The Weekend...and My First Guest!

This weekend the weather got a bit colder and grayer, but Saturday I decided to go out and run some errands and stop by the Green Expo at Heldenplatz before meeting up with a friend to see a movie.  I don't have any pictures of the Expo, probably because it was just in between rain showers so mostly people were huddled up inside tents.  My German sadly isn't quite good enough to fully understand all the cool technological things I was looking at, but it was still nice to walk around.

I did however decide to step into a couple churches downtown since I had time, starting with Michaelerkirche which is one of the oldest churches in Vienna located just outside the Hofburg Palace.  I had plenty of pictures of the outside of that church previously, but didn't have any of the inside.

From there I walked over towards Stephansplatz, and stepped inside the church since there was a sign outside saying something about a light show...I have no idea why this is there, but it was pretty cool. 

Sunday morning my good friend Vera flew in for a super quick visit, she had been in Sweden and Denmark for the past week with her mom, and added this little detour to Vienna at the end of her trip.  She was a super easy out of town guest, having lived in Vienna several times herself, so we didn't feel the need to cram in all sorts of touristy sights, but had more time to just wander around and hang out.  

There was a food festival in Stadtpark this weekend, so Sunday afternoon we went over there with some friends to check out the culinary offerings...

this was some sort of shredded beef dish, almost like a really thick stew with dumplings. yum.

After running back up to my place to drop off her bag and put on some more layers, we headed off to dinner and a coffee house for the rest of the evening. 

mmmm...the mark of a successful outing. 

Monday I had class in the afternoon, so in the morning we went downtown and wandered around, shopped a bit, and grabbed lunch before heading up to school.  It actually worked out fairly well since she had never been all the way up the Kahlenberg, so she read and drank coffee and enjoyed the view while I was in my class.  Another fun dinner last night of Austrian food followed by walking around the Ring, and that was about it.  She flew back to D.C. this morning...although actually she'll be back in June, so I will see her again very soon!