Good Bye Brussels, Hello Vienna!!

Well we've made it!  We are in Vienna, Austria, now and so far it's been good.

Tear down last week was crazy!  Believe it or not even in Cirque du Soleil, the artists are responsible for some part of the tear down.  It is not like the original circus where you were in charge of rigging, setting up and tearing down your own tent, etc. but we still had lots of responsibility.  On our last performance day, Sunday, we began tearing down our part of the tent, the artistic tent.  By the end of show 2 there was literally nothing left inside, no warm up equipment, no practice mats, nothing...  Just our wardrobes, which went as soon as we got our costumes and makeup off.  Everything fits into these road cases and each road case is specific to what it is carrying.  There is a carpenter on site who has made each one to the exact speculations of whatever it's carrying.  From the teeterboard to the treadmill, everything has its own case.  After these are loaded onto trucks they are driven here to Vienna.



After tear down we had two days off to relax and say bye to the city.  We took the time to go to some of the more touristy spots including Rue de Bouchers which is a skinny little corridor in the city center that has about 100 small little restaurants that offer 3 course menus for cheap.  We ducked into a small Mediterranean styled one and had a great meal for 12 euros.  Grilled Garlic Shrimp, Steak and Chicken, and a waffle for dessert!!  It was very good! 




 
We also went back to St. Michael's Cathedral and we stayed for about an hour.  We went into the basement and looked at the original foundation, some of which is from the 11th Century!  We lit a candle in the church as well, for all of our grandparents (there are a lot of them!!).  

We visited Manneken Pis as well, which is the statue that Brussels is known for.  It is rather hilarious that this country loves this little statue, and it is little.  It stands only about 2ft tall and is up on a stone fountain about 10 ft at most.  This little boy peeing has entire shops, beers and an entire city adorning its image.  It's just funny.  That said it was something we had to see and of course we took photos and video.  

We sent some of our luggage ahead on a luggage truck so that we could travel comfortably on the plane.  Cirque chartered a full plane so we did not have to pay any travel fees which was great!!  The plane was a regular jet, Airbus A320 for anyone who really needs details, and it was packed full.  It was great to see how many people were on tour including family members.  We filled an entire jet!!

So far our impression of Vienna is not much.  We got in last night at 11, got partially settled enough to sleep and checked out our room.  It is a much more stylish room than Brussels but it is lacking the full kitchen.  We'll have to make some adjustments but so far it hasn't been too bad.  We have the internet on one computer (the Mac... Just saying) and the PC is not really liking to connect, not sure why...

Hope you are all enjoying the snow back home, for some more than others.  We had a small dusting last night, and today...  Green grass.  Hopefully we'll be up and running here in no time and figuring out the city.  We haven't decided yet what we're doing for our week off now, we'll keep you posted!!

Til Next Time!!
Aa and Alex