Visited Schloss Schönbrunn gardens for most of the day. I had mentally debated whether I would try to visit the Palace (more aligned with my interests), or the Tiergarten (zoo), Irrgarten (maze), and Kindermuseum (children’s museum), which would be more aligned with the boys’ interests.
In the end, I decided in favour of the kids’ interests, since apparently the Tiergarten Schönbrunn is the world’s oldest continually operating zoo, and is pretty impressive – the Big Boy O especially banged on and on about the giant pandas, and the fact that it is more impressive than both the London Zoo, and the Whipsnade Zoo, since it also has a bunch of other impressive animals such as polar bars, Siberian tigers, Arctic wolves, lions, rhinos, hippos…
We got off at Hietzing station and walked towards Schloss Schönbrunn, but we almost didn’t end up going to the zoo, because Big Boy O and I got into a big fight. I was really furious at him. I can’t really remember how it started. Probably with the kids fighting. But at some point, Big Boy O said something… which basically implied that I was mis-remembering things or lying. And I knew for a fact that it had happened. He later claimed that he wasn’t intending to accuse me of mis-remembering or lying, but that’s he had meant it a certain way, and I had misinterpreted it. He and I both ended up crying in the streets. Eventually we made up, and I agreed to go to the zoo. I was really frustrated at the prospect of not going to the zoo, because I had gone all the way there, and the kids’ hopes were raised… but if Big Boy O hadn’t acknowledged his wrongdoing and made up, I would have refused to go. It was a really close call. I’m glad that Big Boy O favoured the big picture, rather than being his stubborn, mule-headed pride.
The zoo pamphlet suggested that the main route would take ~3.5 hours, but we took closer to 4 hours, then spent another ~2 hours at the maze / labyrinth (Irrgarten) and the Kindermuseum. I tried to get the kids to dress up in imperial costumes for photos, and at least learn a little bit about the Hapsburgs at the Kindermuseum – to no avail. They mainly spent time playing with the toys on display. Baby-F wanted a “dou dou” (soft toy) from the Tiergarten as a trip souvenir (I told the boys they could each pick *one* souvenir from the trip, so they had to think carefully about what they want), and he picked an orangutan soft toy, because it was special that the zoo has it, it was Malaysian, and it was a monkey (Baby F is born in the Year of the Monkey). He put such thought into it and made such a compelling case, that I agreed to it, even though I would usually consider an orangutan soft toy not at all Vienna-specific.
At night, we attended the Wiener Kaiser Orchester at the Billrothaus. Before the concert, I managed to swing by the famous Bitzinger Würstelstand near the Albertina. The kids, who usually hate hotdogs, had agreed to it, and a standard wurst (the red kind) in a bread roll. I asked to have the same as what a few girls before me had, and ended up with chopped Käsekrainer, which was great!
The boys behaved superlatively well during the concert itself. They listened quietly and clapped at the end of each song. In the second half, after the intermission, Baby F kept falling asleep. For the first couple of songs, his eyes were closed, but he would suddenly wake up and clap at the end of each song. After that, he fell asleep. Poor exhausted baby.
