talk about oppulence to the nth degree. It is easy to understand the background for the French Revolution when you see the amount and type of luxury that the Royal family lived with while they were ruling. The temperature was the only drawback. We would love to get some of the rain that we hear is falling in Edmonton. It was between 36-38 today, depending on where you weres standing. Even the water doesn't help much as it warms up so quickly.
I have still to eat a piece of Sacher Torte - Mom seems to see it as an evil to be avoided. the staff continue to be extremely helpful and with the river cruise being so small (144 passengers) it is quite easy to get to know a great many different people. Lots of Americans along but also some people from N.Z., Australia, Canada, and Great Britain. Everyone is quite sociable and the chatter is generally about what we have all done during the day as well as a bit about our respective backgrounds.
David, try and resend the photo to my telus acct. (jeliuk@telus.net) as I was unable to download the pic. It is also possible that the problem is at our end on the ship - all internet traffic is via satellite and a few people have complained that they have been totally unable to get an internet hookup at all! It is possible that they are trying to control the bandwith usage on the ship by limiting the internet use to text only.
Covering more ground tomorrow - some of the people are doing a 24. mile bike trip while the boat gets to its next stop. They bike past castles, vineyards and small villages. Mom and I didn't want to show the guests up so we are letting some of the other "fit" people use the 19 bikes that are available. I think that we will sleep in and sit back and enjoy the river cruise.
More to come after our next stop.
Lots of love to all,
from
Jim and Joan in Vienna - home of Strauss (not Levi-Strauss either!!)
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