Monday - STILL!

 My goodness.  I haven't even finished Monday?!  Sorry guys!!

After our special lunch, we bundled Mom up in her warmest and comfiest clothes, and loaded her up into an Uber.  Remember - Uber drivers are NOT the same as American, and well, European drivers are a special breed, I guess.

After the third turn, Mom was ready to go back to the warmth and smoothness of the Cruise. 

If you're lucky and can zoom in, I'm sure you can see the pure delight on mom's face that we were FINALLY at the Rathausplatz, where they have the (purportedly) most photographed and lit up Christmas Market in Europe.  We came early, knowing the lights wouldn't be on, but hoping we could maybe skip some of the lines/crowds that we had previously heard were plaguing this market.

To our pleasure, the market wasn't too crowded.  We took the first few steps in, and started our Market shopping in earnest.  

The Rathaus was the seat of the government there in Vienna, so of course they have a super ornate building.  As you can see in my lovely photo above, it is an imposing reminder that the Government is watching.

My photos are getting all messed up, so I'm not sure where text is going to end up being displayed.  At any rate, this market was decidedly bigger than we'd seen so far, and we were excited at the prospect of finding something for "us."  Thus far, the markets have been super neat to see, but neither Bill nor I had found anything that jumped out as us as being something we needed to buy.  And, sadly, most of the markets were somewhat repetitive. Onward we go!

This market did have some unique things - more decorations around the Market that were missing from other markets.  Bill got a really good video of the ice skating "rink" that wasn't really a rink.  It was actually more of a meandering path through part of the market.  If it wasn't 1) so achingly cold, and 2) Bill's butt hadn't hurt so much, we might have actually gone ice skating.  As it was, we didn't.  :)

Even though we hadn't gone during "prime" time, we did end up going with plenty of people.  As you can see above, the stalls were somewhat crowded.  I know you won't believe me, BUT Mom is actually in that group up there!  Can you find her?

It definitely goes without saying that the markets are unique experiences that still make great memories and photographs for even us uneducated photographers. If only I could photoshop out all of the people, it would be even better!

Look! I found her!  Mom was (I think?) enjoying the experience of shopping through the stalls.  AMAWaterways is great when it comes to catering towards a crowd that moves at a slower pace, and they had at the ready canes, walking sticks, wheel chairs, and other devices that would help you get around.  Mom selected a cane, that had a seat on it!! She used it here in the Rathaus to get around, and even used it to take a rest every now and then.  Unfortunately the rests weren't nearly long enough, but that's because we simply feared freezing to the ground if we stayed still too long!

The two photos above, while not "great" are slowly becoming my two favorite photos thus far.  I know I'm not professional, and I know I'm not even "good," but that doesn't matter to me.  What matters is that I like them.  :) The second photo above, I'm thinking I need one of those "blur" effects where I can blur the people like they're walking past, and then keep the lights and sky and building in crisp focus.  Anyway, I was a smidge self conscious walking around snapping pictures, but at the same time....EVERYONE else was doing the same!

Much to Bill's dismay, we ended up grabbing some hot chocolate (heise shokolade!) and then crept our way back to the uber stop so we could go back and get warm on the boat.  As we worked our way back, I'm pretty sure we destroyed any progress mom had made on her back, but - to everyone's credit, the only complaints we had were "it's f***ing cold" or some variation there of.