Snowy Saturday

Saturday it snowed all day and all night.

I walked down to the Trafik to get newspapers for B. On the way, my feet crunching and squeaking on the inch or so of fallen snow, I spotted the owner of Fidelio, a local restaurant we like. He was erasing the menu board outside. Talked with him a few seconds, the usual pleasantries----I like your restaurant, how's business, maybe I'll stop by soon...

On the way back with my papers I thought: "Hell, I'll get an early lunch at Fidelio; haven't eaten there yet this trip."

Stopped off and there were a couple of people inside. I ordered a bowl of chili con carne, not exactly something you associate with Vienna, but the waitress told me it was good. Sure enough, it was. So was the beer. I sat at the bar / counter and soon was engaged in conversation with the lady sitting there.

This was unusual because the Viennese are not known to strike up conversations with strangers. B says it's sometimes aloofness, sometimes shyness, but either way this place ain't like the Red Cup in OKC where strangers at adjacent tables feel free to chime in.Very little of that (admittedly superficial) Okie warmth here in Vienna.

My German is really pretty horrible, I realized as I was trying to say the simplest things to the lady. But I found out she lives in the village just north, she works for the police department as a meter maid, and her son works at Fidelio as a waiter. She told me my German was good, but she was just being nice---it's wretched. I need to get better. I should have been further along after almost seven years of visiting here...

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In the evening, we met our friend Klausi at Cafe Rudigerhof, his favorite hangout. A nice old fashioned coffeehouse / bar / meeting place. It had continued snowing all day...in fact was still snowing as we drove in, and there was surprisingly little traffic for a Saturday night, probably due to the snow: people were staying home.

The conversation went all over the map, as usual, and some of it was quite beyond my comprehension---stuff having to do with EuroPolitics. I'm not even interested in American politics because as George Carlin eloquently said, it's completely rigged, the game is over, and WE LOST. So I only pay attention to it in passing.

Still, I consider myself a student and it's my job to learn things, so I listen attentively and try to ask the right questions and probe into the meat of things as best I can.

We spent about 3.5 hours there and the place gradually filled up during that time, mostly with young folks. I remember myself as a 20-something. I rarely went anywhere at night and never stayed out late because I always had a job where I had to 1) work weekends and 2) get up FUCKING EARLY. It looked to me like the kids were having a good time but then again, so was I---I finally lived long enough to retire, and now every fucking day is a weekend, as far as I'm concerned.

We drove home in the snow. Sitting at a light, I saw a young couple walking along the broad sidewalk. All of a sudden the woman dashed ahead and slid on the snow, kind of surfing on it, laughing as she did. Pure joy.

The guy had a big smile on his face.

Me, too.