The Donau

K:
Today we just wandered, all over the place, for a long time. 
We wanted to go over and check out the Donau River (in the English: the Danube). We were told that there is lots to do over there. A place to rent some boats and a big mall and things. 
We started on the U6 train line, which is the one that runs near our house. We went up to near the top to the Neue Donau station. For those of you who don't know German, that mean New Danube (but I'm sure you could have figured that out). We got off on that station and there didn't seem to be much happening there. There was a little stip along the side of the river where some people I think were just sitting, I'm not sure that you can actually swim in this river. 

So we followed the bridge across the river and went for a little walk. We saw a few more things on the other side. It's really just a big park. It has bike trails, soccer fields, a playground, another field and some giant trampolines for children to jump on. They looked kind of fun I think, but there was only one little boy and his mom there today so we couldn't really tell how fun they were. There really weren't many people around, and definitely NO WHERE to get food (which is what Eric was really ready for).  
We'd heard from one of the Sister missionaries in our ward that there is a big mall on the other side of the river, near the top of the city. So we headed over to the other end. We went one station further on the U6 and took a tram over to the mall. It was fun, we wandered around the mall, in and out for stores for a little bit. Mainly in search of a place to stop and eat. We found a few little bakeries and a few meat counters. Nothing for a full meal. We searched for a while, with little luck. Here's where I start to get frustrated. When I get hungry and tired it's really no good. I slow right down, I'm easily agitated and my body gets sore fast. So all these started and Eric stopped me and asked what I wanted to eat and why I was getting upset. "I JUST WANT TO ORDER IN ENGLISH. I just want to understand what I'm eating and not have to guess all the time." On the verge of tears and a break down we found a map and decided to look that way instead of walking aimlessly some more. We found the category that we assumed meant food because it included things like Burger King, McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Finally some things I recognize! We headed towards these places, and on the way we found a few more. We stopped to look at the menus but they were still all in German. We found a buffet, which sounded promising because we could look at our own food and pick it out, but then the lady working there spoke NO ENGLISH and had to grab a girl walking by to translate for us. So finally it came to decision making time, which I'm not good at at the best of times. Now normally, back home in Canada, I would not choose McDonald's, I would not choose Burger King and I definitely would not choose KFC. This was a desperate time though. No matter where you go, there's no translation for Whopper, or for BigMac, or for Zinger. We settled on KFC because at least there I knew what meat I would be getting in my burger. You know what, I gotta say, NOT BAD! It's funny, the fast food restaurants here look really fancy. They're all new and none of them are dirty, but I didn't expect the food to be different. This chicken burger I had was enjoyable and I would maybe even consider it again. When in Rome...or Vienna.
After that adventure the mall started to close and we were bored of it anyway so we left and went down the U1 line to the Alte Donau station. This one's a little tricker, so I'll translate. Alte: Old. Donau: Danube. There really wasn't much happening over here either. I don't know yet if we've mentioned, but something about Vienna you should know is that the place basically shuts down around 6. When we got over there, there wasn't much to do, but there was some to see. We walked along the river and came across these sights, and took these pictures:

I'll have you know, I'm not looking for a good reason. This photo almost caused a little bicycle accident. We had it set on the self timmer and this poor little girl saw the camera right as she was about to pass and stopped really fast, then her brother bumped into her, and their dad came and tried to stop and they were all kind a little confused. I felt bad. 

My lovely husband posing for the picture. That's the male model coming out in him.

This is Eric poking spiders with a stick. He found these spiders up in the rafters that were HUGE so he, of course, had to grab a stick and try to get them all on the end of it, wrapped up in their webs. That's the little boy coming out in him.

It was a good day. Nice and relaxing. I love Vienna.