So, after an amazing week in Vienna (albeit without cheap internet), I thought I’d give y’all a quick update. I’m home safely, after being up for 24 hours with only marginal airplane sleep, and I’m more or less settled back home. I haven’t gone through and edited/dealt with a lot of photos yet, but here are a few to whet your appetite.

Once on the east side of the park, I started walking down 5th Avenue. I was tempted to walk through the zoo, but didn’t really feel like paying admission. Perhaps another time. Continuing down, I found the Plaza Hotel, where Mariah Carey was apparently shooting a music video, and a crowd of people was standing around trying to catch a glimpse of her. How terribly exciting. I kept going, and made it down to Saks Fifth Avenue and the Rockefeller Center. Saw the space where the skating rink goes, and stared up at the giant tower.

I continued over to the United Nations. I meant to go on a tour, but the next one was almost 2 hours later, and by that point I was kind of tired and dehydrated, so I did what little exploring I could do on my own, and headed back to my friends to relax for a little ’til she was done with work.

When she returned, we decided to take the Staten Island Ferry to get a closer view of the Statue of Liberty and to grab some Italian. In front of the ferry terminal there was a little breakdancing performance.

Once the performance was over, we did get onto the ferry, and I got my first close(r)-up look at the statue:

We enjoyed our dinner (and garlic bread!) at the local vegan-friendly, gluten-free friendly, corn-free friendly, option-friendly Italian place, grabbed the ferry back and called it a night. Good times.

Master Labeler
I’ve always had a fondness for label makers. In the beginning of the month, my good friend was preparing to move to New York. Her apartment in New York would be quite a bit smaller than here, so she was downsizing. After she had labeled a great many things (including the master labeler), she left it for me.

Happy birthday to me!
Ah, birthdays. This year, my husband surprised me with a shiny new monitor. It’s beautiful. And between it and my heated footrest, I can have a much better posture than I used to. (Not that I always do. But still.) So much desktop space! So pretty!

Sunflower in Progress
I took this picture with my shiny new smartphone. It’s wi-fi enabled, and I had just gotten it. I was terribly amused that I could take a picture and upload it to flickr all from my phone. I could’ve even made the blog post with my phone, but I chose not to.

Garlic Basil Flatbread
Awhile ago, I learned about Mark Bittman’s flatbread recipe. It’s quite simple, and quite customizable. Given my love for bread, it’s kind of amazing I don’t make it more often. This was the creation of choice for that Wednesday. It was rather tasty, although I still need to tweak how I make these.

Tada! One month of Wordless Wednesdays. Check.

The first stop on our tour were the three inside the Bead Gallery/Adorn Me shops. This one above the landing (it has matching fairy windows!):

This one in the back corner of the shop:

And this one right by the door:

Close by, you can see the one inside the library – appropriately in the Fairytales and Folklore section:

“Please do not touch. These books are out of circulation. Besides there may be someone living in them.”

Heading across town, we come to Jefferson Market and Cakery (yum!):

Back to the downtown area. Coming up Ashley, there are three shops that all have their own doors.
Red Shoes (a really cute, quirky little shop):

Serendipity Salon:

and Hathaway’s Hideaway:

Then to Sweetwaters for some Italian soda and another fairy door/room:

Of all the doors, though, I think I like Crazy Wisdom’s best:

It’s just beautiful!

Peaceable Kingdom’s door looks quite normal from the outside:

But from the inside you see the door is just the beginning. There are windows in the bottom of the front display giving you a glimpse of this fairy’s life. Quite the collector of odd little things:

After the Peaceable Kingdom, I continued down Main Street to The Ark to see the Fairy Ticket Window:

and door:

Sadly, the tickets fell out of the slot for the ticket window, so I couldn’t take my own fairy ticket with me. Next time, though.

Turning around, we come to the Selo/Shevel Gallery on the other side of the street. On one of the Liberty-facing windows, you’ll catch a glimpse of a fairy who needs no door and prefers to travel via window instead (perhaps I missed an actual door?):

That was the last fairy door on the walk, but I know there are a few others out there. Google has one, but I don’t know if they’ll let the public in to see it. I’ll have to ask. Nicola’s Books on the west side of town also has one. I might have to stop by to see it for myself sometime. There are a few more too, in private homes, elementary schools, and who knows where else? Fairies are tricksy creatures, and they don’t always like to be found. Check out Urban Fairies for some inside info on where they were first found and where they might be hiding now.

It’s a sock-weight yarn, but I can’t decide if I actually want to make socks with it, or fingerless gloves, or perhaps a lacy shawl thing. Suggestions? It’s so hard to correctly convey the colors; I really need to calibrate my monitors, but it’s a beautiful pink/grey yarn with a lot of subtle shading. It’ll also be warm, since it’s mostly alpaca. I just love the feel of alpaca.

Anyway. You’ve now had a week of uninterrupted photos of the day. Don’t you feel special? You should.

In less fun news, Logan’s officially getting sick, and I’m trying to tell myself that my sore throat is only a sore throat and that I didn’t pick anything up talking to 4 classes of 8th graders on Friday or at the glee club retreat. We’ll see what’s more likely, but I’m popping vitamin C lozenges like they’re candy. (Oh wait, they are pretty much…)

This is not an appetizing description. Mmm.. Artificial hybrids. Creepy.

In other news, I’m officially pathetic. I didn’t take the elevator at all today (office is on the fourth floor), and now I’m quite sore. Sad, really.

I did see this cool tree though: