Weekends In Vienna

A Wild Beginning To Our Weekend

About 2:30 AM Saturday morning we were awakened by blinking lights outside our window and a man screaming, "Ich machen nicht!"(I didn't do anything) over and over. Looking out the window I observed a man face down on the sidewalk being frisked by police. After a few minutes they hauled him away (kicking and screaming) in their wagon.

Vienna American School Fun Day

Saturday morning we were invited by friends to visit their daughter's school (Vienna American School) which is a large school in a beautiful setting located in the Vienna Woods. It took a total of about an hour (walking, ubahn, bus, walking) to finally arrive at the school. There was food, entertainment, and booths with valuable information about the school and community. Among the items we picked up: a book (in English!) describing the trash recycling system, an English Austrian newspaper with an entire story on the Duggar Family (the American family with 18 kids and #19 on the way), a small English/German dictionary (newer than the 1975 edition that I found at Casa Mesita.)

Vienna American School (over 1/2 the kids from countries other than US)

Sunday Activities

Sunday morning we made our trek across Vienna to worship with three missionary families from Oklahoma and an elderly woman from Vienna. We love attending this house church since there is a mixture of English and German spoken. The singing is primarily in German. We are beginning to recognize more words and the singing has helped us with our pronunciation.

We rode home on the ubahn, stopping at a Chinese restaurant near our apartment. The food was excellent and served piping hot (as usual.) We have yet to get a lukewarm dish here. Heading home, we took a tiny detour to our little ice cream shop for some of the wonderful Italian Gelato.

Home for a few hours, then a ride on the bus to locate a building where a group of Austrian Christians meet every other Sunday evening. They meet in house churches in different areas of town on alternate Sundays. This was our first time to attend and we were welcomed by some very friendly people (quite different from the Austrians we had encountered in the city and our apartment complex.) A woman who runs a refugee camp was there with her assistant,
Thompson, a young man from Nigeria who was decked out in traditional gold pants and shirt topped off with a cowboy hat!) They brought some of the teens from the camp. The entire service was in German and thanks to a nice man (Alexander) who sat by us and interpreted, we were able to get the gist of the sermon.

Rathaus in Vienna

After church, an 18 yr. old young man asked if we wanted to go get ice cream. We assumed we were going with his family, but we soon found ourselves walking down the road with him and the youth group. On our long trek (walking all the way, of course) to Zanoni & Zanoni we passed a large circus set up directly in front of the Rathaus. There was a truck playing loud circus music with a billboard advertising the circus driving up and down the streets.

The yummy eisschokolade (good thing it was a long walk!) made for a perfect ending to a good day.