A "meat market" with high culture. :)

The City Hall Food Circus with the City Hall in the back.

Today we got a late start, so we ended up heading right over to the "food circus" in Rathausplatz right outside the Vienna City Hall. From 11am until late at night, the plaza is full of food stands and people. There was also a gigantic movie screen hanging from City Hall with a few thousand folding chairs in front of it. According to Rick Steves, the city of Vienna sets this up every summer and plays broadcasts of opera performances, orchestra concerts and more every night - all for free to "promote culture" in the young people of Vienna. According to Rick Steves, "Officials know that the City Hall Music Festival is mostly a "meat market" where young people come to hook up, but many believe these people will develop an appreciation for classical music and high culture on the side." :) The food stalls themselves are different than any I have been to; the food is all served on real glass plates and glasses with metal silverwear - the only disposable things are the napkins. This gives the place a "classier" feel than most food courts. The food itself is mostly "ethnic" food, like Indian, Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, etc. Gavin and I were craving Indian food, so we had some tasty chana masala and samosas. Gavin and I decided we wanted to go back this evening to watch the concert and experience the night life of thousands of people coming to mingle and watch the concerts.

After lunch, we headed over to Mariahhilfer Strasse, one of the main shopping drags in Vienna, only to find that every store was closed! The whole city, besides restaurants, completely shuts down on Sundays. Even most of the grocery stores were closed! We thought perhaps stores in the touristy area near Stephansplatz would be open, and we were right, but ONLY souvenir shops selling their array of magnets, keychains, t-shirts and touristy junk were open, none of the nice clothing shops we had admired yesterday were open. Instead, we went to a little cafe called Cafe Europa for some ice cream.

After ice cream, we went back to the apartment to try to figure out how Gavin's family would get to the airport - they had to be at the airport at 5am before the metro was running. We tried to call a couple taxi companies and got recorded messages in German and couldn't get a person on the phone. Gavin, Olive and I walked around for a while trying to find a taxi company, but he accidentally deleted his map, so we never found it. We finally stopped and asked a taxi driver waiting if there was a phone number we could call to get a taxi, and he pointed to one on his windshield. I called it from a pay phone, and thankfully got someone who spoke English. But by the time we got all this figured out, it was too late to go to the City Hall Music Festival. Sad!

Dark Chocolate gelato at Zanoni & Zanoni.

I tempered my sadness at missing the City Hall Music Festival with dessert. :) We went to a gelateria near our apartment named Zanoni and Zanoni - what INCREDIBLE gelato! The best we had on the entire trip! I had a Ferrero Rocher and a dark chocolate flavor. Dark chocolate gelato, which I have had before, is incredible - it is coffee-brown, the darkest ice cream I have ever seen Chocolate ice cream never looks like that in the states! Gavin, not a fan of dark chocolate, thinks I have questionable taste in ice cream. :) Thus, sugar-happy, we ended our last night in Europe.

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