Our final trip is to Vienna, a place both of us had on our list of places to visit while we were in the Netherlands. We both can't believe it is our final trip and we had to wait until now to make it here. This is a work trip for Penny as she was giving a talk at TU Wein.
We left on Wednesday evening with the usual travel by train, plane, train, and a bit of heel-toe express to our hotel with a late arrival. We were finishing a wine in the lounge with 25 minutes before our plane was to leave and decided to go to the gate. As we were walking out the lady asked if we were Passenger Martens and Stefl. We were being called over the intercom as the last passengers to board our flight. What?!?! We were the last ones on! But others had just boarded and were still sitting down, so not really delaying the plane, right? Planes don't leave early, do they? This one actually did (by 10 min!!) and we arrived early.
Thursday morning was a slow start as we were getting picked up by a colleague of Penny's between 11:00 and 11:30. We were off to visit the university, labs, meet people, and for Penny to give a talk.
Visiting the labs started with Aleks showing us around and gave us information about what was happening in his school. There were some pretty cool pieces of equipment (layering, building scaffolding, microscopes and cameras taking photos while cells were growing), which when explained what they do made me appreciate more what people in science are doing to help human improvement.
Penny doesn't talk about her research much, mostly because on the small scale it doesn't seem exciting, but on a big scale could help cure type I diabetes, burn victims regrow skin, nerves grow back after being detached, cancer patients getting drug delivery closer to the cancer cells. Pretty cool stuff, but big picture. The processes are slow going and studies take time. I found the information today to be very interesting, especially since a lot of the talk was about improvements to help repair the body and I'm all about having a strong body and know improvements come slowly.
On with our day. We went to lunch at a local restaurant, not a touristy area, by the hospital. We sat outside at a table where two ladies were already sitting because the rest of the tables were full. Apparently it is common to sit at a table with strangers if there is no where else to sit so you don't have to wait for a table. Nice local food, we had a cordon blue and naked schnitzel.
After lunch we went to the hospital where Penny gave her talk, which started at 3pm. Mostly younger students, but some doctors came to listen. Maybe not my area of expertise, but I understood the information (mostly because I've heard some of it before), but still interesting to see her at work. Normally it is Penny who sees me at work when she comes to the gym, but today it was all about her and WORK.
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| Penny gives a talk. Yes, working! |
The talk went well. Only a few questions and nothing too difficult. We got a tour of the lab and work area in the hospital afterwards. Actually, the main reason of our trip to the Netherlands was for Penny to meet new people to find if there are places she can collaborate with anyone in Europe, so the trip here to the Hospital and TU Wien was very beneficial.
Walking on the Karntner Strasse, a pedestrian mall with some shops, which were much nicer in the olden days, apparently. In Stephansplatz was the massive cathedral. Nice on the inside, but same as most churches. The taller South tower was nicknamed "Steffl", so we had to climb to the top. One of the most uninspiring towers we have climbed. Not much space to look out over the city (just windows, no open viewing) very crowded, but still some good views out the small windows when you could finally get to them.
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| Emperor kneeling in middle section. |
We also took a look at Peterskirche, a Baroque church. By my estimates, baraque means you need to have pink paint on the inside with a stucco ceiling. This church was designed after St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. Very nice.
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| St. Peter's Church |
After lunch we walked along ringstrasse to go by the museum district. Many of these buildings are built in similar fashion. The bottom section of stones are mostly square with a rough outer side. There are some short columns in each level. The second level is a mix of smooth, flat stones with some rough stones.
We walked by the Parliament House which was the main focal point from the road. It stood out with it's huge water fountain, numerous statues on the building and roof. We also enjoyed what this building looked like all lit up in the evening. A grand looking building.
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| Great fountain in front of Parliament House |
The next great building was the Rathaus (town hall), where there was an excellent garden and park area - (beer, wine, and food stands). A film festival was going on during the month of July, so there was a huge screen and chairs in front of the building. Still a great, large, old building.
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| Symbol of Vienna |
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| Love the flowers hanging from the windows, beautiful! |
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| best view as a screen is in the way |
Moving to the ring road, we came upon an old city wall and Penny proclaims "this is very important!" Scott looks over at the wall and asks, "Why?" Penny replies, "Just above it is the house where Beethoven stayed and composed music." Scott with a quizzical look - because he doesn't think something like this seems so important to Penny - says, "That's why it's important?" Penny says, "I thought you might like to know since you like Beethoven's music." That is LOVE.
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| Beethoven lived in the building behind the wall. |
Summer is here as we had a hot day and after a view of the Votivkirke, a dual spired church, where we sat in Freud park to view. We had an ice cream afterwards to cool off.
Dinner was at a true Austrian eatery where Scott had a 1L chili beer to go with his beef.
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| Chili Beer, I'll try it! |
On our walk home we went by Schwarzenburgerplatz which had a Russian monument, built as thanks for the Soviets for liberating Austria from the Nazi's, and a fountain with lights which slowly changed colors as we watched. A wonderful evening made for some nice photos.
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