Wednesday Afternoon

Woke up and enjoyed this hearty Euro-breakfast:

Then I made a few practice runs to the school where I'll be studying German next month; one via bus, one via subway.

This was to see which method took less time. Winner: subway.
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Then to the Central Cemetery to take some pictures. I found myself in the Jewish part of the cemetery...

On my way to the Jewish section, I passed this old wagon...

...and this lovely headstone.

These headstones were in relatively good condition.
But note the overgrown weeds. This is the norm in the Jewish section.
For understandable reasons: many of Vienna's Jews were exterminated
or forced to flee between 1938-1945. Who remains to care for their ancestors' graves?

As bad as this is, it gets worse.

Here's a pile of headstones. The best I can make out from the sign,

these were gathered into a pile after being scattered by bombing during the war.

Headstones overgrown with ivy.

Even elegant crypts are in disrepair.

I passed a series of graves with strange circular chips in them, most the size of a half-dollar. Had someone fired guns at the headstones to desecrate them? Or did this happen during Austria's brief civil war, maybe when fighters sought cover behind the stones? B said she thought there had been limited fighting in the cemetery back in the day.

She also says some headstones were damaged by shrapnel from exloding bombs during WW II, and the graves were later moved, which could account for a row of damaged headstones but no such damage in the rows adjacent.

The condition that leads to cemetery dwelling comes to us all, even if we don't end up in a cemetery.  I haven't always lived my life the way I wanted to, or the way I thought I should. But more and more, I'm paying very close attention to the way I spend my remaining time.

That's an important consideration, and not one to be made by anyone other than us, individually.

Sums It Up

Mushrooms

We took off with B's father in search of mushrooms.

First step: drive about an hour, exit the highway and drive through a few picturesque pre-Alpine villages, the last of which being Hochegg, to arrive at a Gasthaus overlooking beautiful farm valleys. This is our mushroom hunting area.

Into the woods we went, looking for Cantharellus cibarius, AKA chanterelles.

The golden fruit

It's fun wandering around in the quiet woods, hunting mushrooms. We spotted them under blueberry bushes (and the blueberries tasted pretty good, too!) and growing beneath an inch or so of old pine needles----when they start to mature, the cap pushes up through the needles, revealing the mushrooms.

We spent a couple of hours in the woods and ended up with about three pounds of mushrooms.

Back down at the car, we went into the Gasthaus for a delicious lunch.

Gnocchi with ham, mushrooms, and onion

Sammy the Gasthaus dog. He was very friendly and sweet.

He lay under our table while we ate and was rewarded with several hand-outs.

In the US, any health department would panic if a dog was in a restaurant.

In Europe, nobody gives a shit.

All roads lead somewhere. A sign outside the Gasthaus near the village of Hochegg.

Back at the parents' house, we divided up the bounty, each of us ending up with about 1.5 pounds.

When we got home, B cleaned the mushrooms cooked them up.

The mushrooms before cleaning.

After cleaning.

Saute garlic and onions in a bit of olive oil and lard.
Then add the mushrooms. Then add a little white wine.
Add a bit more white wine after the first dose cooks down.
Finally, add diced boiled potatoes and parsley.

Result: a meal that does not suck.