Greetings from Hotel Zipser. Now that we've found a place with wireless, I'm freed to write posts on the laptop and just post them later, as I'm doing now.

Not too much has happened since our last post. We had dinner at a very cute Italian place around the corner from the hotel. I know it seems like we're constantly going to Italian and asian places, but they always have good vegetarian options (not to mention the fact that we know the names of the dishes since they're not in English to begin with!). The problem with traditional Viennese food is that it's pretty much meat with a side of meat. I do feel like we're getting plenty of local flavor, though. We have had excellent Viennese baked goods; great bread, great deserts at the traditional coffee shops. As long as I stop at any of the many wurstl stands around the city and have a sausage standing up, I'll feel like I got the whole experience.

The main thing I wanted to write about though were these cute kids that were running all over the restaurant. I'm normally not so keen on people letting their kids run wild in restaurants, but the place was not too busy (it's Monday), the parents seemed to know the restaurant staff, the kids weren't causing trouble, and they were cute, which goes a long way. They were totally transfixed by the waiter uncorking our bottle of wine, and giving me the first sip to taste. The little boy helped his little sister up on a chair to help her see the guys in the back making pizzas.

Their dad seemed to be wearing one of the Mozart-era costumes that you see people walking around in here, often in powdered wigs, usually promoting some concert or other. Vienna is like a classical music Mecca, and there seem to be five or six concerts, operas, or some such event every night, performed by dozens and dozens of different organizations. Example: today we saw a sign for the offices of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra. You'd think that'd be too small a niche to be viable, but the scene here is so big, the niche seems to exist.