Stomach. Wien und Praha, Part VI

A wee update on my running life: I'm registered for the Philadelphia ODDyssey Half Marathon on May 22nd. However, between the NYC Half and the Vienna trip, I experienced sharp pains in my right shin, bad enough that I visited the doctor. We agreed that I wouldn't run on the trip and would ice it and take lots and lots of ibuprofen. Now that I'm back, I'm gingerly attempting to run again. Saturday's 1.2-miler was fine, though afterward, that same ol' place on my shin was sore. So, I'm continuing to ice and praying that everything heals in time for a semi-decent race. :)

Also: AUDREY is running the Boston Marathon tomorrow!! YOU GO GIRL!

A wee update on my baking life: I just made pretzels! Beautiful, soft, salty pretzels!

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April 7th, 2011
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During the workshop, I ate breakfast at my Hotel Alexander every morning. Every morning, I happily mixed nuts, granola, canned pineapple, and canned peaches into (most likely whole fat) strawberry yogurt. I drank a big glass of multivitaminsaft (multi-vitamin juice) and several mugs of coffee with milk. A couple days, I was hungry enough for bread with Nutella, too. Delicious. :) I enjoyed sleepy conversations with whichever of the boys (I was the only girl at the workshop) stumbled down at the same time.

Upon arrival at WPI, we'd fill plastic mugs with more coffee and milk, and grab a couple of tasty Viennese cookies for the morning talks. My favorites involved chocolate. Always.

Lunches varied. I'm sorry to say that I actually had a wrap from McDonald's on the day of my talk; I was in a hurry, it was there, it was fast. This was only the second time I've been to a McD's outside of the U.S., I think, so perhaps I'm still okay. ;) My favorite lunch routine was when we ate at a little Italian place (good garlic soup and pizza) and then got espresso (are you counting?).

The fabulous workshop admin lady replaced breakfast refreshments with afternoon refreshments by the time we returned: ALL NEW cookies, and of course, MORE coffee. My favorite afternoon cookie was a Biscuit d'Orange.

All of this was good, but by Wednesday, I was sincerely missing these:


Thankfully, there's a supermarket near the hotel! :)

When I returned to my room that afternoon, I was amused to see that the maid realized I was using both blankets and made my bed with both:


The conference organizer/fearless leader set up dinner for about 25/30 of us at 8pm. I was quite sure I could see a bunch of the city before then, so I immediately set out with my camera.

Just north of the hotel and campus is the Wien Energie power plant designed by Hundertwasser:






Turning around and heading back south, I wandered parallel to the Danube (die Donau) Canal until I could cross to the wonderful paved pedestrian path along its eastern banks.




I saw so many runners ALL over Vienna. I was quite inspired, and also quite jealous. :) The Vienna Marathon was TODAY! Wouldn't that be a fun one to do?

I crossed back to the western banks...


...and found evidence that spring arrived in Austria and reasons for my sniffly nose! :)



I happened upon the Servitenkirche:


And beautiful, hand-painted signs that Easter is coming:


This is for my dad, the rest of our family, and memories of Muppets:


Soon, the graceful spires of the Votivkirche rose above rooftops along with the moon:



It, like Stephansdom, appeared to be under renovation.

Just a bit up the road was the Rathaus (town hall):



The bicycle crossing man amuses me:


Hee.

Behind the Rathaus was a huge crowd of people, enjoying a lot of booze, while listening to some guy on a guitar.



I couldn't figure out who it was, because it was suddenly 7:40pm and I was halfway across town from dinner! Aaagh! Thankfully, a metro stop was right there and the connections were fast. I arrived quite sweaty and disheveled only a couple of minutes late. Score!

The restaurant was called Stomach. It was tiny, but quite lovely. I had a great dark beer, incredible duck with white beans and pesto (made of some delicious green I had never heard of and can't remember), and fried goat cheese with strawberries for dessert. SO GOOD.

One of the physicists, Edmund, brought his Australian archaeologist girlfriend and her two colleagues. I sat at the end of the table with them and another physicist. It was so refreshing to discuss non-physics! We heard fantastic stories of Egyptian travels and sarcophagi being smuggled out in the 1940s in Swedish submarine torpedo tubes and such.

We were pleased to meet the restaurant's adorable kitty:



Made me miss MY kitty! ;)

There was talk of visiting a Scottish pub (in Vienna) afterward, but the groups got split up and I was glad to go to sleeeeep!