kahlenberg, more wine and food!

on saturday we took our first trip up to kahlenberg to see the spectacular view of the city (and head to one of the heurigen!). i wasn't so keen on the bus ride (it was very hot!) but it was well worth it when we got to the top.

we went for a walk down the hills surrounded by vineyards and enjoyed the afternoon at a cute heuriger called hirt. we drank jugs (!) of white wine with soda in ice cold mugs and ate traditional austrian food in the sunshine. it was one of the best afternoons i have had in vienna!

(in case you are wondering what this is - its a traditional dumpling filled with black sausage. it looks a little scary i know but it actually tasted really good).

friday night

on friday night we went to a restaurant called immervoll in the innere stadt. we hadn't been to this restaurant before and i really liked it. they have seating on franziskanerplatz in summer and we sat in the square drinking a lovely bottle of sekt and eating good food. the service was excellent (which is a total thumbs up for me).

i ate a slow cooked lamb shank in a really yummy gravy....

kev had a more traditional austrian dish of boiled beef... which i think he liked but he had total food envy and wanted my lamb!

jack had a pork and mushroom dish with tagliatelle. i tasted some and it was really good....

and sara had a beef salad dish (which i can't remember the name of) but it had a really great flavour with a nice spicy kick to it.

the boys had dessert and sara and i shared a random crazy austrian shot which unfortunately we can't remember the name of. it was pretty strong! (and was flavoured with some kind of berry which we didn't know the translation for).
i think kev liked his chocolate cake because he ate it all in about 30 seconds!

i can't remember what jack's dessert was... maybe something with apples in it?!

after our lovely meal we walked along to the palmenhaus bar for cocktails. woo!

we drank lots and lots of mojitos and frozen margaritas and got rather tipsy! the bar is in a really lovely building (a former hapsburg palm house) with lots of tables outside in summer.

the only downside to the evening was that i got really badly bitten by mozzies. they are evil... and should be exterminated!!!!

sushi and sekt!

as you've probably noticed... its all about the food and drink!

we've had another lovely (hot) day in vienna today wandering around the innere stadt. for lunch we headed to tokori at the naschmarkt for sushi. really loved it! we ordered 3 bento boxes and shared.

and later in the afternoon we went to 'zum schwarzen kamel' (the black camel) for a lovely glass of sekt! there was a lady serving the cute little sandwiches in there with the most awesome glasses i've ever seen!

even the glasses have little camel's on them.... how cool is that!

sara & jack's visit so far....

okay, i feel a mega post coming on here!
as i mentioned on sunday, my friends sara & jack (who are an awesome married couple) came to stay with us in vienna on monday for the week.

and, this is how our week has shaped up so far!

monday:
they had an early flight from england and arrived just before lunchtime so i thought they would probably like a chilled relaxing day. we took a nice leisurely walk to naschmarkt, ate a huge (delicious) long lunch (which i forgot to take pictures of, damn it), drank lots of beers and then wandered home with yummy food purchased from the market for dinner (ie. feta cheese with paprika and rosemary, olive bread, cream cheese stuffed peppers, anchovies, salami, tzatsiki - anyway, you get the idea... it was quite a feast and i think i bought enough meat to feed the entire apartment block!).

(i photographed this strange object at the naschmarkt. hmmm, enough said i think. hee hee).

tuesday:
we headed into the innere stadt to see some of the sights (including stephansdom, peterskirche, graben, and the hofburg) and wander round some of the streets.

for lunch we went to kantine at the museumsquartier and i ate a delicious lamb pitta washed down with beer (again i forgot to take a picture!). whilst we were enjoying our beers a huge storm came over and so we had to take cover inside the cafe. seeing as we couldn't go outside for a while because of the torrential rain, what else were we to do but order cocktails!?!

we ordered 3 different drinks to share... a mojito, a strawberry margarita AND i finally got to try my first aperol spritzer! to explain a little, vienna (or austria, i don't know) appear obsessed with drinking aperol spritzers. they are always on menus and everyone seems to drink them but i had no idea what aperol was or tasted like until tuesday. and the verdict, i'm not sure.... it tasted a little like cheap wine... and i'm a little scared it also had a slight twang of cinzano (i had a BAD experience with cinzano as a teenager and haven't been able to drink it since!). but, the aperol also started to grow on me a little so we'll see.
once the rain had stopped we walked along the ring road to see the parliament building and the rathaus (city hall). it wasn't until we got to the rathaus that i remembered the film festival has started.

the films do not start until much later in the evening but there are LOADS of great food/drink stands... and all the food looked really delicious. not needing food we opted for liquid instead and bought caprihina cocktails. they were HUGE!

we then enjoyed a lovely evening at home listening to music and eating left over meat, bread and some austrian cheeses we bought on the way home. sara and i played scrabble (and i had a rare victory. yay!).

wednesday:

on wednesday we went to schönbrunn. we enjoyed a long walk all around the gardens and ate a picnic by the gloriette. for dessert we went to the gloriette cafe and ordered (what we thought) were 3 glasses of sparkling wine (but it was actually red wine!) and i ordered a nice looking cake (but it turned out to be full of coffee flavoured cream and i don't like coffee. oohps). we felt very silly!

on the way home we stopped off at salm bräu and got a little tipsy on their really tasty beers. we found out that during happy hour (3-5pm) the beers are only €1,70! (uh oh, BAD discovery).
kev has been working away this week but in the evening he arrived home from bucharest (for one night only!) before he flew to tirana today. we all went to a local pizza place together for dinner and ate big yummy pizzas whilst drinking beer and watching the world cup semi-final on a tv outside the restaurant. was so cool! (even if it was a pretty disappointing match).

thursday:
and today we had a leisurely morning at home before heading off on a long walk to the 7th district.
on the way we stopped off at cafe phil and enjoyed a white wine spritzer (and jack had a mango lassi). i really like this cafe... its got really cool retro furniture (most of which you can buy) and they also sell books and dvds.

we had a lovely afternoon wandering around the 7th district and discovering cute little shops. we went in a gorgeous shop (lena hoschek in gutenberggasse) that had the most amazing clothes. i could have spent €2000 easily on the spot! (if only i had €2000).

for lunch we went to schnitzelwirt on neubaugasse and ate HUGE schnitzels.

they were really good but we didn't anticipate them being quite so large. jack ordered a mixed schnitzel plate (thinking they would be mini tasters) but no, they were huge!

and i had chicken schnitzel with potatoes. it was really good and i'll definitely be going back with kev.

after walking miles today, we are now enjoying a relaxing evening at home on the sofa with a glass of wine!

i hope you are all having a good week :)

sunday

what a beautiful day! (photos taken from our lounge window this morning). the sky is so blue today.

i've got a day of cleaning and ironing ahead of me.... but i don't mind. it keeps me busy! and i'm just excited about kev coming home tonight (hopefully in one piece!) and my friends sara and jack arrive from england tomorrow morning. yay! we get to hang out together for a whole week. its gonna be awesome.

i'm planning a whole day of listening to music whilst i 'work'. i'm currently listening to the black keys album brothers. i love it and i just can't stop listening to it (they were definitely the highlight performance at glastonbury for me). i also love the album cover. such a simple but cool idea.

enjoy your sunday everyone!

saturday

here are some random pictures i took this afternoon whilst wandering around our local area. i've passed the closed shop with the random dummies on a pool table (?!) so many times and i find them kinda cool... but at the same time kinda creepy. (unfortunately the photos didn't come out that well as the sun was shining so brightly on the glass but hey ho).

and spidey lives just round the corner from us... so i know if i ever get in any trouble, then spider man will come to my rescue!

i have to admit, i've been feeling pretty homesick this week since coming back to vienna. going back to brighton (my old home) just reminds me of all the things i love about the place.. and all the people there that i love too. brighton is just such a friendly place (i think) in comparison to here... and everyone in shops and cafe's smiles. something i seem to see so rarely here. but maybe thats just because i feel at home in brighton and i don't feel at home here. at all.

i'm home alone this weekend as my boyfriend has deserted me (ha) and gone to valencia on a 'stag do'. whilst i'm feeling pretty lonely i've been sitting and trying to think about some positives (rather than all the negatives swirling around my head at the moment) and here are a few things that i've come up with...

i live in vienna!

the most amazing guy loves me

i have amazing friends (even if they do not live close by)

i've been lucky enough to have four months off work

its summer!

i'm going to cyprus in less than four weeks time to see one of my best friends get married

and, did i mention i live in vienna?

okay, thats made me feel a little better. 

i realised that i didn't even open the blinds yesterday so i spent the whole day (apart from my trip to the exhibition) sitting in darkness. not good. thats why i decided i needed to get out of the apartment today and take a walk outside (even though i am now dripping with sweat. eugh).

many of the shops were already closed (which i still find quite bizarre. its SATURDAY afternoon!?!?). but anyway, it was good to get out and i bought myself a few yellow roses to brighten up the place.

think i might put my feet up now and read my book. (btw, i'm reading the woman in white by wilkie collins and i'm really enjoying it. think i'm lovin it even more as i'm reading a really old copy published in 1933 which belonged to my great grandma :)).

WORLD CUP MANIA!!!!

OMG... have you been watching the world cup matches today?... and if not, WHY NOT??!!!

i must admit after my initial excitement this world cup tournament started off pretty dull. there were no outstanding matches or performances, teams kept drawing... and well, it was all rather dull really!
then it started getting a bit more interesting once it got to the final group matches. we then saw france go out... and most shockingly of all, the holders of the cup italy go crashing out at BOTTOM of their group (who thought that would happen?!). next round saw england get hammered by germany 4-1 (the less said about that the better really... but its nothing that we didn't deserve. we played terribly through the whole tournament. a total let down).
and then today we've seen the first two of the quarter finals. this afternoon brazil (who got a player sent off) were knocked out by the netherlands (i'm sure most people thought brazil would win that one) and i've just watched the really exciting match between uruguay and ghana. at 1-1 it went to extra time and in the 120TH MINUTE (!!!!) a uruguayan player forgot he was meant to be using his feet (its FOOTball) and punched the ball off the line getting himself a red card and giving ghana a penalty. only for ghana to miss. and after all that craziness uruguay ended up winning on penalties!!!!!

okay, and BREATHE! so exciting though (well, for a neutral - i wouldn't have been so excited if it was england in a penalty shootout - we're terrible at them).

so germany v argentina to come tomorrow afternoon. its gonna be good. can't wait!

(and sorry to all you non-footballing fans out there... but you don't know what you're missing out on!).

marilyn manson (yes, thats what i said, marilyn manson!)

there is an exhibition of marilyn manson's paintings with a few short films by david lynch called 'genealogies of pain' being shown here at the kunsthalle wien from 30 June until 25 July and i went along today.

i've always been quite fascinated by marilyn manson (his album mechanical animals brings back such memories of 1998/1999 and listening to the track coma white over and over again!) and well, i haven't seen many of david lynch's films but i loved mulholland drive (even if i still don't really have a clue what it was about!). so i was really interested to go along and take a look at manson's paintings. i haven't listened to his music for a long time and my brother assures me that the more recent albums just got worse and worse (and i trust my brothers judgement so i didn't bother to listen!). however, it appears unbeknown to me he has been concentrating on his art work... and i have to say, i like it. the watercolours are really emotional and it comes as no surprise that the themes are pain, despair etc and focus on the human body. the sound from lynch's films being played (quite harrowing) seemed to provide the perfect background.

anyway... i enjoyed it! and i even got to eat a nice lunch out as i accidentally arrived at the exhibition before it opened (doesn't open until 1pm) so i stopped at the kunsthallencafe. felt a bit weird being on my own (especially as the patio/terrace was full of groups of people all drinking/eating together and enjoying the sunshine) but i had my trusty book to read in my bag so i was okay.

i went for one of the friday lunch specials which was vegetable moussaka (which also came with a soup to start which i didn't realise!). i washed it all down with a white wine spritzer.

i've no idea what the soup was! it had a very familiar flavour in it which i just couldn't put my finger on. check out the random carrot in it!

and the moussaka was tasty (even though it was mostly potatoes... but luckily for me i love potatoes!).

i've just realised that i'm missing the netherlands v brazil match. damn it. i'm off!