Unfortunately, the salad Megan had eaten yesterday (not the sausage as popularly believed by certain people whose name rhymes with egan) had gotten her sick so we moved a little slower this morning. I ate breakfast by myself and then we walked back into town to see the spanish riding school practice. Somehow the 3rd party ticket broker we used forgot to pay for the tickets but we had the email confirmation, so they gave us tickets anyway. It is first come first serve seating so they can fit a ton of folks but it filled up really quickly. We met a bunch of super rude folks who were trying to cut in line and finally fought our way into the school where we nabbed sweet seats at the end and sat back to watch the ridiculous riders and horses. they are so so good.
Unfortunately since it was just practice it did get somewhat repetitive and after an hour and a half, we snuck out to tour the castle in downtown Vienna. Since we were downtown, the entrance was very crowded with a long line just to buy tickets. In a moment of brilliance, we had purchased tickets to both castles the day before and skipped the line and walked in. It was really cool to see the main castle of the Strassburg empire. There were amazing examples of the table settings and silver and porcelain they used to serve dinners.
After the tour, we headed back to the Spanish Riding school where we had a tour booked. It was awesome to see the stables for the horses. The school is downtown and the horses cross the street every day before the show. We took a look at all of their saddles. As horses progress along their training regimen, they graduate to different saddles for the show. We hopped the subway back to our hotel and got changed for the State Opera. Since Megan was not feeling well, we changed our reservations to a more casual restaurant afterwards.
Luckily we had decided to dress up and I was wearing a shirt and tie because we were there for a premiere. We had no idea what this was and as we headed into the building we noticed almost everyone in suits or tuxes. It turns out the particular opera we were seeing had never been performed by the company here and the first performance is a big deal. Megan had gotten our seats through a ticket broker so we weren't sure where we were until we picked them up at will call. It turned out that our seats were 3rd row direct center. We snuck into our seats quickly and sat down to see the show. There was a lcd on the back of the seat that you could set to your particular language to follow the show. The first act was good, but we both were fairly tired from walking around so I had to fight to keep my eyes open towards the end of the first act. At intermission I pounded a coke and was wide awake for the second half. After everyone in the show died, we filtered out to our post opera reservations at (who knows where?). I had a wiener schnitzel dish which was delicious. We headed back to our hotel and passed out.
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