Neither of us slept well, and we woke up for the last time around 08:00, Justin a little before and Crystal a little after.  We didn’t have much on the to-do list for today, as we figured pretty much everything would be closed or would close early, so we decided to do some diligence for our departure.  Our first stop was going to a COVID testing spot nearby that Crystal had seen.  They told us that they’d be open tomorrow, and that we didn’t need to make a reservation.  Then we walked over to the Wien Mitte station to confirm the train to the airport was running really early on the morning of 26th, and it was.  On the way out of the station we grabbed one of the fried spiral potato things to enjoy on our walk.

Since we were already in the area, we walked over to the Hundertwasserhaus nearby.  The building is sort of Gaudí-ish, with a mish-mash of differing materials, designs, colors all together.  There was a “village” next door with a shopping area, and there was a bar in there that was empty, so we got a Christmas punch, an apfelstrudel, and a sachertorte.  Since Pisco Latinbar wasn’t going to happen, we thought maybe we could at least enjoy Qero, a Peruvian restaurant in the northern part of the ring, near where we stayed in 2019.  To get there from where we were, all we had to do was get on Tram 1, which had a station right by us and also a station at Börse, right near Qero.  

But it was not to be, as Qero was closed, which wasn’t a shocker, but was still a bit of a bummer.  Both the Christmas markets we’d seen last night were closed as well, so we couldn’t check out either of them.  So we just kept walking southeast, and we ended up at Pfudl, which Justin thankfully remembered how to get to, since we didn’t know/remember the name.  But he vaguely remembered it was just a little southeast of Figlmuller Backerstrasse, and sure enough he remembered correctly.

We got there right at noon, and there were hardly any people in the restaurant yet, so we got a table right near where we’d eaten before.  Crystal ordered a veal goulash and Justin ordered the duck special.  A couple tables over a family sat down and we could hear them speaking English, Spanish, and German interchangeably.  This gave us hope for our future.  When they left they wished us “Merry Christmas” and we wished them “Feliz Navidad a ustedes.”  We left ourselves around 13:30.

From Pfudl we went straight to Kleinod, as we didn’t want to miss out for the second day in a row.  It was pretty full, but we were able to nab the last two seats at the bar.  For the first round we ordered a Lemongrass passion (above right photo), which contained vodka, lemongrass, passion fruit, and some other stuff.  It was quite good.  The bar had an interesting vibe to it.  All of the bartenders were wearing untucked dress shirts and undone bow ties, and the music was from the Rat Pack.  In the restroom Crystal noted a sign for an “Angel Shot” - women could order that if they felt uncomfortable and that was code for the bartenders to help them out.  We got multiple rounds, we’re not sure how many.  We also got several rounds of shots that came from either the bartenders or other patrons.  We don’t know how many of those either.  

At some point we started to wonder if this was the longest amount of time we’d been in the same seats at a bar.  We guessed the most likely candidates were Jimani (in New Orleans) or Jakes (in Del Mar).  Today we were in the same seats for close to 5 hours.  Right before we left we ordered a round of maracuya sours for the staff, and then we took a (thankfully) short walk over to Zum Kellergwolb for dinner.  Fortunately they weren’t full, and us being a few minutes late was not problematic.  Crystal got kasespatzle and Justin got chicken schnitzel.  We split a bottle of wine and multiple bottles of water - thanks to Crystal for having the good sense to do that.  When we were done it seemed really late, but we were back home around 20:00.  We went straight to sleep, and it was definitely for the best.