Extra fun

The advantage of the April Foolery of Austria Air, was an extra day to recover from travels before the conference started. Japanese jetlag wakes you up early in Europe, so Saturday morning we headed off to the Hofburg:

And found the home of the prancing horseys: The Spanish Riding School.

Our 10 year old guidebook suggested nothing would be on, and that tickets to the proper performances we unobtainable, but that one may find space in a practice session. We joined the queue anyway and got tickets to the performance which started 40 minutes later!

Photography is not allowed, as it frightens the horseys, and certainly it was true that applause made the younger horseys jump about a bit. Having switched off flash and focus-assist lights, and as the final applause thundered out, I thought it should be safe enough and took this shot:

Like all real girls, I like horseys, and I do miss never seeing them in Japan, so I enjoyed the show. But I did think it seemed a bit pointless. The best bit was the dance at the end, where they tramped round in a kind of set dance... to Strauss, naturally. After 10 minutes in Vienna one is already sick of Strauss waltzies.

This is one of the horse tricks that I didn't photograph live. Unlike the statue, the actual horses held the pose for just a short while, although they did rather better in the exercises when they had no riders on their backs.

I don't remember Saturday afternoon. Perhaps we ate some cake and fell asleep.