LOVELY-- HOLD ON TO THE CHAINS!!!

First day in Vienna done.



We totally saw the Lipazzano horses at the Spanish Riding School. Well they're off for 7 weeks for the summer, so we had to do a tour of the stables. But whatever. I think everyone knows my love for PONIES! Highlights of the tour:

• seeing the actual horses and baby horses. They is so cute and at night they let them in to this field to eat grass. 6 biggie sized horses and 6 babies. The field isn't huge--Ealey could probably cover it in 3 seconds, from a standstill start, so they're cramped on there. What's better than lots of ponies? Lots of ponies in a TINY area.
  
• learning the saddles are fit to the horses; riders-- not so important


• learning the horses are treated like royalty. Really-- they get to walk the short way to the arena, us bipeds have to walk around

We didn't actual see them perform. Again, with the break. But we saw the arena. And it's ridiculously beautiful. And the ceiling is flat with no interior support. Major feat for when it was build... which is a bit of an unknown. Long time ago though-- obvs.

Next order of business for the day, was Sacher Tort. Check. Nothing to report worth reading. It was a 5 euro slice of cake. It's good, better than most cakes. Mama A has made better.

We saw the big church. It had no Chapel of the Right Hand so I mean, it was the 2nd best church we've seen. It was MUCH older though. 13th century style.

AND... BEST PART OF THE DAY!!! The fair. Before I begin, know that we're all totally safe and sound.

So, Vienna has this permanant fixture fair. Old skool style too. Ferris wheel, the whole 9 yards. And all the rides are operated manually. Not in Six Flags- green for go; red for stop, but in turn this knob to really make the thing spin. Also, it seems the safety standards of Vienna are far more lax than back in the homeland. Example: there was a ride like the Gravitron, but it didn't have walls or a top... or seatbelts... or really any rules. So imagine children just being slung around in a basin for 2 minutes. And, there was on overriding theme of "American things" here, such as all the ride names... but they weren't descriptive. The roller coaster was called "RollerCoaster" and this thing where an octopus picks up a boat and shakes it was called... you guessed it "Octopus".

We splurged and did 3 rides.

Ride #1: The Funhouse, since Hom thought it was the most ridiculous thing ever. You go up, idk 4 or 5 floors, then we take a covered loopy slide all the way down. But the best part of the funhouse was the background. It had famous American celebrities AIRBRUSHED on it. One was Sisqo. That sun bellybutton tattoo was a dead giveaway. I'm telling you-- they have the wrong impression of America.

Ride #2: It's like the swings at Six Flags, on Red Bull. You go up 117 meters. To save you the conversion, it's 383 feet. Oh, Hom & LW are scared of heights. Ok, so 383 feet up and we're swinging and it's great (for me) and then you start to go down... and the swings speed up and the chairs start turning. Amazing. Hom has a video and he and LW are freaking out, eyes closed and I'm cackling in the background.

Ride #3: This one is a bit tougher. It was technically called Tornado, but it should have been called Zeus' Revenge. To best explain it there was a post that was really tall and at the top was a lightning bolt. From the lightning bolt hung the car you sat in. The thing swung like a swing-- back and forth, while the lightning bolt spun slowly like a clock. Causing the car we were in to flip. Totally fine if you're afraid of heights. The travel companions are upstairs resting currently.

Tomorrow is officially (sadly) 1 week in the books.

Admin note: spell check considers everything misspelled cause it's not Austrian. If something doesn't make sense, make it.