Our Trip to the US Consulate in Vienna

We were fortunate to catch a ride to Vienna with a few others from Gaming who were heading that way. We left around 7:00, and were dropped off conveniently behind the Opera House, which is where the famed Sacher Cafe is located. After some Wiener Melange Kaffee and Sacher Torte we headed toward the Stephansdom while Lisa's parents went to drop off their bags at their hotel on Mariahilferstrasse. They found us at the Stephansdom, but it was almost time for us to head for the Consulate already, so we split up again, we heading for the Consulate and they for the Opera House to check out the scheduled happenings there.

The Consulate was in the same building as a ridiculously fancy Marriott, right across the street from the very pretty Stadtpark:

Our business at the Consulate went quite smoothly, Deo gratias, especially since there was one line for US citizens and another for non-citizens (we were the only US citizens there). We filed for a birth report, passport, and social security number for the little guy, and are told that the birth report and passport will be here in about a week. So there remains now only to get him a visa from the Austrian government so that he can live here with us, and then to get him onto the Austrian state medical insurance.

We were out of there at 1:30, and had planned to meet Lisa's parents only at 2:30 (expecting it to take longer than it did), so we decided to head for the Naschmarkt (the big outdoor market) to get some lunch before meeting up with them at the Augustinerkirche. What a surprise then when we actually ran into them in the Naschmarkt! Apparently they too had decided that would be a nice place for lunch.

In the end we had time only to walk around the Hofburg palace to admire it from without, and to have another fine coffee in a cafe just outside the Hofburg before it was time for us to head off to meet our ride home at 4:00. We made it home safely and without much event (other than a quick stop to buy a car for the ITI). Lisa's parents stayed there and will rejoin us in Gaming on Saturday.