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 :)