Arrival in Vienna

The trip here was not without hassle.

Route: OKC – Dulles – Frankfurt – Vienna. When I got to DC, the plane was delayed. We finally left about 90 minutes late but made up an hour in the air. End result: a mad dash through Frankfurt, me barely arriving at the gate on time. But I made it. Got an emergency row seat on the flight to Vienna, so lots of legroom.

B picked me up. We were happy to see each other again. It's only been about seven weeks since we last saw each other, a shorter than usual separation, but still.

Weather: a bit hot and a bit steamy. Not Oklahoma hot and steamy, but you could feel it.

Driving home, we saw an exotic car up ahead---Lamborghini, I think. Fly yellow in color. Convertible. Nothing too unusual about that here, except B noticed: "Shit, that's someone learning to drive!“ Sure enough, we saw the prominent L sticker which means "learner,“ along with the URL for the driving school painted on the rear. Wish I'd had my camera handy...

After stowing my gear, we took a walk to a local restaurant. Sat out back in the shade of a huge tree, a nice cool breeze blowing. Had nice catch-up talk along with some garlic creme soup, cordon bleu, and french fries.

Back home for a nap, then out again to a local heurige (wine tavern) where we picked up five bottles of the house white, and sat there sipping a glass in the courtyard.

Then a walk into the vineyards, maybe a mile or so. There's a little cemetery we pass along this path, but we've never gone in. This time we stopped to take a look inside. There were a few people quiety tending the graves, almost all of which are in nice shape---unlike, say, some of the graves at the massive Central Cemetery, some of which are hundreds of years older than the graves here. After a while, you just kind of run out of descendents and your grave falls into disrepair.

B thought maybe famous music-composing guy Gustav Mahler was buried here, but if so we never found his grave. This graveyard is full of expensive monuments and even has an elevated portion, kind of a terrace where the REAL big shots are buried. Even in death, these people want to throw their weight around.

If human beings can ever stop saying, "Hey, look at ME!“ long enough to actually be human, it'll be some kind of miracle.

There was a tiny heurige up in the vineyards, a new one B discovered recently. Unlike some of the monstrous heuriger (all trying to out-do each other) this one was more old-school...a tiny building where the food was laid out, with a table or two inside. The majority of the tables were outside, set along the gentle slope of the vineyard. We could see Vienna far below and it was the quinessential Viennese experience...

The End (of Blog) Times

You know, I realized it's better to experience these things than it is to write about experiencing them.

Blog terminated.

Day 7 of 14: Barcelona Feast

I'll have to post the next few times sans pictures; I left my card reader in Vienna so can't upload pics until I return late Monday night. Or Tuesday. You'll have to wait.

But here's what happened today. We woke up, had breakfast, and hit the street. Picked up some items for the big feast which was scheduled for later at A's parents place in the hills in the outskirts of Barcelona.

This place is rather spectacular. It's VERY hilly and people have built house all over the steep hillsides even though it's illegal, strictly speaking. The ins and outs of how people got away with this is beyond my understanding, but suffice it to say that it's a pretty impressive setting. As you'll see when I post a picture.

The market bears special mention. It's one of those fascinating European markets but because Barcelona is a seaport, there was a Shiite-load of fresh seafood of every kind----weird fish I've never seen before, their dead black eyeballs following me as I walked around. I also saw some sardines and they were so shiny silver in color they looked like they were chrome-plated.

So after B, M, and I grabbed the groceries, we took the subway out. A was already there, stoking the outdoor fire. He was preparing a multi-course dinner, the first course of which was spring onions. When possible, these are grilled over a fire made of large grape vines. A used some other kind of wood, but don't worry---the onions were great. It took quite a while to grill them because we'd bought about 150 to feed the 14 people who eventually showed up, us included.

The weather report promised sun, but it stayed hidden behind gray skies all day. The temperature wasn't bad, though, and I got by most of the time wearing a sweatshirt. It was good it didn't rain because the house was quite tiny, and fitting fourteen people in there would have been a hell of a chore.

Eventually the others showed up and the fun began in earnest.

One of my favorites was Joan (which is Catalan for JUAN, not a woman's name), a stocky bearded man who looked a bit like the Italian actor Bud Spencer. This guy had a pair of Ray-Bans that only left his face until just a few minutes before everyone took off, many hours later. Inside, outside, it didn't matter: Ray-Bans. He was a quiet guy who didn't speak too much but enjoyed his beer, his wine, and his food. I let my imagination roam a bit and in my mind's eye, Joan was a film director. Quiet, confident, having a good time but thinking constantly about his next film, too. (What the guy actually does for a living, I don't know.)

Another favorite was Angel, a very friendly and vivacious guy. His English was excellent. "Where are you from in America?" he asked. "Oklahoma." "Ah, Oklahoma! I know it well. I spent six years at the U of T in Austin. I attended a few Sooner games. I had a girlfriend from Tulsa, spent some time there..."

"Why were you at UT?"

"I was getting a PhD," he said. Later I learned he taught both at UT and at Notre Dame. Spanish and Italian literature.

Angel and I had a lot of interesting talks through the day. "I loved Austin," he said. "When I was there, the late 70s, it was kind of like the end of the 60s still. Then came Reagan and everything went to shit."

No kidding...

He also told the tale of the Texas governor, whose name I can't recall, who, when asked about the "bi-lingual problem," answered (and I'm paraphrasing): "The Bible was written in ENGLISH, and if English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" Everybody laughed at the stupid Texas governor and his Homer Simpson-esque comment.

When the onions are grilled properly, they're quite black on the outside and a bit soft. They're removed from the grill and wrapped in newspaper, then put into the oven to keep warm. It took a few hours to grill up all the onions. While we waited, there was an interesting snack: snails, which Montse brought. These weren't escargot but small snails, some with striped shells. I was kind of squeamish but by then I'd had a few drinks and everyone was laughing and jovial and friendly so I said, fuck it, I'll eat the snails.

I think the snails were steamed. You dig them out of the shells with a toothpick and really, they were pretty good! To me they looked and tasted a bit like sauteed shiitake mushrooms. I ate five or six of them, and joined the others in dipping bread in the juice the snails had been prepared in.

Eating grilled spring onions is kind of messy, so most of us wore aprons. You peel the blackened skin of the onions downward from the top of the stalk. Then you dip the onion in sauce and lower the whole thing into your mouth, like those old pictures of college kids eating goldfish. Except, the grilled spring onions taste good, unlike the goldfish...

Your hands get pretty black. When the onions are finally gone (which doesn't take too long, especially compared to the time it takes to grill them) then you wash off so you can tackle what comes next, which was:

Grilled sausages.

Next course: lambchops. I don't think I've ever had lamb before. Pretty good; grilled just right, some course salt sprinked over it when it's placed on the grill...

There was a bit of drinking associated with all this but the feast was spread over such a long period of time that nobody really got too wasted. Or ANY wasted, really. Everyone got kind of nicely LUBED UP, though.

These folks, southern Europeans all, were friendly and laughing and uninhibited. I have friends I like in Austria and they're the same, but the Austrians in general seem a bit more reserved in large gatherings than the Spaniards. The women invited us to go dancing with them later that night, but we were getting kind of tired and things start late here, the dancing included, so we declined. But it was nice to be asked and the women actually seemed a little disappointed that we wouldn't be coming.

However, they did invite us to a big party later in the year. "What's the occasion?" B asked. The women shrugged. "Just because. To celebrate!" Celebrate LIFE, I think they meant...

It got dark and everyone left. We cleaned up, shut the house down, and walked back to the train station. And on the way, on the winding road leading down the hills to the station, I saw something I've never seen before: wild boars, coming right toward us. Two pairs of them. They saw us and turned, going up the steep hills. It's a bit sobering being close to these porkers, as they have a reputation for being pretty mean when you piss them off. Fortunately there were no piglets around, because that's when they can REALLY get kind of stirred up.

But the boars minded their own piggy business and we minded ours, and soon we were back home in the heart of Barcelona, for quiet conversation and a few drinks and then, a bit of reading. Then bed.