Vienna on Wednesday

This post won't be too long because it's already after midnight for us, but I was able to upload a bunch of pictures!

Today was supposed to be entirely musical, only I planned a little too much and the weather didn't cooperate. Since it was still raining in the morning, we decided to wait on our trip to the cemetary and visit the Mozarthaus first (where Mozart lived from 1784-1787). What a neat museum! I'd totally forgotten about having gone through it in 2001, and I know I didn't learn as much that year. They've got an audio tour now, so that helped with regard to learning things, too.

After that we stopped for some coffee and were going to visit the Haus der Musik, but the rain had cleared up a little so we ventured out to the Zentralfriedhof. The Zentralfriedhof is the main cemetary in Vienna, where the presidents of Austria and some other notables are buried, including several composers. Trey asked if he was strange because he was taking pictures of headstones, but I didn't think so...considering the headstones.

This one belongs to Johann Strauss - the waltz composer.

This one, right next to it, is Brahms'. I thought it was interesting that Strauss' was so flashy and Brahms' was so simple. True, Strauss' music was flashy, but Brahms' was anything but simple.

Anyway, we also saw Beethoven, Wolf, some more Strausses, and a few more. I know what you're asking: Did you see Mozart's grave? No. Some of you will know why. Others will not - feel free to ask.

After that we took the scenic route back to the hotel - we went via the Strassenbahn instead of the U-bahn, which took twice as long, but had us above ground and going through neighborhoods the whole time. Once we got back to the hotel, we were contemplating searching out the Haydn haus, which is only a couple of blocks away, but decided to chill for a little while since tonight was our opera night (I'll give a review later if I have time, but all in all I'm really glad we went). After Salome, we stopped at Figlmueller for some famous Wiener Schnitzel (read: really thin, but bigger than your head schnitzel) before heading home. :-)

Since I promised, here are a few pictures before I go to bed...

Here's me at the gate of Schoenbrunn palace...

And the cheetahs we saw cuddled up at the zoo. The lady (on the left) was grooming her guy.

The cutest animal at the zoo was the Kleiner Panda. He/she had a buddy, too, but this was the best picture we got. The white things in the picture are snowflakes going by.

Hopefully we'll get a little more in tomorrow, but we've got a lot we want to do, so no promises!