Before I start this post I must say the pics from this trip are underwhelming....I was trying to travel light and thus only brought the small camera. That coupled with me taking 95% of the pictures, lends to some pictures pretty under par.
Just in from a long weekend in Vienna. Ryan was working there so we decided to join him and take advantage of the free accommodations while Chance was on fall break. Vienna the second time around was just as nice. We mixed it up a bit, did more kids things and took a day trip outside the city to see some countryside and vineyards along the Danube River.
I let price rule over reason, and booked Chance on an 8 hour 40 minute train ride to Vienna using some credit that we had with the train company. So getting there cost me a whopping 10 bucks and a day's worth of my time and patience. Chance was actually a doll 98% of the time and he and I conspired together to keep the people out of our cabin. We had a 6 seater cabin, where 3 seats faced each other. These are nice cause they keep out noise, or keep our noise in rather. We were in the reserved "Kinder-car" meaning if you enter our car, you'd better have a kid with you or really like listening to them. We were the only ones in our cabin, on a very crowded train that stopped every 15 minutes or so to let on more people. Chance and I decided to try and maintain our vacant cabin......and we did so successfully I might add, for almost all 8 hours of the ride. Every time a new set of people would board the train, they'd walk by our cabin and look inside the windows to see if there were vacant seats. I'd have Chance immediately start jumping around and making noise upon the sight of any potential on-lookers......this would keep them walking forward on to the next cabin. Worked like a charm.
Besides being long the train ride was beautiful as we winded through the river valleys and along streams, passing thru Innsbruck and Salzburg. The trees were a spattering of orange and red...so gorgeous. Once in Vienna we stopped for dinner and all the restaurants seem to celebrate squash/pumpkin season as much as me...it was all over the menus in any form imaginable, yum.
Saturday we woke up and headed in to town to the aquarium. It was housed in an old military anti-aircraft bunker. Chance was in love with the sharks. We milled around the downtown area, stopping for ice cream as usual. Unfortunately the ice cream took a little spill so we had to buy a round 2. We re-acquainted ourselves with the city a little and remembered how hard it is to take pictures in Vienna....everything is so tall and so close together which are 2 combinations for hard to make pictures. We also noticed the very eastern influence there (in the people), which I don't remember noticing before. We also realized how wealthy Zurich is.....even the thugs of Zurich are dressed nicely in their expensive thug clothes for the most part. The latter part of the day we went to Prater Park, what I would have imagined Conney Island to be like...tons of rides and such. We put Chance on the swings and I about had a heart attack. Ryan was trying to take video, but had to keep re-doing it cause of my commentary. I hardly could watch my son get flung thru the air at 100 mph. But he loved it and wanted to do it again! The apple apparently doesn't fall far from either tree.
There's also 2 videos of the boys zipcording at the park...Chance tried it and of course Ryan just had to too!
Chance
Ryan
Sunday we headed out of town west of Vienna about 50 miles to what was supposed to be the most beautiful stretch of the Danube River.
We rented bikes in the town of Krems and rode 20 km upstream to Spitz, passing thru tiny towns, vineyards, castles and churches. I saw these people walking down the street wearing this and had to ask myself what century we were in? 
Most importantly, I really impressed Ryan with my bike riding skills, managing to stay on the entire time without falling off or injuring myself or others....I've decided I really want to buy myself a Dutch style bike with a basket and a bell, seriously. I'll write to Santa. In Spitz, we caught the boat back to Krems so we could say we sailed (or boated) the famous Danube river. Then for a train back to Vienna.Monday was Mommy and Chance day, we went to the Butterfly House, a green house filled with butterflies. We were about to leave with a very disappointed boy on our hands when suddenly a butterfly decided to land on him to make his day. Phew, thank you little butterfly. Then it was on to the House of Music to see and mostly hear about Mozart and others....it was very interactive and fun for Chance.
And so here we are back to Zurich today having just flown home. As we landed Chance said, "that was a very poor decision you made to take the train to Vienna. It took forever. Don't you know mom, planes are faster. We should always take planes." I don't look forward to telling him how we plan to get to Berlin in a couple weeks and back, both on overnight trains.
