Day 17: Vienna

Finally yesterday we went to Vienna. This ended up being a less exciting trip than it could have been, but the girls had had their fill of old buildings and tours from Saturday's trip to Melk, plus they were still kind of worn out from that day and a late night, so we just walked around and took it easy. We also didn't take many pictures.

We started by attending the noon mass at St. Stefansdom. Beautiful, gothic-style cathedral in the heart of Vienna's first district. Mass was lovely! In German, but otherwise the same as an American mass. Except for one thing--communion!! It was mayhem! Instead of filing out of the pews one at a time in an orderly fashion, everyone rushed forward at the same time! And there were no lines, just a big parade up to the front! People were coming back through the crowd after getting their communion while everyone else was moving forward. It was crazy. Then at the altar, there were 3 priests handing out communion willy-nilly to the crowd. No order whatsoever. People were nice and all, there was no pushing or anything, but still, it was strange.

After that, we made our way through the pedestrian district to the Hofburg, the winter palace, and played at a statue in the courtyard for a while. Observe:

Then we went to another statue and the girls chased pigeons for about half an hour. They were having a blast.

Finally, we walked over to the apartment of some family friends of Nick and Anne, the Pflamitzers, and saw Diane, Paul, Stefan, and Stefan's girlfriend and her daughter. They fed us a lovely dinner, and we took the kids to a nearby playground where Nick and Stefan used to play.