Munich

This was the end of the line in Europe for us. Evangeline and I were only there for a few days before heading back to the States, but Joseph stayed a week longer to have some more archive fun before returning to Hong Kong. The best thing about Munich was seeing our good friends Mandy and Iain again! And to make our reunion even more exciting, we got to meet their four month-old IDENTICAL twin girls, Rachel and Clara. They were like perfect models of babies: adorable (obviously!), cuddly, friendly, and curious. A real delight to be around. We had dinner at the Hofbräukeller, which had a free babysitting room. Evangeline was in heaven! I wish I had taken a picture of it, but to be honest I was so excited to see Mandy and Iain that I forgot to take pictures until the end of the night.

All three girls

Clara and me

So nice to be together again!

Post-dinner smiles

And of course, no trip to Munich would be complete without a trip to the Englischer Garten. We enjoyed walking around and hanging out at the biergarten by the Chinesischer Turm.

An antique, still functioning carousel

It was hard to decide which animal to ride

Yum!

Woo hoo!

Unfortunately, our trip ended on a low note due to Joseph having a kidney stone. He had started having lower back pain on and off in Vienna, and wondered if he was having back spasms or something. The day before Evangeline and I were due to leave Munich, the pain got much more intense, so much so that he couldn't even sit down at the archives that morning. He came home and I talked him into going to the hospital by our apartment. Luckily, German health care is awesome and they quickly found the kidney stone. The doctor thought he would pass it in the next few days. I didn't like leaving Joseph in that situation, but I felt a little better knowing Mandy and Iain were close by. Joseph's symptoms improved dramatically after that, so he thought that he must have passed the stone. That was wishful thinking, however. It's still there, as he discovered during another very painful episode a few weeks ago. He saw a urologist here in Hong Kong, who also thought that it would pass soon, but no such luck. We don't know why that stone likes it in there so much, but it doesn't seem to want to go anywhere. We're hoping and praying that one of these days it will decide to continue its journey and be out of Joseph's life for good!

Wien, du Stadt Meiner Träume

Vienna, the city of my dreams! This will always be a special place for us, since it was where Joseph and I met and where we spent the first year of our married life. We hadn't been back at the same time since 2004, so it was a much-anticipated visit. And who would have thought that when we met in 2001, we'd eventually be back with this little stinker:

Evangeline am Graben

Joseph had applied for a grant to look at some things in archives in Vienna and Munich. When the news came that he got the grant, we jumped for joy because we would be going back. Nothing could be easier, since we were already planning on being in London in early July. From London, it was a short jump to lovely Wien.

The archives were only open from 9am to 1pm on weekdays, so Evangeline and I were on our own the first few mornings. We went to the Prater to ride the Riesenrad and to play:

Hauptallee

Sand play

We couldn't get out of the amusement park without at least one ride

Our first trip to Demel, my cake mecca

We went with classics for E's first time, Sachertorte and Esterhazytorte

Love the open kitchen (we were there late afternoon, so no more action that day)

Running off the sugar high by the Hofburg

Rathaus, my fave Ringstrasse building. I think it's interesting to hear the favorites of others, kind of  like a personality test

There was a brief shower at 5pm pretty much every day

Rathaus with menacing clouds behind

The weather was hot and sunny. The locals were all complaining, but since it wasn't very humid, it seemed very nice to us compared to Hong Kong! Evangeline and I went swimming in the Alte Donau, a part of the Danube that has been dammed. Funny enough, she made friends with another little girl whose parents are expats in Beijing. The grandparents live in Vienna, so she was there for the summer holidays.

On the beach

Cheese sandwich after swimming

Dave and Georgia came to join us for the rest of our time in Vienna. We had so much fun with them, going around the city, and more importantly, eating and drinking.

Georgia and me in front of Schoenbrunn

The Gloriette behind the palace

The crew up the hill by the Gloriette

The Palmenhaus, a 19th century greenhouse

Almost out of the park into Hietzing

Now THAT'S a pretzel!

In the afternoon, we went up to one of the scenic overlooks in the hills above Vienna at Kahlenberg. After taking in the view and trying to pick out as much as we could, we hiked down through the Vienna Woods into wine country, stopping for dinner at a local Heuriger, which is a wine-maker where you can drink this year's wine. It was such a special evening, eating simple food and drinking wine where it's grown, with a breathtaking view of the Danube river. This, to me, is why we love Vienna so much; it's so easy to live well here.

The Jones Fam at Kahlenberg

Making our way out of the woods

Lovely vines with the city below

Sign listing all the Heurigen in the vicinity

The hanging branch means the Heuriger is open

Happy faces! Our table was literally a few steps away

Dave and Georgia with some serious foam on their melanges

Schwartzenberg Platz

Belvedere from the back...

...and from the front

Lots of lovely statues to climb on

The elephant in front of the Naturhistorisches Museum

Repeat trip to Demel

That's my girl! From left to right, Annatorte, Dobostorte, Fächertorte

Loving the cat tongues

A few more thoughts about Vienna:

• It's such a nice size! And so accessible. After living in larger places, we really had to chuckle at our younger selves. Going across town seemed to be take SO LONG before; now we know better!
• Not as much had changed as we had feared. Of course, not everything was still there, but it could have been a lot worse. There were a lot more sushi places, though. I wonder if that's because of changing tastes of the locals, or because of tourists? One of the best moments was a return trip to Joseph's old cafe in the first district, where we saw the same waiter that was working there all those years before. He didn't seem to recognize us, though. :)
• I really should give Evangeline a little credit, here. She was a great travel companion and did very well with all the sightseeing and places that weren't very child-friendly. To be fair, she did get a lot of cake. Now I regret not taking pictures of every slice of cake we ate, since I'm still thinking about it...