We got a somewhat late start to the day after the reaction to the cheese plate we'd had for dinner the night before. Our goal was mass at St. Stephen's in German but we'd already missed the "big mass" at 9:30 so we had to wait for the noon. We decided to get breakfast to kill time and chose an Aida café with a waitress that was either in a hurry or extremely efficient seeing as we were unable to order everything we wanted before she ran off.
Mass was interesting in German. We knew what was going on because the structure is the same as at home - that, of course, is one of the purposes behind the ritual of Mass - but I was way more thrown by everyone saying the prayers in German than I expected to be. I was actually embarrassed that I couldn't recite the prayers from memory in English - not even the "Our Father"! A poor elderly woman passed out during the service because it was overly warm in the church so there was a small influx of EMTs at the end of Mass.
Outside and in
We headed back to our hotel for a simple lunch and a quick wardrobe change (the sun had come out while we were in church). We spent the early afternoon in the Kunsthistorischesmuseum (art museum) looking at mostly Flemish art including some from Ruben, Düser, Vermeer, and Raphael.
The floors in the museum were amazing.
For the late afternoon and evening, we took the U-Bahn (subway) out to Schloß Schönbrunn. We were able to take a audio tour of the palace and learned a few things about the Habsburgs.
The Palace
A "Roman ruin" installed in the garden
Our evening's entertainment was to attend a concert at the Orangerie featuring selected works of Mozart, Hayden and Strauss. There was a ballet dancing (a married couple it turned out) and a pair of singers to complement the music. It was very nice.
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