One week in Vienna

We have mostly adjusted to the time difference and Henry is sleeping through the night, mostly. We are trying to get on a schedule now and Kirk is starting up his research. He will be traveling to Budapest on Thursday and Friday. Kirk spent a lot of time trying to get things set up with the Internet and other stuff in the apartment. Everything involves multiple trips to various places. For example, they changed the mailbox key, so we have to get lots of legal documents which we will then take to the building's owner to try and get a copy of the mailbox key. Hopefully the Internet problem will be fixed this week.

We met some very nice people at the ward here. They have given us lots of helpful information and, even better, invited us to play at the park or at their apartments. The children's favorite thing to do is to play at the neat playgrounds. We were at the parks at least three times this week. I will take some photos this week and show you why.

At the Hofburg Palace.

We went to see the Hofburg palace complex this week. We saw the Arms and Armor Museum and the Royal Treasury. They were both incredibly neat museums. Edward ran around the Armor Museum in sort of a frantic state with his mind on overload. There were more pearls and gold on a 2-inch by 2-inch square of a "baby christening blanket" than I have in my house. (I don't have much, but you get the idea.) Lucy liked "all the beautiful things." She wants me to buy here a pink dress she saw in a store. Andrew liked the jewels and playing in the park with friends.

This is a perfume holder carved out of an emerald.
It could fit into a n adult's cupped hands and fill them up, easily.

Almost every day everyone in Austria, including us, goes to a bakery and buys bread. Even the cheap air bread from Hofer/Aldi is better than most of the bread in the United States. The children are trying to live on bread and Nutella and fruit. We are trying to give them some other food. The food comes in small packages (think about six slices of meat or cheese and one liter bottles of milk) and is expensive. I spent more than $100 dollars at the grocery store one day and bought enough food to sort of last us for three-four days, but then I had to go back the next day and buy bread and meat and cheese and milk and fruit--again. At least I can get through Sunday without buying anything! I have four grocery stores within five minutes' walk of our apartment, and more just a little farther out. Unfortunately I don't have any of the larger department stores close by since we live so close to the downtown. 

In the States I generally think the store-bought cookies are disgusting and I'm not tempted to buy anything when we go shopping. However, here we have been trying all the different kinds and they are all good--at least everything we've tested so far. The children think the candy stores are incredible. All the Easter candy is out right now.

Henry in his stroller on the metro.
He is in a zipper blanket cover; all babies and toddlers in Vienna are using these covers.
It was one of the best things I brought.
You can see that there are places for baby buggies (kinderwagen) on the public transportation.

We can travel around on the public transportation, and I have even done it by myself with the four children. We've met nice people (Henry kept smiling at one older woman on the metro, and she said, "I knew these were not Viennese children; they are well behaved") and some grouchy employees of various businesses (we're trying to forget about these).

You can see what the children wrote about their week by looking at the pages or posts, if you are interested.