Schönbrunn in the morning and Vienna at night (and the trip home)

On Tuesday morning (May 12), Patrick took me out to visit Schönbrunn Palace, the Habsburg family's summer residence (in view of their winter residence, the Hofburg). It is large (but only about a third of the size of Versailles). We didn't get tickets to any of the exclusive tours, but the grounds are free to wander through—we even saw a handful of joggers enjoying the paths. 

It was so chilly—after such a warm week, it felt rather jarring to suddenly be so cold and I was underprepared for it (but Patrick and Hadis lent me things to keep me warm). 

The palace itself is huge. The servant's quarters are...equally large (if not as impressive). 

Patrick didn't really want to be in any pictures this day, but you can see him standing on the far right of this picture

The gardens were big (and just starting to be decked with flowers).

At the top of the hill you can see the Gloriette, which "serve[s] as both a focal point and a lookout point for the garden, it was used as a dining hall and festival hall as well as a breakfast room for emperor Franz Joseph I" though today it is a working cafe. Patrick was telling me that it was a play room for the royal children and although I can't find much about that, it seems like there are many wonderful places for children to enjoy at Schönbrunn—there's an entire zoo, hedge mazes, fountains, you name it!

(I did find that "The area called Meidlinger Vertiefung ..to the west of the palace was turned into a play area and drill ground for the children of the Habsburgs in the 19th century," so perhaps that's what Patrick was thinking of, though I'm sure children also frolicked up on the hill as well...and the temptation to send kids on a twenty minute walk away from the house to play is so real).

Patrick and I hiked up to the Gloriette rather briskly and it felt so good! We had done a long day of sightseeing just the day before and I had been quite exhausted by it. My feet were sore. My hips were sore. My back was sore. But that probably has more to do with my posture than anything (apparently the typical "museum walk" that people do is bad for your body). 

We actually got our most steps on Tuesday (none of these step amounts are particularly impressive, but this was meant to be a relaxing vacation, so they're just fine) and I felt great! 

Thursday 7,240
Friday 16,905

Saturday 10,161

Sunday 10,095

Monday 12,455
Tuesday 19,229

I think I lot of that has to do with our more brisk pace, which put my body into better (and less tiring) posture. I had never really considered the phenomenon of "museum legs" (though I do recognize that walking through museums is exhausting), so it was interesting to read a bit about it and to consider how to avoid getting that kind of exhaustion in the future (being mindful of your posture while standing to look at things, as well as in how you move those next few steps). I'll have to explore this more...

Anyway, here's a view at the bottom with the Gloriette behind me:

And here's a view looking down at the palace from the steps of the Gloriette.

Part of the reason we walked so quickly was because—as you can perhaps see—we risking a downpour with every minute we lingered. And...we also had to get back home to attend Eurovision!

[Insert Eurovision here.]

In the evening we got ready to see Vienna at night. Hadis wanted us to see the light show at the Musuem of Change. It was a good night to go as well—since it was the opening night of Eurovision, everyone seemed to be on the Rathausplatz watching the live stream. There was hardly anyone at the light show!

Patrick seemed a bit miffed that it was all "generated in real time by artificial intelligence" and didn't want to spend too much time there, though I found it quite mesmerizing. While I feel a bit...grumbly...about artificial "intelligence" myself...

...it felt like watching an old-school screensaver. It was very soothing.

At least, it was mostly soothing. Hadis wanted to arrive right in time for the 9:00 showing to begin and we walked into the courtyard just a minute or two prior to 9:00. We sat around waiting for the show to begin and then *BONG* the clock struck (which made us all—or at least me—jump...so that was the less soothing bit) and then the smoke machines started. This allowed the lasers to project in the sky above us, which was pretty cool. 

Nature-themed pictures kind of melted into each other followed by dancing light shows.

Here I am wearing Patrick's jacket over my own jacket and Hadi's scarf over that—it was very chilly!

From the museum we walked down to Stephansplatz...all the restaurants had turned on the heaters at the outdoor seating...it was that chilly:

Again, we lucked out with all the crowds over at the Eurovision village and had Stephansplatz mostly to ourselves!

Hadis, Patrick, Josie, and me

Josie and me

Patrick and Hadis

Here we are once again at Hofburg:

Looking across the lawn (and across the rose gardens and across the road and across...) we could see the Rathaus all lit up for Eurovision:

To the right is the Leopoldine Wing of the Hofburg Imperial Palace, which is the residence (or at least workplace?) of Austria's president. When the Austrian flag is flying, that means he's in the building. 

Here's another view of that same wing (again, everybody was a Eurovision):

This is the The Swiss Gate (Schweizertor) and was built in the 1550s. 

And here is Michaelerplatz...

...which features a display of the excavated ruins of a Roman camp (active from about 100 to 400 AD).

 

Here's another view of the Eurovision set up:

We headed over to view Votivkirche, which is the home of an apparently stunning light show called Light of Creation. We just looked at the outside (because tickets can be a bit pricey). There's a decent view from Schottentor station, which Uncle Patrick likes.

But I preferred the view from the lawn outside of the church. We stopped at McDonald's for everyone (except for me) to get hot chocolate and then sat on a bench and watched the light of the "Infinity of Light," a temporary art installation by Billi Thanner (running from December 16, 2025 to August 1, 2026):

It changes colour in various patterns and is also quite mesmerizing to watch.

Here's everyone watching it:

We headed home after this to beat the Eurovision traffic and to try to get to bed early so we could get up and make our way to the airport the next morning. My flight was several hours earlier than Josie's, but she opted to come to the airport at the same time, which made sense, really because Patrick so kindly escorted us there and by the time he made it home after getting me to the airport it would have been time to turn around and take Josie. 

Still, it made for an awfully long wait for her!

Here we are in the train station on the way to the airport—our last sibling picture for a while:

I made it through security quite quickly and then sat alone by my gate for a while until a group of boisterous Russians showed up:

We had to bus out to our plane and then walk up stairs to board:

The flight from Austria to Turkey was full, but short. I managed to make it off the plane, to the restroom (!!), and through extra passport security, all at a brisk walk (no running involved this time—what luxury). Here I am waiting to board:

Whereas the transatlantic flight to Istanbul was full of screaming babies (and I say this with all the patience of a mother who has taken multiple babies on multiple transatlantic flights—this flight was full of screaming children, like, there were just so many upset children on the flight), children were sparse on the flight from Istanbul to Atlanta. 

And none of them were particularly upset (I think being upset is a little contagious sometimes), so there wasn't a constant background noise of SCREAMING for twelve hours, which was lovely. 

(Again, I don't blame the parents because...babies are gonna baby...but it was a lot of screaming). 

So, no screaming on the way home. 

And my section of the plane was very sparsely populated. Most rows in the middle row (where I was) had only two passengers per row, with everyone having an aisle seat and no one having to sit in the middle. 

I was happy with this because it meant that no one was man-spreading into my space, or blowing their nose on their in-flight blanket, or spilling an entire cup of coffee all over my lap/seat, or snoring right next to me and falling onto my shoulder in their sleep.  

(I swear the full-grown man I was sitting next to on the flight out to Austria took more patience to deal with than all the screaming babies on the plane(t)! And then the seat in front of me was broken and stuck in reclined position right up against my knees the whole flight...it was awful).

The flight home was wonderful. 

Still rather long, but...so much better than the flight out.

I breezed through immigration, relatively speaking. I mean, it was a long line, but it was fine. 

And then I had to wait to do my "universal entry" interview, which was also a breeze. I'm sure my I-just-stepped-off-a-transatlantic-flight mugshot will look super cute on my ID card (and if not super cute it will at least be super authentic to my just-stepped-off-a-transatlantic-flight self).

And then I grabbed my bag and headed out into the main airport where Andrew was waiting to pick me up (MARTA is going through some major renovations ahead of the World Cup, so we nope'd out of that option).

The kids were all mostly still up when I got home (only Phoebe—and perhaps Alex? my memory of the evening is fuzzy—had been put to bed). They were excited when I opened the reverse Candy Suitcase. 

Whereas my suitcase had been full of American goodies to take to Uncle Patrick before my departure, it was now full of European (and Iranian) goodies that had been sent home to delight the children—and they were delighted! 

Here are the kids (the next morning, with various states of chipmunk cheeks, having already been stuffing their faces with goodies) with some walnut cookies from Iran:

It still feels rather silly for me to have taken this trip to Europe so soon before moving to Qatar, but in my defense Josie and I planned our trip before Andrew got this job!

We're looking forward to being a little smidge closer to Patrick and Hadis on the other side of the world—it makes it a little easier to plan trips to visit each other!