We´re back from a lovely weekend in Vienna with my family and had so much fun they should have made a movie about us. A “telenovela”, to be more specific, because we´re so refreshingly crazy the whole bunch of us! 😉 At times I felt I was starring in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, it was THAT cliche! I had been looking forward to the trip for a while and at the same time I was a bit nervous- three generations under the same roof,  need I say more?! Many personalities, to put it mildly- a 2 years old toddler who screams when she doesn´t get what she wants, a brother who´s reluctant to new experiences, a father who likes to call the shots, but unfortunately, so do I.  You can only imagine. 😉

We stayed at the same hotel and were more or less constantly together: me, my husband, my brother, his wife, their daughter, mom and dad. We had breakfast together, traded Romanian delicacies for Norwegian ones (brown cheese and caviar), went out for dinner together and had one too many drinks together in our room. 😉 On Friday we ate at this Viennese guest house where they served us yummy food like wild boar and hare, lamb and veal. We had Prosecco and wine and wine and Prosecco, an occasional sip of schnapps and water, too. 😉 It was good to be together again, we hadn´t seen each other since June, except for my mother who came for a short visit in November. My brother I hadn´t actually met since February. The star attraction was however my niece, who´s one hell of a cutie and just as demanding, too. I´m proud to announce that from pulling away when I tried to kiss her one day, she called me “mamn” the day after!

Saturday morning was early (for us), we went sightseeing straight after breakfast. On demand, we had a quick stop at Starbucks for coffee and muffins, and then carried on window shopping as we didn´t have a shopping budget this time. So I guess we´ll just need to go back as soon as possible because they have Red Valentino, Max Mara and Marc Cain, in addition to numerous galleries and antique stores! (Sigh!)

After walking our shoes off, we entered a local place downtown for lunch and had pumpkin soup, clear soup with veggies and pancake shreds, as well as fried chicken with potato salad. So good! Viennese cuisine is very Eastern-European, I find, although they do have both the bratwurst and the cabbage in common with Germans. And they also enjoy a good schnapps. But hey, so does the rest of Eastern and Southern Europe, too! 😉

As pretty as Vienna was in its holiday wear, we didn´t get to see that much of it. The weather was warm, but incredibly windy and we hadn´t done our homework properly, so we had to go with the flow. It was good to be together, though, and get a break from daily routine. We smuggled beer in the sauna and cracked a couple of grown up jokes with my pops that I never thought I´d hear until my dying day. My brother and my sister-in-law discovered they just LOOOVE Indian food although they were reluctant to try it in the first place.

Sunday found us tired and a bit under the weather, probably on account of the last crappy Caipirinha the night before. 😉 We were supposed to have lunch with @Irinahp from Instagram, but I didn´t see her message until it was too late. I felt so bad, she´d booked a big table for all of us and we both wondered what happened since nobody got in touch, but I didn´t think of giving her a call. Instead I lay in bed and thought that the Gods wanted me to rest. 😉 I hope she won´t turn me down next time I´m in Vienna and give her a call.

Sunday evening we decided to introduce my family to Spanish tapas and Vuong found a funny-looking canteen that was positively reviewed on Tripadvisor, El Rincon de Don Quijote. To say that the interior was a disgrace would be an understatement, but I´ll let you judge for yourselves. However, the food was good and we managed to communicate with the waitresses in the little Spanish and German we could speak. And after 9, the place was all ours! My father requested Julio Iglesias and we started dancing. In pairs, with our niece, father and daughter, you name it! I swear I haven´t had this much fun since I was 16!

It was time to go home and say good night, but not before every one of us had a say in Diana´s well being. Just look at us, one would think this picture was taken from a Sicilian movie! 😉

xxx, Alina