Sunday, August 30, 2009

Sunday

I'm leaving here tomorrow morning, very early.

Vienna to Frankfurt. Frankfurt to DC. DC to the Other Dimension.

There's a lot going on in the Other Dimension and my brain will be busy with it for a few months.

But with any luck, next time I come back here (lucky visit #13?) I can stay for months at a time if I want, instead of just a few weeks.

















ABOVE: I took this photo from the balcony yesterday morning during a gentle rain.The picture itself isn't much...but for me it's a great reminder of home, because that's what this place has been to me, off and on, for six years now.

















ABOVE: I took this picture last week in Vienna's Central Cemetery. Sooner or later we all end up in a place like this, or some equivilent thereof. That much is certain. The question for me isn't what to do after I'm dead, but what to do before I'm dead, and to keep from being dead while I'm still alive.

















See you next time, from Vienna.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Saturday

We went here and saw this:



Now then: I am a former Catholic schoolboy (and briefly, a goddamned altar boy!) who in his adult years giveth not a shiteth for anything religious. But I have to give credit, these dudes can chant.

We didn't witness this exact kind of chant, but instead a more pedestrian type of chanted prayer. I wish I could have gotten a pic of my favorite monk, an old guy with a ZZ TOP-length beard. Coolest. Monk. EVER.

This monastery claims to have a piece of the actual cross Jesus spent time hanging around on, but I dunno. Most of these claims you have to take with a grain of salt. On ANTIQUES ROADSHOW they tell you it pays to have documentation to back up your claims of having a famous bit of junk, and if you ain't got the paperwork, then the default assumption is: BOGUS. Still. Neat place to see on a rainy Austrian afternoon.

LEFT: If you're a monk and you die in this monastery, this is where you lie in state.

Check out the cool skeleton candelabras! Every punk-rocker and metal-head's dream bedroom.

B, who knows all the differences between architecture of various eras, says that this is the "grotesque baroque" style.

Grotesque, sure enough.


BELOW: After monks are through lying around in the grotesque baroque room, they lie around here.


















We drove home, hung out a while, then drove into town to watch INGLORIOUS BASTERDS.

I don't know what to think of Quentin Tarantino, really. Every time I've seen him interviewed on TV, I wanted to jump through the screen and kick him as hard as I can in the nuts. The guy seems wired at all times, excited (or coked up out of his skull) about the latest turd he shit out, but on the other hand I have to give him credit for writing some pretty good stuff.

Like a lot of people who have never had their asses kicked really hard, Tarantino seems a bit too enamored of violence. He just goes over the top with it.

Still. B says nobody ever portrayed the Germans more accurately than Tarantino, and I give him a lot of credit for using real-life German (and Austrian!) actors who really know their stuff both as actors and bi- or even tri-lingual speakers. Very nicely done.

There were some Italians in the theater and they laughed hard when Brad Pitt's character, who claimed to "speak some I-talian" "spoke" it in the most atrocious Tennessee accent. I give Brad credit---he plays the comic scenes pretty well.

The Austrian who played the SS colonel, Christoph Waltz, said Tarantino revived his career, and Waltz deserves an Oscar if anyone does. He really did well, speaking not only excellent German (as you'd expect) but also English and French. B (who speaks French also) says his French was pretty good. The fucking guy even spoke some Italian in the film. He ought to win an Oscar just for knowing how to speak more than one language!

All in all, I give it an 8.5 out of 10.

BTW, it was strange sitting directly behind an elderly couple who surely were old enough to remember WWII----the lady cringed at the violent parts, but that was about it. If they spent the war in Vienna (or anywhere else in Europe) then I give them credit for being able to sit through the film. A Tarantino romp through Hitler's exploits is one thing, but actually living through it is another. Wish I could have talked to them about it...

Friday

We like to eat breakfast on the balcony. It's a small balcony, and crowded with plants, but last year we installed a little folding table to replace the old freestanding unit. Gave us a little more legroom.

ABOVE: breakfast. Open face sandwiches, mine with anchovies and olive spread, AND chorizo. Fresh tomatoes from the garden.


















ABOVE:
Running errands, we came upon this interesting building. Persian influence in the architecture. Note the colorful tiles running up alongside the door.

Some research showed that this building was constructed in 1888 as a factory to manufacture powdered insect repellant. The insecticide was made from plants imported from northern Iran (Persia).














ABOVE: Here's what it looked like around the time it was built.



Then we ran some more errands, ending up at the Naschmarkt. Got some delicious cheese at Kaseland and as far as I'm concerned, this is the place to buy cheese in Vienna. My favorite was a peccorino. The guy said he searched far and wide before finding a source for this cheese; the stuff is aged 3 years, etc.

The building above is Gasthaus zur Eisernen Zeit, a tiny restaurant in the Naschmarkt known for its excellent gulasch---a beef stew made with lots of paprika. B has been wanting to take me there for a while.


















ABOVE:
Interior of the Gasthaus zur Eisernen Zeit.















Bold

ABOVE: Exhibit A---the best gulasch in Vienna!




Later in the evening we drove up into the vineyards to Hajszan, the heurige I mentioned in a previous post.

B took this shot of a guy sitting in one of the wicker gondolas scattered here and there on the property; people bring their kids and dogs here and enjoy the sunset while the kids play nearby and the dogs lay around being dogs.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Vienna Odds and Ends

Here's a great source of short videos showing various parts of Vienna. They're very nicely produced. Take a look at what goes on here!

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Some of the differences I notice here I can chalk up to the differences between Europe and America, and some of them are just the differences you'd find between small or medium sized cities and large cities. New York City probably has a lot more in common with Vienna than it does with OKC, for instance.

----

As regards transportation: Vienna has an excellent public transportation system. B says other cities in Europe are better, but when you have nothing (like, say, OKC) anything looks good. You can get around pretty easily by bus, tram, or subway. You can buy different kinds of passes, including a year-long pass....which is a lot cheaper than owning and operating a car for a year. If I lived here, I wouldn't own a car, a motorcycle, or a scooter. Maybe a bicycle, and get one of the yearly public transportation passes.

About half of the cars have diesel engines.

I've seen some street-legal 4-wheel vehicles of the kind farmers and hunters use in the US.

Pickup trucks: In 12 visits over more than 6 years, I think I've seen ONE pickup truck. There are small trucks here, but they tend to be van-like, or panel truck-like. I've literally seen more Ferraris in any ONE visit than pickup trucks in all 12 visits!

----

Food: I write too much about food, but I like to eat. WTF. And there's a great variety here. I don't always eat healthy food, but mostly I do, and you can sure get that here.

You can also get world-class chocolate and pastries and ice cream. Good thing I don't have a sweet tooth, or I'd be fatter than I am now and have no teeth. Vienna is a kind of paradise for people who like desert, but me, I just don't mess with it.

Wine and beer? FUHGEDDABOUTIT! You can pay a lot for wine but there's no reason to. The local stuff sold in the Heurigen is just fine and very inexpensive.

----

Breasts:

It's summer, with the resulting sheer clothing. One of the most noticeable things about Vienna, (maybe Europe in general, I don't know) is the almost complete lack of breast implants. Which I find refreshing. Whoever got the idea that a plastic bag filled with silicone or saline bears any resemblence whatsoever to a real-life breast was fooling himself. Or herself, as the case may be.

I've noticed that the type of women who get breast implants are the exact same type of women who would never date a man who wears a toupee. Go figure.

---

Culture:

The other night on the news, they said Vienna spends 200 million Euro a year on cultural events. That's about $280,000,000. But they figure they get most of that back in revenue from tourism, tourism which results in large part because of the wonderful cultural events they have here---many of which costs visitors nothing.

I'm trying to imagine if the entire state of Oklahoma spends $2 million on cultural events.

Henry Miller said, way back in the 1930's, that America doesn't respect its artists. He moved to France, where he spent 10 very productive years. WWII put an end to his fun in Paris.

If you read Miller's AIR CONDITIONED NIGHTMARE, published in 1945, and look at the America of 2009, I wonder if you'd see a difference. For the better, I mean.

Thursday Activities

The bottom floor of this building houses the Cafe Rüdigerhof.

Imagine a doubling of all the things that make OKC's Red Cup such a cool place, and you'll come close to Cafe Rüdigerhof. Same sort of freakazoid customers, only more of them. Bigger place. Nicer outdoor setting (the trees to the left of this photo shade the patio area, where we sat last night for many hours with our friend Klausi.)

You can get all the different kinds of coffee you want. Tea. Alcohol! (I cannot for the life of me figure out why coffee houses in OKC don't also serve hootch. WTF?)

And, unlike OKC where they roll up the goddamned sidewalks about 9 or 10 every night, this place stays open late.



This is a pic I downloaded from Flickr.

It shows the patio area, the part you can't see in my pic above.

This shot was taken very early in the morning, but imagine this place on a warm August night, the patio filled with people.

Klausi is a regular at the Cafe Rüdigerhof, such to the extent that he even has a drink named after him: Klausigeschpritzer, which is 1/8 liter of white wine and about 1/4 liter of mineral water. It's more refreshing than something you'd drink if you want to get wasted, which makes it perfect for an evening at one of Vienna's coolest gathering spots.

Earlier in the day, we'd intended to visit a nearby famous monastery where the chanting monks once produced a record that was a big best-seller. But the car had a flat, and as is often the case, the spare was flat, too. The Austrian version of AAA came to our rescue but by that time it was too late to visit the monastery. Maybe later in the week.

In the afternoon we met B's parents and her sister at a Heurige (wine tavern) for lunch and conversation. It was kind of steamy outside, though we were sitting in the shade.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

John X Wins Dumbass of the Month Award


Several years ago my friend Electric Patti and I drove down to Ft. Worth to have her tattoo re-inked. (Couldn't do it in Oklahoma because it was illegal then.)

When we got there, I found an ATM so I could get some cash and guess what? Somebody had left $ behind! I think it was $20. So, later, I spent the poor bastard's forgotten money on beer for Patti and me.

Fast forward in time and in Cosmic Consequences, and your humble blogger is trying to get some Euros out of a Euro-ATM. The machines work differently here, though. You insert your card, which gets swallowed by the machine. Then you enter your PIN, tell the machine how much money you want, it processes it, spits your card out, then comes the money.

But I forgot all this, not having been here since February...and that forgetfulness bit me in the ass.

First attempt: The machine told me I was asking for too much money---evidently my bank has a limit, no matter how much I may have in my account. Transaction cancelled.

So on the second attempt with a lesser amount, things were going better but then the machine said: Please take your card. It spit out the card and I thought, shit---rejected again. How come this isn't working??? I walked off in a huff....

Later in the week I found another machine. Insert card, enter PIN, ask for money, card gets spit out, money follows. It worked.

And I had a sudden thought: What if, the other day, the second attempt worked and I walked off before the machine spit out the money???

This happened on a weekend so it took my bank until Monday to post the transactions----which showed, sure enough, that John X drank the motherfucking Karmic Kool-Aid and left a crisp new 100 Euro bill in the machine. At the current exchange rate, that means I flushed about $143.00 down the Toilet of Overdue Paybacks.

And now some other lucky guy or gal is spending the money.

I nominated myself for the Dumbass of the Month Award based on this stupidity.

Then I accepted the nomination, then I voted myself the winner.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Tuesday Day Trip: Lower Austria & Czech Republic

Yesterday, B had a plan: today we'd drive up (!) to Lower Austria (which is east of Upper Austria, to furthur confuse matters) and go from there into the Czech Republic to drive around the Moravia region and see the sights.

Joining us in this adventure: Franz, our friend. Unlike a lot of people who on short notice would never manage to show up the next morning, Franz not only agreed last night to join us but also rode his bicycle across town so we wouldn't have to meet him at the subway station.

We took off about 9 AM and headed first through some beautiful countryside to the town of Raabs an der Thaya, a small town of about 3000 people on the Thaya River.

Driving into town we saw some manniquens placed here and there.

















ABOVE: This fine young Aryan specimen is annoyed that I caught him trying to cop a feel.


While B amused herself at an exhibition detailing the many problems between the Czechs and Austrians in this border region, Franz and I strolled around, more concerned with seeing the sights than experiencing a rehash of geopolitics and tribalism.


















ABOVE: The castle, the oldest part of which dates from the 11th Century. Did we go inside? Nope. It was closed, naturally.


From there we drove into the Czech Republic. The Moravian countryside was unbelievably bucolic. It reminded me somewhat of the wine growing region of northern California, without the grapevines. Gently rolling hills, mostly farmland, tractors in the fields plowing or mowing hay. Sometimes you'd come across a car parked beneath a tree, the people happily sitting there having a picnic. The skies were blue and cloudless and the temps were in the low to mid 80s, so there wasn't anything not to like.

I was sitting in the back seat so I couldn't really get any good pics of this as we drove from village to village on our way to Telc, our next stop. It was so beautiful, this countryside, that I tried to find pictures on Flickr to share with you but decided to hell with it. Check it out for yourself if you want.

But I did get a lot of pics of Telc, including the famous town square, below.
































ABOVE: The view of the town square from our restaurant table.


There was another exhibit B wanted to see, maybe, so she went there while Franz and I wandered around. Twenty years ago, according to B, the towns in the former East Bloc countries were badly in need of renovation and upgrades. There's been a lot of progress and the place is really coming along, though Franz and I did see some crumbling buildings and a lot of others that weren't crumbling but which were really in need of a coat of paint.

I'm used to hearing German but not Czech, and it's strange wandering around listening to people talk and not understanding a single word they say---not even "no" or "yes." I've mentioned before that written Czech looks like a bowl of alphabet soup, minus most of the vowels, that somebody threw up against a wall. Whatever combination of letters appeared, that's Czech.

















ABOVE: The Armageddon Restaurant. Hope you enjoy your meal.


Turns out B didn't want to see the exhibit after all, so she called us and we met back at the town square, Franz and I having enjoyed watching the Czech people go about their daily business.

B wanted to show us what she'd discovered, namely this:

















ABOVE: The big-ass castle of Telc


For more pics of the place (which really was quite beautiful) try this link to a virtual tour.

Oh----without going into a lot of detail, lunch was delicious and very reasonably priced, given the exchange rate of about 25 Czech crowns to the Euro. A good bowl of soup was about $1.40, for instance. Later in our trip we sat down at a place for drinks----I had a small beer, B had a mineral water, and Franz had a coffee. Total was about $3.

Final stop on the tour: Znojmo. (And zno, I don't know how the fuck you'd begin to pronounce it.)


















ABOVE: Here's a beautiful church.
Note the little chapel on the right. If you walk all the way over there and then point your camera more or less back to this vantage point, you see the pics below:
































BELOW:
I would be the coolest dude in all of Oklahoma if my house looked like the top of this tower.























BELOW:
The town square in the unpronounceable city of Znojmo, Czech Republic. We sat down for drinks there and spent about $3 for all three of us----thank you, advantageous exchange rate!


















From Znojmo, it's about an hour's drive back to Vienna if you don't get stuck behind slow moving trucks or tractors.

All in all, a beautiful day with my Girlfriend Unit and Franz, and I thank her for setting it up.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Sunday: A Walk Through The Woods and Vineyards

We took a walk into the woods. From B's neighborhood, it's within easy walking distance.

Once there, you can wander the trails for hours if you want, covering many miles.

Along the path we saw three Muslim women up ahead. Two were on our right, kneeling in prayer just off the path. The third was sitting on a bench across from them on the left side of the path, reading something----probably not FEAR OF FLYING.

So the praying women bowed up and down and prayed as we passed them and I thought: "Hey, Mecca ain't that way, it's the other way!" But since you can connect any two points on a globe with a curved line, I guess it doesn't make a shit one way or the other. Face any way you want, draw a line from your head to Mecca, and it connects.





















ABOVE: We came to this old tower. It cost 50 cents to climb the 100 steps to the top and when you get up there, you see this, below (click on pics to enlarge them):


















By the way, this view of Vienna is approximately to the south. On the other side of the trees are vineyards, and where the vineyards end, B's neighborhood begins. The river to the left is the Danube.

After a bit we came to a nice restaurant where we had lunch, along with about a hundred other happy people sitting outside enjoying themselves. Then back on the trail, and eventually we emerged from the woods and came upon a Heuriger set up in the vineyards, as many of them are. We sat outside, thus:

















In a way I pitied these poor bastards, sitting outside in the Austrian sun, the vineyards and Vienna spread below them as they enjoyed good wine and conversation in the perfect weather. I know each of them in their hearts wished they were in Moore, Oklahoma, driving around looking for the WalMart. And who, really, can blame them?

And turning my camera 180 degrees the other way, I saw this:





















Click the pic to enlarge and you'll see the nice little monastery on the hill in the background.

A nice glass of white wine and some snacks, then the walk through the vineyards, downhill toward B's neighborhood.

















ABOVE: Almost home


















ABOVE: The butterflies had a good day, too.

And for dinner, to round out the evening, B made this:





















ABOVE: Fresh cherry tomatoes from the garden, buffalo mozzarella, and fresh basil, topped with salt and pepper and a bit of good olive oil. A decent but very inexpensive white wine, and some good bread.

Saturday

The order of things today:

1) Laid around the house until about 1
2) Went out for groceries and computer gear
3) Drove into town to see a gathering of vintage VW Beetles and Vespa scooters

















ABOVE: This was a cherry VW Beetle. Vintage unknown.


















ABOVE: Most of these scooters weren't vintage, but the white one in the foreground, lower right, was. I'm not sure of the make or model.



















ABOVE: After it started raining and the Beetle / scooter show broke up, we found a Wurstel stand where we each had one of these----currywurst. A semi-sweet red sauce with curry and it was almost too hot for me. Which is hot, because I can take the heat, boy!
Junk food at its junkiest.

















ABOVE: This is a portion of the Museumquartier, the Museum Quarter. World-class stuff to see here.


The yellow things in the background are metal "chairs" or "recliners" of sorts. In nicer weather you'll see people sitting or laying in them, reading or sketching or taking pictures or conversing...sometimes sleeping. They're painted a different color every year.

We saw an exhibit at the Architekturzentrum Wien (Vienna Architecture Center) called "Ich wohne, bis ich 100 bin."

The idea was, you walk through a mock house with different rooms and fill out a questionairre you carry with you that asks you to consider what sort of living conditions you'd want when you finally reach geezerhood. Do you want help 24-7 or do you want to be as independent as possible right up to the end? Etc. I felt kind of uncomfortable thinking about it, to tell the truth----I'll feel lucky if I 1) get to take an early retirement in the next two years, no matter how horrible the shitty pension, and 2) live another ten years in relative good health. After that, the fucking worms can eat me. I figure if I get the good ten years, I'll have spent a sixth of my life doing exactly what I want to do, which is better than a lot of people get. Then me and Mr. Death can fly off to his place for a beer. As long as he's buying, that is.

It was raining most of the afternoon and evening. We met some friends for dinner at Lux, which is a pretty cool restaurant.

Click on the link to see pics of the place. The first pic at the top is what I saw from my table. The second pic, below it, is what I saw behind my table....a courtyard surrounded by buildings that went up about 4 or 5 floors. The door to the courtyard was open and it was raining gently, which meant a nice breeze wafted in...kind of magical, what with the sound of the rain.

The patio where we were eating was originally outside but had been covered by a roof made of glass, which you can see in the pic. All in all a very cool place...and the prices were reasonable. I think my drink and dinner cost about $20, and I could have gotten away for less.

Click on the link called SPEISENKARTE to see the menu. I won't bother translating it for you---Google can do that. But note the prices. 1 Euro is about $1.40, 10 Euro is about $14. If you're like Einstein you can continue in this way, up to INFINITY Euros.

Also note that they stay open really late----unlike restaurants in Oklahoma, most of which have never see a customer past 10.

After we said goodbye to our friends, B took me to the Rathaus (city hall) to give me a taste of the free outdoor film festival that goes on there for about a month. FREE film festival, I should say. You just show up and start watching! Farther away from the screen are plenty of food stands where you can get anything you want to eat or drink....or you can bring your own and enjoy that.

We didn't stay long...we were tired from our day, and it had been raining and looked like it would rain again. Depsite the rain the films were relatively well-attended, and the food stands were doing a healthy business.

Check the previous post if you want to see what it's like to walk through this place...kind of ethereal, really, especially on a rainy Vienna summer night.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Rainy Night In Vienna

I shot a little video of some of tonight's action, entitled Never In Oklahoma, EVER

Unedited, raw footage, just us walking along.

Something you'll never see in Oklahoma, even if you live to be a million billion trillion years old.

Never In Oklahoma, EVER from John X on Vimeo.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Rax



Got away from Vienna today.

Look at the image to the left (click to enlarge it, or any of the pics) and in the upper right corner you'll see WIEN. That's Vienna. Then you'll see the yellow part. That's where we went, into the beginning of the Alps, to an area known as Rax.

It was sunny and hot and we were ready for some high altitude. It took about 75 minutes to drive to this area from Vienna and then we had to take a cable car (the Raxseilbahn) up the mountain...not for those inclined to soil themselves due to fear of heights. I took no pictures of this but believe me, it's a very steep climb and a long drop to the mountain if the cable fails. It's a 2 kilometer ride and, I have to say, pretty enjoyable.

It was still kind of hot atop the mountain but off we went. The altitude didn't bother me as much as the heat, but there were plenty of distractions...namely the fantastic alpine meadows and flowers, and the surrounding mountains.


















ABOVE: Not Oklahoma, but it will do.






















ABOVE: These were everywhere.


















ABOVE:Ladies and gentlemen, the world famous Edelweiss.


















ABOVE: This little blue flower was my favorite. It's only about the size of a nickel!






















ABOVE: You're starting to get the idea. Alpine flowers.





















ABOVE: A guy climbing. What the picture doesn't show is the 200-foot drop. So rope in, or be the world's best free-soloist.


















ABOVE: Here's the approach to a hotel-restaurant.

You need good legs up here, and decent lungs. It's only about 6000 feet, but still. The going is rocky, even on the paths, and if you're smart you don't rush things.

We had a drink here, then walk further up the mountain (!) and found a place on the trail to eat our picnic lunch.

By then it had started to cool down a bit...clouds were rolling in and people were starting to head back down the mountain. We did the same.

















ABOVE: What you see if you get high enough.


On the way home we took a picturesque route through some pretty little villages along the Schwarza River. Very bucolic, but no pics, sorry.

Got back to Vienna, stopped at the store for some beer, then home and dinner. I'll spare you the details----there's probably been more than enough mention of food in this blog!

The rain is supposed to come tomorrow, and we will probably take it easy in town, go to some museum or happening or something.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

What Happened Thursday

I left the house about 10:30. My mission: roam around, try to buy some hiking sandals that don't cost a fortune (difficult in Vienna, I assure you) then rendevous with B at her parent's house later in the afternoon.

Took the tram to the center of town. I love riding the tram. They're powered by overhead electrical lines and so are relatively quiet, and the automated recorded voice of some guy announces the stops as each one comes up. The same guy recorded all the tapes for all the public transportation in Vienna, and I've gotten pretty good at imitating his somewhat metallic, robotic cadence. Much to B's annoyance.

I followed my nose. Wound up at the Nachmarkt. I was looking for the place where I bought Absinthe a couple of visits ago, but couldn't find it and was eager to get to Mariahilfestrasse to find the fucking sandals, so didn't spend too much time in search of liquid dreams.

When I got there, the sidewalks were packed as usual with all kinds of people. You name it, I saw it---punks, old people who could barely walk, rich people, the whole stew of humanity wandering the place looking for something to spend their money on. I found a discount shoe place, and actually found some trekking sandals for about $30 I could live with---until I opened the box and discovered there were two right sandals in there, not the usual one left and one right.

I approached a clerk about this who (in German of course) tried to tell me this was OK. Maybe, if it had been two LEFT feet (John don't dance, but his boxing footwork ain't bad, it must be said. So go figure.) So I said fuck it, put the box back, and roamed off in search of another pair of sandals. Which I didn't find, of course.

Took the subway to Simmering, where B was raised and where her folks still live. (In fact her mother was actually BORN in the house where she's lived her entire 80 years.)

They took us to a late lunch at a place located in the Böhmischer Prater, a kind of old-fashioned working class amusement park. But! The restaurant, the name of which escapes me, served pretty good food like this:

















and this:

















And after eating this stuff, I felt like this:



So when we got back to B's parents' place, I took a nap.

Here's the deal about naps: I never take them at home because there's always something to do, and because of my fucked-up work schedule. It's quite refreshing to just go along with what your body wants to do---if you're hungry, you eat, if you're sleepy, you sleep. And that's what should happen on vacation...and, truth be told, in life.

When I woke up, B and I went outside to pick tomatoes. She planted them this year at her parents' place and the things went absolutely wild, unlike my crop which failed miserably.

Her plants are very tall, over six feet, and yield like crazy. Here's a pic, and it's a bit deceptive because it doesn't really show the sheer volume of fruit picked. That's a deep vegetable storage bin in the fridge, so imagine several deep inches of tomatoes:


















Then we drove to the AKH complex to meet our friend Vivian for dinner and drinks.

The AKH is an old hospital which has been converted into a branch of the University of Vienna. Adjoining the building are green spaces, and restaurants have sprung up around the AKH, and it was at the Stiegl Ambulanz where we met Vivian, sitting outdoors in a nice crowd of people who were really enjoying the nice summer evening. (If you click on the link, go to where it says zur 3d tour and click that link to get a panoramic view of the wonderful outdoor garden.)

I ate this:

















This is a goulash of chanterelles, (wild mushrooms) and dumplings made of pretzels!

It was very tasty, especially with a couple of beers.

Tomorrow, we might go into the mountains before the rain comes on Saturday.

I'm thinking of my pal Howard, and how much he would enjoy the mountains. He's a true mountain man who has made climbs with primitive equipment that would curl your hair. Accounts of his climb of The Wedge in NM curled my hair, back when I had some.

I also think of my friends Will and Electric Patti and Maureen The Knife who I think would love this place, the hum and vibrancy of this wonderful city. I think of my sister Mary who I hope will come here next year and let us show her around. She is the matriarch of the family now and has been a real friend and an even better sister to me since I first slid down our mom's chute 51 years ago.

I think of my friend Modcon, who would enjoy the great beer and all the fine dining. Wish you were here, Paisan.

Wish all of you were here....