The Roost of Turkadactyl

We have been in Vienna since Friday evening.  My taunting of the weather has now caught up to me.  Here I have been laughing that we are enjoying shorts type weather and Edmonton is receiving snow.  We are now becoming acclimatized to Canada.  Saturday and Sunday has seen snow, which is alright.  It is the wind that has been a pain.  The weather warmed up a bit today.  What is a kick to the teeth is before we arrived in Vienna the weather was around plus 15. The long range forecast for next week is around plus 12.  Nooooo!!!

We are staying with some of Mrs. Turkadactyl’s family in Vienna.  They have the coolest toilet I have ever seen.  Be sure to ask me why when we get home.  Ulli and Egi have been wonderful hosts for us.  Egi has chef skills and made some soup for dinner tonight.  The soup was that good that I has seconds and thirds.

Vienna loves Christmas.  There are Christmas markets all over the place.  There is an advent calendar set up on City Hall.  There are lots of booths selling Christmas treats.  Vienna is known for its music.  Mozart and Strauss are two well known Viennese composers.  There are a lot of opera houses and orchestra halls located in Vienna.  Mrs. Turkadactyl and I are planing on catching a program tomorrow.  We are at a crossroads at the moment.  Mrs. T wants to go to an opera and I prefer to go listen to an orchestra.  Please be the orchestra, please be the the orchestra.

After living in Canada it is hard to grow accustomed the more liberal smoking laws.  Smoking is still permitted in cafes and restaurants.  One thing Canadians can learn from the Austrians is standing on the right side of an escalator to allow those who want to walk up a free passage to do so.  I am impressed with Austrian courtesy.

We are enjoying some of the Austrian treats.  One is hte hot dog.  These are not your regular hot dog.  A whole gets drilled out of the bun and a long dog is placed in the bun with ketchup and hot mustard.  Think Canadian smokey only bigger and better.  I have had two and I think to myself why have I had only two.  Then there are the giant pretzels and a dumpling filled with blackberry jam with a vanilla sauce and crushed poppy seeds poured over top.  That’s right, yummy.

Here are some of the random thoughts that I have remembered.  People love to make out in Rome.  I am not to sure if it is something in the water or air.  Maybe it is a bit of both.  No matter where we went couples were making out and in the manner that they thought no one could see what they were up to.  Oh they were wrong. They could be seen.  They’ll have to practice their invisibility skills a bit more.

Michelangelo sculpted a lot of nude statues.  One of the pizza’s in Rome contained a lot of Michelangelo’s work and most of them were statues in the nude.  Poor fellas.  It must be bit a bit chilly having no clothes to wear in the winter.  Some of Michelangelo’s painting created a controversy with one of the popes during Michelangelo’s time.  That’s right, Michelangelo painting some nudes and the current pope did not appreciate that.  The pope commissioned one of Michelangelo’s students to paint strategically placed robes over the sensitive areas.  Perhaps that pope was inspired by the statues in Vienna.  They are nude statues with that little piece of garment that is being held up by who knows what, covering the spot where the sun don’t shine (unless you are a member of a nude resort).

I am planning on visiting Mauthausen on Wednesday.  There was a large Nazi concentration camp.  I have had the honour of visiting the D-Day sites and I am looking forward to seeing another important part of WWII, the Jewish holocaust.  Vienna has a memorial to the Austrian Jews who were killed during WWII.  I visited the site today.  I am not sure what to expect when I visit Mauthausen.  I think it is an important thing for me to do.  The two things I want to do on this trip is visit the D-Day beaches and visit Mauthausen.

Our time in Europe is coming to a close.  We depart from Amsterdam next Tuesday.  We have on the other side of the Atlantic for a while now so it seems odd to think that we will be leaving soon.  In reference to the title I saw a t-shirt in a souvenir shop that says “There Are No Kangaroos In Austria”.  Peace out homies.

Pictures of Vienna:

Snuggles looking at the Danube, ViennaA pulpit in Stephansdom, Vienna. A lot of time must have gone into this stone pulpit. I stared at this piece of art for a long time.

In Stephansdom. I wanted to show this and the next picture for the sake of a demonstrating different focal targets.

Stephansdom

Schonbrunn Palace

Another cuddle moment with Snuggles. After this photo we watched some teenage boys from a school group throw snowballs at the birds that were sitting on the ice. It was a good laugh.

Mrs. Turkadactyl practicing for a model career.

Snuggles wanted in on the modeling shoot.

This is at Schonnbrunn Palace. A group of tourists started to take pictures of Michael (the monkey toque) and I as they were walking by. Mrs. T caught me smiling for their cameras. Michael sure did garner a lot of attention in Austria.

Statues in front of Austria's Parlament.

Christmas market with the Rathaus (city hall) in the background.

The Rauthaus was used as an advent calender. The Austrians love to celebrate Christmas.

K.K. Hofburg Theatre. Many of the buildings in Vienna can be considered art. The amount of detail that went into them were phenomenal.

A closer view of the K.K.Hofburg Theatre.

The following statues are located at Michaelerplatz, which is right by the Imperial Palace. These statues were big and there was a lot of detail that went into them.

I would be clubbing some snakes too, especially if one looked as though it was ready to attack my crotch.

In case you haven't noticed yet the statues have strategically placed leaves or garments over their crotches. They all seem to have mysteriously lost their tops though.