< ![CDATA[   Let's start with "the best of times," shall we? Vienna just keeps getting better. The Schonbrunn Palace, summer home to the illustrious Hapsburgs, emperors of Austria for more than six centuries, is truly a wonder to behold. If we were unsure of just what "Rococo architecture" meant before we visited, you can be sure we have a firm grasp now. The palace is beyond enormous, and we "only" toured forty of the rooms that were on the first floor. In the height of it's glory it was home to 1500 people, over a thousand of whom were servants in some capacity. The gardens are immense. Exactly what you'd imagine as the best of fairy tale gardening: complete with a huge fountain, white greek figures dotting the allees, and three, count them, THREE mazes. The kids were lost for quite some time and were baffled by Daddy's ability to walk straight to the center and straight back out. He never told his secret. The Schonbrunn is also home to the Tiergarten, the oldest zoo in the world, which we did not visit, we're saving that for when our friends come. We took a train ride through the grounds and even got to watch the making of authentic Austrian apple strudel... we sampled it of course! (Watch for the strudel pod-cast, coming soon!) Hannah was delighted to stand in the very room where Mozart gave his first concert: for the Empress, when he was just six years old. "Only six! He must have been a GENIUS, Dad!" "The word is 'prodigy,' and yes, he was!" The weight of history was heavy in the room containing the desk where the last Emperor of Austria signed away his kingdom the day before the Republic of Austria was declared and he moved his family into exile. Can you imagine being the man to sign on the line and do away with more than six centuries of your family's livelihood and give away your home and everything in it? We couldn't either. This part isn't such distant history: the empire ended in 1918, and the last Empress, Zita, died in exile just 19 years ago, in 1989. We shared a lovely dinner on Thursday night with friends met at the Vienna Community Church: the only English service we could find. The pastor and his wife joined us at the home of Bruce and Barbara Moran for Ratatouille and chocolate cake. The children sucked up the attention of the two grandmothers in attendance, Mrs. Moran's mother and her friend. We laughed and told stories and tried some new things. Once again we find ourselves grateful for the hospitality of complete strangers who take us, and our herd of wooly kids, into their homes and their hearts. To the Morans, the Grandmas and the folks at VCC, "Thank you, for being the hands and heart of Jesus to us this week." To Miss Lucy, "Thank you for sharing lunch and laughter with us today. May you rise to operatic greatness and have a whole bunch of kids to sing to one day!" To those of you everywhere else: If you ever find yourself in Vienna, attend VCC, it is on Dortheergasse, right off of St. Stephensplatz downtown... follow the brown signs for the "Evangelical Church." They meet on Sundays at noon in the oldest non-Lutheran Protestant church in Austria: the big yellow one on the corner. As for "the worst of times..." well, it was our own fault. We didn't carefully map the "little ride across town" to switch campgrounds on Friday. It seemed easy enough, really: a short 20 km hop from Neue Donau to Wien West. It didn't even feel like we were going anywhere, really, since they are owned by the same people. Uncle Dick's "7 Ps" come to mind: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Pitifully Poor Performance. Alas, they came to me too late. The "short 20 km hop" ended up being the worst day of the entire trip thus far. Bar none. There was crying. It wasn't the kids. At least 18 of the 20 were up hill. MOST of it was at a greater than 12% grade... the worst of it was over 25%. We were portaging the bikes up the hills in 300 foot sections: Elisha sat with the bikes at the bottom of the stretch. Ezra would sit with the bikes at the "top" (although I assure you, it was never really the top.) In between, Tony and I would push one big bike together, Hannah and Gabe would push one small bike. We'd slog back down the hill and repeat the process. Then up again, another 300 or so feet. Tell me again, "WHY are we doing this? WHICH part is supposed to be fun? Didn't SOMEONE promise me we could take a train through the Alps? Don't the FOOTHILLS count?!" Ugh. As always, we made it. The needle on the "cheerful-o-meter" was buried at a negative twenty five... along with the grade of the hill. Looking back, with two days for my muscles and mind to recover, I can see that it was "character building" and it will make a good story forever. Was it worth it? Not hardly. I hate good stories.]]>