Mass with the Vienna Boy’s Choir was one of the first things we booked after choosing to come to Vienna so we were both so excited to go. I really thought it would be peaceful and magical and give me some time to self-reflect in a beautiful environment. Boy was I wrong! The mass took place in the Hofmusikkapelle (or Hofburg Palace in English)  (http://www.hofburg-wien.at/en.html) which was the center of the Habsburg empire for centuries. It was a stunning building but that might be the only nice thing I have to say about it. Don’t get me wrong, the singing was lovely, but we were seated in a small chapel and couldn’t even see the boys. And it was definitely a traditional Catholic mass. Only obviously it was in German so I couldn’t understand a word. But like all Catholic masses, there was tons of pomp and circumstance and way too much incense. To the point where both Candace and I had headaches and couldn’t wait to get out of there! So we did. Before the end. Happily. Hoping we wouldn’t get struck down immediately.

We quickly headed right down the street to Vienna’s famous Café Central – a world renowned Viennese coffee house. Vienna is well known for their coffee houses; this one in particular. The café was opened in 1876 and a couple of it’s famous patrons include Sigmund Freud and Adolf Hitler. They are also known for live piano music in the evenings – which you all know is my favorite – and the opportunity to read news papers in every language. We walked in to be greeted by an incredible display of Viennese pastries – including a homemade Gingerbread house and a chocolate moose (literally!). We found a cozy table for 2 and prepared to just hang out for a while. We had a long, leisurely meal followed by coffee, annoyed the rude waiter a bunch of times, and finished up with Vienna’s famous apple strudel. Wow, was it delicious! It was a wonderful couple of hours relaxing in a beautiful place!

Since we were close to a couple of Christmas markets, we strolled through them and then headed back to the apartment for a much-needed nap.

We had found a highly-recommended traditional restaurant to go to in the evening but it ended up being completely committed (or booked, as we’d say). So we stumbled on the cutest little Italian bistro – yes, first Vietnamese and now Italian 🙂 – named Santissimo. We were waited on by the sweetest older man from Sicily called Marco. Marco had a serious crush on Candace so we had a wonderful time there drinking way too much wine and eating wonderful Italian cuisine – including basic bread with Pecorino cheese and olive oil. YUM! I could live on that. We closed down the restaurant and even invited Marco to sit and have some wine with us. Some wine turned into a lot of wine – most of it free! Marco really wanted Candace to stay and how can an Italian waiter turn her down when she bats her eyelashes and says, “We’ll stay if you give us more free wine”!!! Probably needless to say, the 3 of us ended up dancing Salsa around the tables. It was tons of fun! On the way back to the apartment, we got a few crazy looks as we strode arm-in-arm down the street singing at the top of our lungs and laughing like schoolchildren. Everyone should have a night like this was – and often!