Sometimes, when I travel for longer periods, I start to miss the familiarity of home. Compound that with a language barrier, unfamiliar food made of every part of the pig, confusion while driving or trying to follow maps, countries where air conditioning is equated with weakness, church bells cheerfully tolling the hours all night long, coins worth $2.50, $3.50 bottles of Sprite and Coke, and the complex mystery of figuring out plumbing, and you can end up with a boy who misses home somewhat. So, when I saw, like a vision, a Fridays restaurant on the corner tonight, be kind and do not judge to know we ate there for supper. I knew exactly what “sizzling chicken” meant and was pleased to get it.

We started today off by going back to St. Stephen’s to visit the couple of sights on our all-inclusive ticket that we did not get to yesterday. Since it was relatively cool out and we were still fresh in the morning, we tackled the complete and thus taller south tower of the cathedral. It had over three hundred steps going up a tight spiral staircase, and even that only got us about halfway up. We made the long tromp up there, and I have to say from an objective point of view that it was a little disappointing. The stairs led to a fairly large room that I assume used to hold bells, but now held a souvenir shop, with eight small windows that looked out over the city. Granted, it was nice for me since I am scared of heights, but I felt it must be a little bit of a let-down for people who climbed so far up. Mer was content — she loves views, so she looked out over the city in all four directions with me looking over her shoulder from a few feet back. Then we headed back down to the street. Down was much easier.

We headed back into the main church to take our last tour — the treasures tour. One of the city’s museums is being renovated, so the religious artifacts have been returned to the church for display. As an added bonus, the display area is up with the old organ in the back of the church, so it affords great views of the cathedral itself. The artifacts were interesting to us since we like religious art, and they dated from around 1300 to around 1800. The tour finishes off in the reliquary room, which was packed with holy objects containing a holy artifact, usually a piece of a bone of a saint. There were several full skulls and even one entire decorated skeleton. The gold, silver, and jewelry work in these objects was very impressive.

That finished up St. Stephen’s for us, and so I took us northeast by the metro system, to go ride a giant Ferris wheel that is over one hundred years old. It still has the huge enclosed cars that resemble railroad cars. What I had not remembered was that the Ferris wheel was in the middle of a good-sized amusement park. It offered a chance to see Austrians at play with their families, and that looked fun. So, we rode the Ferris wheel (called Riesenrad, or “giant wheel”), which went high enough to make me leery, but not so high that I panicked. It took about fifteen minutes to go around.

After that, we rode a small roller coaster. Meredith nailed it when she pointed out that the amusement park was more or less a fairground-style park that was bigger and permanent. So, we rode the little coaster, which was kicky. As always, the Austrians seemed to care little about liability, and we were allowed to ride with our water bottles and our guidebook (it was all fine). The coaster was a steel coaster, but not fully smooth. The stop was especially rough on both Meredith’s and my shins, which barked up against the footwell in our car.

That was enough for rides for the day, but we did spend a pleasant time roaming the park and watching the rides. Oddly, there were many duplicate attractions. There were at least four “houses of horror,” at least three “fun houses,” two swing rides, and at least three swinging-arm rides that inverted the riders (made them spin around overhead). I’m not sure why the park is set up like that, but it seems to work. The rides are pay-per-ride, which worked great for us, but seemed like a costly afternoon if you went there with a family of four, for whom shelling out about $20-$25 per ride would add up pretty quickly. On the plus side, there was no wait for any ride that I saw.

After lunch at the park, we headed back into the main old city, where we jumped on the Ringstrasse tram cars. The Ringstrasse is a huge circular street that follows the route of the old medieval walls. There are streetcars that circle this road too, and we had a transit pass, so we jumped on the trams to circle the entire old city. It is a fast and cheap way to see, very briefly, many sites.

We finished out our official touring of the day with a visit to Haus der Musik (“Music House”), an excellent museum dedicated to sound and music. They have fun interactive displays, like a musical keyboard staircase, an entire floor given over to the science of sound, and a chance to virtually conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (I got a standing ovation on my first try, as did Meredith; her second attempt at conducting a waltz ended with insults from the players). They also had some of the displays from the dismantled opera museum, and an entire floor dedicated to composers like Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. Even though I am not into classical music and opera so much, the museum was excellent, with lots of things to actually try and do.

Then came supper at Fridays. Try to keep the scorn to a dull roar. I know all about how dull roars get to my brain now, so watch it.