We slept in today, and took no efforts to pretend to be leaving any earlier than we did. In theory this was supposed to inspire some sort of slower paced day than we have been going at for the last ten days, but that was an utter failure, as you will soon see. We caught the Ubahn 2 to Karlsplatz. As we walked underground towards the Staatsoper, we crossed paths with the stars of Schnitke, Smetana, and Bartok, just another example of the engrained musical culture in this city. We emerged from the tube station looking at the beautiful Staatsoper. Once again we were lead by one of my fatherâs walking tours, this time around the first district of Veinna. Along our way to our first stop we saw the home of the original Sacher-Torte. The book cynically proclaimed that the cake is often declared by tourists to be âa bit dryâ. Past the Sacher we walked into Albertinaplatz. We will be visiting here tomorrow to see the museum. From there we walked along the KarnterstraĂe, a pedestrian mall.  Usually itâs filled with vendors and shops, however, on Sunday most of the shops close, so it was mostly full of tourists. We took a short stop to see the Capuchin church. My father has proclaimed he has enough church photos to last him a lifetime, and although that might have more to do with how many photos he takes, than how many churches weâve been in. Next to the church in the basement is a crypt that holds all the royalty of Vienna. We skipped past it partly for time, but mostly for the 6 euros we didnât want to spend seeing all the royalty of Vienna. Kitty-corner to the church is the four rivers fountain. A standard fare fountain on first glance, and wouldnât be worth mentioning except for a beautiful comment from the guide book. As the book proclaims, we can use the bare left breast of the goddess at the centre of the fountain to point our way back to KarnterstraĂe. If this is a new trend in orienteering, Iâm sure we can get a lot of people behind it. We walked along the KarnterstraĂe to Stephanplatz, and looked up at Saint Stephan's cathedral. This massive cathedral was built in 1300-1450. At the time Vienna was a town of only 10,000 people, but its exceptional size is attributed to the desire to be bigger than Saint Vitus in Prague. The larger church meant it garnered more respect and allowed Vienna to become the seat of the Holy Roman Empire. After a small lunch, my dad and I walked up all 343 stairs of the south towner. In fact the 343 stairs only get you 2/3 of the way up, but even only climbing that high, you still get a wonderful view of the city. We came back down, met with my mom, and circled around the church. As we were coming around the other side my mom and I almost got run over by a horse drawn carriage. There is little as off-putting as a horse drawn carriage with a family of tourists sitting in the cab, filming the entire event on their DV cameras to never be watched again. We sidestepped the throng of tourists at the entrance of the church, and explored the forward portion of the church. The sheer size of the church is staggering. The ceilings expand high above, as buttresses support the ornate ceiling. The detail of the church does not meet somewhere like Westminster abby (although few do with every inch of the building embellished and adorned with detail). However, the scale well makes up for that. Along with many elaborate decorations, the church also contains a plaque dedicated to Mozart. He and his wife were married in the church, and two of his children were baptized there. After we came out of the church, we walked down Graben, a chic shopping district of the city. There the guide told us all about the Holy Trinity Plague Column. The sculpture commemorates the 75,000 Viennese who died of plague in 1679. The column also features an effigy of Empire Leopold the I, identified by his unmistakable underbite. The book notes that this is because he was royal. I canât make this shit up. From there we walked to Kohlmarkt as my parents wanted to check out Demel, a famous chocolate and bakery shop. Rather than salivating over cakes I couldnât own, I decided to go window shopping. In retrospect I realized that rather than salivating over cakes, I was salivating over clothing⊠Iâm not sure which is preferable. Once again the guide book provided us with humour as it described the daily ritual of discarding of the unsold cakes at Demel as the âgreatest tragedy of the european unionâ. Claire and Neal, you two may agree with the book on that one. From Kohlmarkt to Michealerplatz and from there to the Hofburg. The best way to describe the Hofburg palace is by asking one to imagine Versailles, but in a city. Itâs massive, and itâs grandeur is beyond anything Iâve ever seen in a metropolitan city. We meandered through the palace grounds over to the Maria-Theresa monument. With an approaching rainstorm, we ducked into a Cafe in the Mueseumquartier. After some cake and tea, and the passing of the rain, we headed out for the Staatsoper museum. The small museum is fantastic. It contains photos or drawings from almost every great production. The walls are lined with photos of singers, directors, and conductors. It gave a lot of wonderful detail about how the house has evolved. Just as we were leaving the museum I spotted the picture of a singer I had seen in Vancouver in recital last year. I was telling my parents about her fantastic rendition of an aria from the Barber of Seville, when I realized I couldnât for the life of me remember the name of the aria. Yes, by now I am well aware itâs Una Voce, but at that moment I just couldnât grasp the name. I knew that it was going to drive me nuts if I couldnât remember, especially since I had no way of looking it up when I got back to the apartment. I figured since I was in an opera museum, I might as well just ask. I walked up to the women who took our tickets, and asked if she knew opera well. She pointed me in the direction of another woman at the front desk. I asked her if she could remember the name of the aria and she gave me a look not unlike what Iâm sure my face looked like a few seconds earlier. She told me she couldnât remember it, but that she would google it for me. After a few minutes of her typing away, she looked at me and said she couldnât find it, but, she could call one of their opera experts and ask them. She dialled the phone, and told the expert that there was a young man looking for the name of the aria from Barber of Seville that isnât Figaroâs aria. After a short pause she said okay, and hung up the phone. It seems that no-one could remember the name, since even the opera expert couldnât remember it off hand, but that they would look it up, and call her back. While waiting for the expert to call, the woman at the desk went back to the computer, and after a few seconds, turned to me and said âUna Voce?â. Elated, I said thank you, and left the museum humming the aria to myself. From the opera museum, we went to the Globe Museum and the Esperanto museum. A weird combination of museums in the same building, but both wonderful. The globe museum had some amazing pieces, including a globe that was taller than me. We walked downstairs, and my parents agreed to indulge my love of the obscure by going into the Esperanto museum. There I learnt many amazing facts about the invented language, such as that it was mocked by critics for trying to unify countries, and detested by both Hitler and Stalin, even punishable by execution. It also had a section on other modern languages, including Klingon where I got to listen to âTo be or not to be-â in the Star-trek language. I will restrain myself from memorizing it. I donât need to be that nerdy... After our long day of museums we went and had dinner at Bettelstudent, a lovely restaurant that had itâs own beer, and most of the items on the menu were fired. It was the perfect meal for the day we had. Especially since it wasnât over yet. From the restaurant we walked around the corner to the Haus Der Musik. This interactive music museum is a must see for anyone even slightly musically included. The four floors of exhibits are fantastic, and even as a music student, I learnt a lot of things I didnât know before. The first floor is dedicated to the Wienerphil. There we got to see batons from all the major conductors, Bernsteinâs tails, a great video of the new years day concert, and you can even compose your own waltz using a dice game. The second floor was a little tiny bit boring. It focuses on the science of sound, and any student of music 119 student can tell you exactly what I found on the second floor. Although there was one a very cool room where you could listen to isolated sounds, including the sounds of space, of different train stations in the world, or even of just household objects. The third floor was my favourite, and focused on local composers. Haydn (I skipped this room, due to my blinding hatred of the composer), Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. It has some amazing pieces such as death masks from composers and even Schubertâs glasses. The fourth floor was, and still is a bit of a mystery to us. We know it was an interactive exhibit, but couldnât get it to work⊠Regardless it looked cool with motion controlsâŠ. On the other side was the gift shop, where I got an music umbrella to replace my old one which disappeared somewhere. Finally, worn out, we walked back to the Ubahn, and caught the metro home. Itâs absolutely insane how much we did today, but it was so nice to finally get a feel for the city. Soon Iâll be heading to Salzburg, and in a week I will be sleeping in my own bed for the first time in way too long. However, I really will miss Vienna. I feel very strongly that this city still has a lot to offer me, and I sincerely wish I could have come here during concert season. I really hope I can come back in the season. Tomorrow we check out even more of the city, and even more museums. Huzzah!Â