Park time

This tree is crazy!
















This is a ginko tree, but you can't really tell unless you zoom in.
















This was really cool. It had a clock, a themometer, barometric pressure, and some other thing.

















Umm, this says to the best of my understanding, something about friendship with a Japeneese sister city.





























The prettiest bridge in the park




















Chile's Bear













Strauss Statue. One of the many, many sculptures and statues in the park, but I actually liked this one.
























Bulgaria's Bear














It says, "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be acheived by understanding."













Ukraine's Bear



















Uruguay's Bear






















Albania's Bear














Armenia's Bear























Argentina's Bear














Serbian Bear

















Sudan's Bear

















German Bear
















Sao Tome and Principe's Bear


















Saudi Arabian Bear


So, since once again it's sunday and nothing is open, I decided to spend this morning at the park.
The first park I went to was the city park, Stadtpark. I guess I was expecting something like Forest Park, but it definatly wasn't. It was very pretty, but it was closer to the botanical gardens than any park in STL. It had tons of windy, wide, asphalt walkways that were bordered by tons of benches. The wide walkways and benches were because you were not allowed to step on the lawn. If you wanted to play a game, one section of the park was concrete and you could play there. If you wanted to picnic, or sit under a tree, find a table or bench. The lawns are for decoration.
Either because no one could walk on them or vice versa, the lawns were well taken care of and there were fancy flower beds, usually in a swirly shape, all over. Also, you couldn't walk 10 ft without running into a statue of someone I've never heard of. I have no clue who all the statues are of in the park, but it's full of them. And the park is cut in half by a steam/river/canal/some type of water so there's pretty bridges at a couple palces to walk across.
After wandering around that park for awhile, I decided to go look at the bears again. I took a few more pics of some of the bears, but it probably won't be my last trip there. I really love those bears. They are painted so wonderfully, front and back. And there's so many!!

Yay for the new Ubahn Station being open! Now I only have to ride to Kagranerplatz instead of Kagran, which cuts a good 10 mins off my trip to school everyday. They were throwing a party all day Sat at all of the new Ubahn stops, live music, balloons, it was crazy!
Anyway, I went to the Rathaus on Fri. It was pretty cool. Marriage of Figarro.
On Sat we got up early and went to Nachtmarkt and the flea market that is there on Sat. The flea market was pretty much just a normal flea market only bigger, except I did run across some Communist propaganda pins and Natzi artifacts, like passports and pictures of flags. It was weird and creepy.
The market was really cool. There was so much food! Meat, and vegetables, and barrels of pickles, tons of olives stuffed with cheese, honey, dried fruits of every kind, cheese, bread and pastries. But my favorite was the vinegar booth. They had so many kinds of vinegar! more than I ever knew existed. Fruits, and ciders, and wines... And it was all either in big wooden barrels, or in these fancy glass things. Each one had a tiny bottle that looked like a perfume sample next to it, and you would take it and put a drop on your wrist and smell it. if you liked it you went and bought an empty glass bottle, and then filled it up with vinegar. It was pretty cool.
After the market we went to Schronbrunn Palace. First we went to the maze, which was really the only thing I wanted to pay for. The palace grounds are free to roam, but you have to pay for a tour of the palace, and the many attractions on the grounds, such as the maze and labyrinth, the zoo, the pool, the gardens, the palm house, and others. Anyway, we went into the maze and labyrinth, which kinda reminded me of a mini sciene museum that never explains the science behind everything. The mazes were really pretty and cut out of bushes, and I think it said they had been like that for a couple hundered years, but to make it more interesting inside the mazes were different "games" you could play. So we were there for a couple of hours. Afterwards, Zena and miranda went to the zoo, and me and Michelle wandered around the grounds untill we were both tired and hungry and decided to go home. It was a really fun day.

The rooms inside the Rathaus were all lit up














Schonbrunn palace from the front


















The view from the back of the palace. In the distance you can kinda see the neptune fountain, and on the hill is the Gloriette. this isn't even really anything, the pretty landscaping isn't the gardens, it's just the grounds, and you can walk all around. If there's one thing I really didn't like about the palace, it's the gravel everywhere. It's not fun to walk on, plus it glares and it's ugly. they don't want you to walk on the lawn, which is understandable with all the work that's put into the landscaping, but I wish they would make the lawns bigger and the gravel less.
















































A lot of the trees are huge and really old. This one happens to be 200 years old.


















More of the tree. See the guy's head in the corner? Just as a reference to show how big the tree is.


















"dancing glockenspiel" you stepped on the squares and it played different notes.














The maze

































The labyrinth














giant jungle gym made out of trampoline pieces















water thingy... you pressed things and it squirted water















Giant bird!!! It flew up and down!! It was so fun!















See, the ropes in front would pull on the wings, and the body of the bird was attached to the wings so that it would go opposite of them, so if someone pulled on the ropes, the bird would "fly" up and down


















Back of the neptune fountain....blogger tends to put my pics not in chronological order...


















View of the palace from through the fountain


















The palace, and the city behind it. There's a lot of places with a "great view" of vienna, but the city is actually pretty boring to look at from up high. Not exactly an interesting skyline.














Behind the fountain



















Finally, here's the front of the Neptune fountain















The Gloriette up close.


















A detail from the Obleisk fountain on the grounds. The fountain itself isn't running and is all fenced off and looks really out of place since everything else on the grounds, even the statues in the woods, are nice and taken care of. But the hieroglyphics on the fountain were cool.


















The Gloriette















The palace and some of the grounds. Again, this is not even the garden. just the grounds.














we think these are Roman ruins....? it's hard to tell on the map exactly where you are. There are a lot of trails and things to see.

bears 'n such

A word about the escalators here.
They run faster than escalators in the US. And they're usually twice as long. And when you get on them, you step to the right. The left side is for people walking up them, the right is for standing still. So it's a little creepy when you get off the ubahn to watch entire crowds of people form a single file line on the right.
But today the escalator at Kagran was broken, so it was just steps, and it was really funny because everyone still made a single file line to the right.
Today I slept in late, and then wandered around the city for awhile. It was a really pretty day out to walk around outside. It was even warm enough to wear sandels, which was exciting.
At one of the parks, there's this exhibit with all these bears painted from different countries. It was really neat. I took some pics of a few of my favorites.
Tonight I'm going to the Rathaus for the last opera, sad. It's Marriage of Figaro. I was excited because I thought it was The Barber of Seville, but it's not. Oh well, this is a good opera too.
Tomorrow I have a whole bunch of things to do while the weather is nice. Hopefully I can fit them all in.


Moldova's Bear


















Hungary's Bear


















Turkey's Bear


















Croatian Bear


















Vietnam's Bear. On it's leg is written "who doesn't love doesn't live"


















Cambodian Bear


















Bears in front of the fountain and building.














Japaneese Bear


















Some of the bears next to a truck of theatre lighting equitment.














Irish Bear


















Random pretty buildings in Vienna.
















































Pretty building


















Doesn't this look like the mideast? What are palm trees doing in Vienna?