Eventually the sun rose and we could go downstairs for breakfast. Ahu was quite happy to find a lot of cheese and bread in the buffet. Not one to mix my lunch foods with my breakfast foods, I chose scrambled eggs and bacon and a large bowl of corn flakes. No breakfast cereal for me in 10 years and now corn flakes twice in as many days. We also both had tea.
After breakfast we went back to the room where Ahu got ready for her presentation. She is quite prepared and practices speaking her presentation to ensure proper duration. Upon arriving at the conference center I immediately procured a table with an Internet connection and Ahu went about finding the keynote speaker room. I uploaded the Day 1, Part 1 content and images. Ahu came to get me around 10 and we went to the room that she was to present in and waited for the time to come. We had to watch 3 other presenters before Ahu's turn came up. Each presented was supposed to take around 15 minutes and then have 5 minutes or so for questions afterwards. Let's just say that some people were completely unprepared for their presentations. Ahu did very well and created considerable interest in her research. I filmed the whole presentation and took some pictures as well. I originally didn't think I would be able to get in to watch her but there was no security and, in the end, no one cared. They were probably happy to have one more person in the audience.
In the end, we both couldn't wait to get out of there. We went back to the hotel to change into comfortable clothing and then went walking around. We had only two goals for the day. One was to get in a lot of sightseeing. The other was to find some items we needed: bottled water, disposable razors, and a phone card. Since we had only carry-on luggage for this trip, we were not allowed to bring any razors with us. We also had thus far had much difficulty in finding bottled water. We found water but it was mineral water and was fizzy. Charlie no likey. Mineral water is like a flavorless Sprite. Yuck. The phone card was for calling home to say hi.
We found the phone card easily enough but the first few tries we couldn't get it to work. Kind of a trial-and-error sort of thing with numbers, PINs, and country codes. We had lunch at a pizza and kebabs place that was packed with teenagers. Couldn't find a seat. I had beer and doner kebab. Ahu had Diet Coke and doner kebab. While we were standing there waiting for our food, one of the guys who was working there asked these two teenage girls to make room at their table for us to sit. Imagine a table with 4 chairs in the United States. You and a friend are taking up two chairs. Now a waiter comes up and asks you if two people you don't know can join your table. Wouldn't happen. Over here, whatever it takes to get everyone a seat. That was the way is was in Australia too. Americans must really value that personal space.
After lunch we went looking for a teahouse called Alte Teestube which is the only teahouse in Tyrol. It has been around since 1978 and is run by an expert in teas. They have over 70 kinds of tea for sale imported from India, China, Kenya, Indonesia, Russia, and Japan. Ahu and I had a Sacher torte and two cups of Darjeeling First Flush, a very rare tea from India. The tea was excellent but the torte was not all that good.
Then we went to Dom zu St. Jakob (Cathedral of St. James). The church dates back to the early 1700s and has a beautiful Baroque interior. Apparently it was heavily damaged in World War II but I couldn't see where anything was amiss. There was an amazing pipe organ in the back. The chief treasure of this church is the Maria Hilf (Mary of Succor) painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder. Admission was free and the church is open from 6:30am until 6pm.
We stopped to take more pictures of the Goldenes Dachl (Golden Roof). The Golden Roof is supposedly the most popular landmark in Innsbruck. There are 2,657 gold-plated tiles composing the roof. The roof covers a balcony where Maximilian I would watch tournaments in the square below. The roof was completed at the beginning of the 16th century.
We then went to the Stadtturm (City Tower). A small fee gets you into this tower where you climb 148 steps to the top. The top of the tower used to be a prison cell but once you get there you can climb through an old window out on to a narrow balcony that goes around the outside of the tower. I took a lot of pictures from the balcony. I even got a few shots of a Tyrolean Airlines plane landing. It passed right by us, close enough that we could read the name of the airline off of the plane. And to think that was us the day before.
Heading up the street we found the Hofburg, the 15th-century imperial palace of Emperor Maximilian I. The structure has 4 stories and a two-story hall painted in white and gold and filled with the portraits of Hapsburgs. We wandered through the museum taking pictures along the way. It was quite difficult to get good pictures as flash photography was not allowed and it was very dim inside. On top of that, I had no tripod and so I had to hold very still to get a good shot. Nonetheless, I got quite a few good pictures of paintings and rooms as we made our way around the palace. There was a very interesting portrait of Marie Antoinette who I believe is the Hapsburg that was married off to Louis XVI (?) in France and who is attributed to the “let them eat cake” statement. The portrait says she died in 1793 so it could be her.
After the Hofburg we went back to the hotel. We took an hour nap and then Ahu worked on her Devry stuff. Even over here she still has to go online and grade assignments and other work. After she finished we went out again looking for water and razors. Unfortunately it was around 7pm and everything was closed again. We did manage to find a wasser haus (water store) which sold only bottled water, lots of different kinds of bottled waters. We bought two bottles of Wattwiller and went back to the hotel to put them in the mini-bar to get cold. Then we went to dinner at the Restaurant Goldener Adler.
This restaurant serves hearty, cold-weather fare and Ahu and I both ordered solid meat dishes. Ahu ordered lamb with red wine sauce and potato croquets. I had a beef filet with pepper sauce and potato croquets and a salad. Ahu had a Zipfer and I had a large Kaiser beer. The beer I had seems to have had a higher alcohol content that usual as I was buzzing along quite well with only a few drinks. When I finished that I also had a dark malt beer to finish. Ahu ended her meal with an Austrian cheese plate and I finished up with vanilla ice cream wrapped in a crepe and drizzled with chocolate sauce.
We then came home and went promptly to sleep. However I am once again sleepless and am writing this at about 3am Austria time.