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.
No comments:
Post a Comment