Vienna in a day and Cosmo the hunter!

Ashley: The first day arriving in Vienna I was such a melted puddle that Cosmo and I sought refuge in our semi-cold room (oddly the hallways were nice and cool) and just recovered from the heat. My friend Val’s husband Harald is from Austria so I hit them up for suggestions. We did almost all of them the next evening, and the last on our last morning.

Cosmo liked the nice guy at Hard Rock

Cosmo: we're going out in the evening again!? I hate that it never is fun for me. First off it's hot and I'm usually poked and petted by strangers. The first place we stopped at I actually nipped at the first stranger since she was a little quick to reach into my bag. That stopped her! Ashley let me out to walk around a little bit which wasn't too bad but it was far too short. We should just go home. home home home. Then we took the tram to a very loud area that was annoying. I did let the nice young man at the Hard Rock store pet me since he was very quiet and gentle and clearly loved cats, but then some wanker from the UK tried to put his cigarette butt on me pretending to pet me. I wisely let him know I wanted nothing to do with him so instead he dropped the butt on the outside of my backpack which Ashley had to deal with later. See Ashley, strangers are bad!

Her friend Valerie had suggested she tried the fresh bread and some schnitzel and since this was her only meal out in Vienna she got a brioche bun schnitzel Burger which she seemed to enjoy immensely. We sat by this large church called Saint Stephen's as she ate. However, there are way too many people for me to get out and walk around. She gave me a small amount of treat to try to make up for it but it was far too little too late. I thought we would be done at this point but then she drags me to a park and won't let me walk around too much before she takes me into this huge ferris wheel. At first it was interesting and I got to look out of the window as we got higher in higher higher: as tall as the trees and then taller. That was too high and I had to struggle with her a little bit to make her realize that I did NOT want to be anywhere near the window. After that I finally got a nice walk in the park though it was far too short, definitely less than an hour.

St. Stephen's

Delicious brioche with schnitzel

the view is interesting up to this point

On the Wiener Riesenrad

giant Ferris wheel in Prater, the Wiener Riesenrad

Cosmo at Hundertwasserhaus

Ashley: We started out in the evening. I had a great talk with an older woman on the subway who liked my “gross” cat. Gross is German for large. I got to try out my rusty German and answered her questions about his weight and age, expressed my sorrow and that her cat had died but was 14 which is a good life! I'm a little unsure how many cats she had because I originally thought she had four but maybe she was saying hers was 14. Anyways it was also very lucky I ran into her, because I was totally lost finding my connection from the underground Subway to the upper ground tram and she stopped me when I started going the wrong way.

The hundertwasserhaus (not named because of 100 waters but the artist who designed it is named Hundertwasser) was our first stop. It is brightly painted with tons of mosaic tiles and crazy contours and uneven floors (see pics). Cosmo covered the rest of the night pretty well. The giant ferris wheel in Prater park is about 65 meters (212 feet) high and was built in 1897! Early the next morning, before there were a lot of people or heat, we went to our last stop, Stadtpark. Here Cosmo got to explore and finally find things to catch! First one mouse, and then another! He was much happier after that.

Early morning, the hunter prepares!

Hundertwasserhaus

When we got to Budapest I tried to find parks known to have rats, but unfortunately anything that is googleable about having rats has been taken care of, so we spent a great deal of time and effort going to parks that had little black rodent killing boxes and no more rats. After Budapest was Salzburg and our second to last day, he also caught a mouse, racing to grab it before it could safely get inside an open tree trunk. He played with it awhile, but Salzburg mice unlike Viennese mice fight back. This delayed Cosmo a bit until…Cosmo froze and stared to the right. A dog was coming along the path. The hunter became the hunted. Cosmo slinked away and the feisty mouse lived to tell the tale!

Cosmo: I am fast! I am the hunter! Hear me roar! Unless there's a dog around. Then I'm quiet as a mouse.