Unlike Golf, We Had A Good Walk NOT Spoiled

The title of the post refers to someone's famous definition of golf as "A good walk spoiled."

You can tell it's an ancient definition, because if I ever saw a golfer actually WALK the course, I think I'd have a heart attack. Not to mention the fact that THEY would have a heart attack from the expenditure of effort. These days they drive around in golf carts, swilling hootch.

But fuck that and them, because B and I had a great walk here, through the neighborhood.

Her neighborhood is filled with Heurige...wine taverns. Many were closed, however, and I noticed the traffic through the neighborhood was almost non-existent, very unusual for a Saturday night.

It was dark and still and very quiet, and the orange glow of the street lights on the wet pavement made everything extra surreal-seeming. We found one Heuriger that was open, but for a private party only...people had already gathered, some of them in an inner patio, huddled around a fire, smiling and drinking mulled wine.

However, we found another Heuriger just a block or so away and sat among the locals enjoying our drinks, B a nice house white and me a Glühwein, which comes in a coffee cup. It's heated red wine with a teabag containing spices. Good stuff for a winter night walk through the 'hood...

We wandered around a bit more, making our way to Fidelio. There I had a fantastic Parmesan Prosciutto Creme soup. Un.Be.Lievable! B had a broth, and the waitress treated us afterwards to a pear liquor aperitif. On the house.

Beethoven lived around here. This neighborhood is very old, and in fact was once a separate village, Nussdorf, which later got incorporated into Vienna. It's the place I'm most familiar with in Vienna, a place I walk almost every day. I have a little ritual on weekdays, walking down to the bakery for some bread, to the Trafik for B's daily newspaper or a pack of smokes, then back again...past the pensioners walking their dogs, past the little kids on the way to school, past the frantic drivers zipping through the narrow cobblestone streets on their way to some nameless nothing.

Back at the house, we ate the spinach quiche B had prepared earlier. I slept, still carrying the residual effects of the sleeping pills and the booze, I guess. Time gets out of whack, me brothers and sisters, but that's what happens when you transport yourself Elsewhere.