Today was one of those glorious do-nothing but do-everything kind of days here in Vienna. The sun was bright and a gentle breeze kicked up occasionally to diminish the heat. We spent the entire day out and about.

After a breakfast and some baths, we cruised to the zoo and checked out a few animals. We then climbed up the the Tiroler Garten and had a nice outdoor lunch.

We strolled the Schönbrunn grounds for a while during Maple’s nap and chatted with a really nice American couple from California who were in town for a music festival. The woman, it turns out, was one of the early anti-smoking advocates in California and was instrumental in getting smoking banned from public supermarkets back in the day. Needless to say, she had some slightly unkind words to say about the status of public smoking here in Vienna. Otherwise, as most others who visit, she was having a great time and really loved the city and the culture.

We stopped at the Gloriette—erected in 1775 or so and now a cafe—to order a couple coffees. Despite the stifling heat in the room, I must insist that every tourist to Vienna, if the weather is nice, stroll up to the Gloriette and at least check out the view and the structure. Meanwhile, skip the coffee because it sucks. I wouldn’t believe it was real coffee and instead suspect some awful Nescafe charlatanism, but I saw them loading “coffee beans” into the espresso machines’ internal grinders. That being said, it was strictly butt-ass nasty and you should never drink it. Have a beer or ice cream instead.

After Maple woke up, we headed back into the zoo and saw them feed the cheetah and the seals. Both are pretty eventful. The cheetah is fed via some sort of elaborate pully system. The zookeepers attach some animal carcas to it and make it fly around the habitat. Eventually, the cheetah tracks it down and snags it off of the wire—a pretty fast and furious show. But once he(she) gets its food, it hunches down in the grass and there’s nothing much to see. Unlike the sea lions (I said seals earlier, and they are, indeed, sea lions, no seals. However, sea lions is much more fun to type), which put on one heck of a show.

The zookeeper enters the habitat and begins tossing little fish out the the seals. They leap about, dive off rocks some 5 meters above the water, and just generally act cute by begging, barking and running around on their little flippers to get the fish. The audience that congregates right below the glass part of the enclosure gets a thorough soaking, which all seemed to love but I couldn’t help but get a little grossed out when I saw a kid spit out a mouth full of seal-poop water. All-in-all, a great show, though.

Maples particular favorites today were the crocodiles, the water buffaloes, the “brown monkey” and the penguins.

She also had one trauma. We were sitting on some benches after a little diaper change and gave Maple a little biscuit to snack on while we relaxed. She was having a good time, dancing in front of us and generally being her cute self. Some big black birds were gathering nearby, and I took some pictures of them.

Well, one of them was a smart and sneaky little bastard and when Maple tripped and fell, causing her biscuit to leave her hand, he ran up and took it.

It sent her into some pretty good hysterics. A passing elderly couple saw it and were sort of laughing/commiserating and explained to her that the bird was hungry too.

A while later, still shuddering, with tear-stained cheeks, she gave a play-by-play:

“I dropped my biscuit and that bird took it and ate it all gone. He was so hungry.”

She now recounts the tale with a smile and has added some details. Ask her about it sometime.

After the zoo, we stopped at one of our favorite little pizza places and Maple ate nearly half of a Margarita Pizza herself, which was pretty impressive. I decided to finally try espresso, a nice little cafe in my neighborhood with a great outdoor seating area on Burggasse. I’d been there a few times for a beer or limonade, but had not yet tried their coffee.

Well, turns out: it sucks. In fact, it was even worse than the Gloriette. This particular espresso was overextracted and watery at the same time. Meanwhile, a fine film of cofffee grounds made it into the cup. I couldn’t even drink it. As a nice touch, however, they did serve a tiny pitcher of frothed milk alongside the grosser schwarzer. I think the problem was entirely bad technique, so I’m going to give them another chance because I have high hopes and the people are super nice.

But given my coffee experience in Vienna to date, I’m note that hopeful in reality.

Despite the espresso setbacks, today was a stupendous Vienna day.

Best summer ever.