Day 1755. Today was the last piano class before their concert tomorrow. At first we were all gonna go there, but it was just more practical for Sammy and me to stay home. They preferred eating spaghetti to going to McDonald's, so I cooked them spaghetti, while they were in class. I would have liked to hear them play their songs for the concert for their teacher again, but I knew they'd do well. Sammy and I were having a good time, and once the others returned, we sat down to eat.
It was unusual for me to have a student on Saturday, and especially as early as 1 pm. And on top of that, it was a new student. I taught for an hour, then we got ready to leave the house. There was a summer event that had started at 10 am, and it was really not that far from us, in the national park we have in Vienna that is in our neighborhood. Still, in the four years of living here, we'd never gone there before. It was about time. We got on the subway, rode it for one stop, then got on a bus that took us there. After we got off the bus, we still had to walk a little until we got to the main building that was the entrance.
It was more of a teaching event than a fun event, but it wasn't bad that they learned some stuff about nature. We got there just before 3 pm, and at 3 pm a performance was starting, so we headed to the theater in the back. We really didn't know what to expect. Two ladies ended up doing a play that taught them everything there is to know about bats. It was well done for kids, but maybe a little too boring for 4-year-olds. However, our kids listened carefully anyway. It was a very hot day, and we were sitting in the sun. Randy then took Sammy to the shade. After the play was over, the kids could come up front and touch the puppet bat and mosquito. Only Sammy was a little fearful.
It was time to explore the stations they had set up. They had a paper with questions to answer or just stamps they could receive at a station. At the first one we walked up to, they had models of the skulls of different animals, a picture of bats sleeping in a huddle and a real, stuffed bat. The kids looked and listened to what the ladies were saying. They also had cards that they put together in different combinations, showing them the many names of different kinds of bats.
We walked on to the next station, where everything was about butterflies, but didn't stay long. The third station was a crafts one, which excited the kids. They got to fold paper to make a butterfly. The lady showed it step by step, and I made one and helped Tammy and Emmy how to fold theirs, effectively me making three butterflies, which the lady in charge noticed. Then we walked to the next station, where they got to make their own picture frames out of sticks and string, then hung their butterflies on them. Again, I was the one doing most of the work. Randy was busy with Sammy the whole time, as he was bored and not happy.
It was nearly 4 pm and time to head to the next performance, this time in a different place. The benches were mostly in the bright sun. We sat down, and then the park ranger started his presentation. It was all about butterflies. When he needed volunteers, Tammy raised her hand, so she became one of a bunch of kids. Each one of them received a picture to hold up. Everyone in the audience was supposed to match the caterpillar with the butterfly. I started walking around to get different angles for my pictures. Randy had taken Sammy to the swing, which was much more interesting to him.
Before the presentation was over, we all left there, as it was a little too boring for four-year-olds. We saw the stuffed animals and headed there. The kids were allowed to touch them all. The ranger asked Tammy which animals were soft and which weren't and was surprised, when Tammy called the beaver soft.
Leaving there, the kids headed to playground and went up the path to the slide that they went down on. But it was so hot, that I was ready to move on. There was an entrance to the woods right there, and I wanted to go into it to check it out. It was so much cooler, when we walked in. We saw mushrooms growing right away, and we walked down a small brush into the woods a little bit, but soon came back out. There wasn't much more to it, so we turned around. The kids wanted to go down the slide one more time, while we were ready to go home. Then they saw these slices of a trunk on the ground, which was obviously a game, as there were also big dice to throw. The kids immediately started playing that game. They threw the dice, then moved as many spots forward as was on the die.
After they were done there, we finally headed to the exit and had to go through the main building again. The kids were again looking at all the boards on the wall, and Sammy was especially interested in all the noises of animals you could hear at the one board. Then we finally left for good.
We walked back to the bus stop, but the kids wanted to see the river, the Danube, right there, so we crossed the street and walked up to the riverfront. There were actually some people in the water. We looked for a few minutes, then turned around and walked to the bus stop. We rode the bus back to the subway, but before we got on the subway, we decided to try out the new icecream shop right there. In fact, the whole building was only recently completed. That icecream shop is now the closest to our house. We got some icecream and sat down on the long bench right there to eat it. It was good. Then we got on the subway to ride the one stop home.
I was glad to be home, as I was pretty tired. It was 5:30 pm, so I did not have much time until starting to make their dinner, which is the beginning of our evening routine.
