A Marathon Day

After a rough morning, we put Bailey down for a nap at 5:30am and let her sleep until 9....this means she got the most sleep of all of us with a whopping six hours under her belt.  Luckily, in the mean time, I was able to get an hour-long cat nap and also a shower, free of the interruptions that seem to flow from Bailey being conscious and aware that I desire privacy. After another cup of strong coffee and a cliff bar, I was feeling like a new woman. Booyah!  Ready to face the day (have I mentioned that I'm a morning person?)

We knew that the Vienna City Marathon was today--the start point was actually where we had first visited yesterday--outside the  UN Center. The streets that had been so eerily deserted yesterday morning were now filled with over 36,000 runners and countless spectators (this explains the plethora of porta potties I found oddly present yesterday). The marathon route starts on the eastern edge of the city, goes across the Danube, through the city center and wraps around the Ringstrasse in the first district, so we decided to head out of the apartment half an hour after the race began to catch runners as they came down the Ringstrasse. 

As some of you might have gathered, most shops and stores are closed here on Sunday; it's mostly bakeries and cafe's that are allowed to open, so even though this was the latest start we had made out the door so far, the streets were empty...until we neared the first district. And saw a glimpse of the runners in the half marathon. It was just an overwhelming steady stream of bodies. I'm assuming you have to have witnessed a massive marathon to understand the seemingly unending flood of people running down the street. One can't help but be caught up in the festive spirit, hearing people clapping, cheering, excitedly screaming for runners they know. It was infectious. For me, the best part was the setting; the fact that people were lining the streets, en masse, to watch runners when some of the most beautiful buildings I've ever set eyes on loom in the background. It's just Vienna; fabulous is normal. But, enormous street-closing marathons? More of a once-a-year thing. 

 

We hoofed it all over the first district past the Vienna State Opera House, The Burggarten, the Hofburg, the Spanische Hofreitschule, the Austrian National Library, The Albertina and back to the Opera House again. In between, we stopped for some brats with mustard and bread. And we even got to see the leader of the full marathon come through the course before we conceded defeat and headed back to the U-Bahn; John and I were operating on precious little sleep and were starting to lose our spunk. We took the train back to our stop and walked to a little playground close to our apartment to let the girls stretch their legs--the crowds for the marathon were so crazy, we kept the girls either in the Ergo carrier or contained to the stroller all morning. 

When we got to the little play area, there was a gang of kids excitedly yelling about the hot tea their mother had brought with them to the park: "Heisse Tee! Wir machen heisse Tee!".   I've never seen kids get so excited about tea, delightful though it may be.  Our girls gave these kids the standard skeptical stare before heading on their merry way to the play equipment. Audrey and Bailey were contentedly playing in the sand when John jokingly leaned in to me and told me the only thing he could understand the kids in the park saying were the numbers 1-12 and the word 'star wars'. These were a bunch of typical boys--running rampant, hiding in the bushes, leaping out and felling one another with their light sabers...pretty standard stuff. Audrey and Bailey watched them for quite a while and kept talking about them when they would go hide in the shrubs. Eventually, this led to Audrey and Bailey actually engaging them in play (a first in Audrey's book at least). Bailey ran over yelling "Hey guys! Hey guys! Whatchoo doin'?" to which they actually replied in English. And thus began an absolutely hilarious exchange between my girls and this silly group of rough-and-tumble boys. Bailey bossed them around and Audrey chased them like she was one of the gang. It was honestly the first time I've seen either Audrey or Bailey do something so overt amongst unfamiliar people and it makes me happy that there is hope, even if we don't have regularly scheduled play dates, these girls will still be learning skills in socialization.

John and I were dragging by the time we got home, but we were determined that no one was napping this afternoon, so we let the girls watch a double feature of Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast.  For the record, I'm totally cool with rotting my kids brains in an effort to get a good night's sleep.  If movies would've made Audrey sleep through the night as a baby, she would've had a TV in her bedroom.  Just sayin'.

To add injury to surly sleep-deprivation, I discovered when we got home that I had somehow pulled a ligament in my hip while walking this morning.  Seriously?  I  was now supposed to be staying awake, but could only manage a painful hobble around the apartment. So there I was, laying in bed, attempting to relax my legs and somehow not fall asleep after a mere four hours of sleep the previous night.  It was bleak.  The following six hours were some of the longest in my life.  The girls were both sleepy, crabby and high maintenance.  John was attempting to wash dishes in an effort to remain conscious.  I (The Bad Cop) actually gave the girls candy to keep them from falling asleep.  Who does that?!  It was crazytown around here.  And now that the girls are asleep...in their beds...not on the floor like they would've been if I let them. I'm praying for a significant amount of sleep for all of us. This morning we might have gone to see people running in the streets, but this afternoon was our marathon; it was not pretty, but we made it!

Now to see if it pays off; John's first day of work is tomorrow and it'd be super if he didn't look like a zombie.  His first day of work will also start the ball rolling for actually getting integrated into our new lives here; apartment searching, setting up bank accounts and new cell phones...the works.  I'm thankful we've had the past few days to adjust and am optimistic that we will turn the corner tomorrow.  Now, I'm off for some well deserved sleep!