TUESDAY: German Class / Bike Ride / Irish Pub

In the morning I check email, etc. before going to German class.

I looked out the window and saw a balloon floating by, well-lit in the morning sun. There was something attached to the balloon. A note? A tiny camera? I tried to make it out but the object kept spinning and turning as the balloon rose...

It might be fun to attach a note with your contact information to a balloon, release it, and see if anybody gets back to you. How far will the balloon go? Which direction?
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German class. In English, mostly we form a plural of a word by adding "s". There are exceptions, like man/men, woman/women. But mostly it's "s."

But in German, let me count the ways! You can add "s", or you can add "e", or you can add "en", or you can add "n", or you can add "nen", or you can slap an umlaut over one of the letters, or you can add an umlaut and "er", or you can add an umlaut and "e", or you can eliminate the last letter of the word and substitute "en." Or you can just leave the word alone! In some cases, the plural is the same as the singular!

And what are the rules for which goes where? Who. Knows?

But I'm having fun and after class, I rode part of the way home on the subway with the Iranian student, Hamed. A friendly guy, with gentle handshake and quick to smile. But I'd sized him up as a fighter---a boxer or wrestler---and on the train he told me he used to box in Iran, but (in pidgin German) "I cannot train here." We don't speak good enough German for me to find out exactly why he can't train---maybe the gyms are too expensive, or prejudiced, or his immigration status is shaky, or whatever.

But I told him: if you want, we can train together. We'll see if we can work it out somehow.
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When I got home, it was time for a quick bite and then we dashed out for a really enjoyable, interesting bike ride.

I hate to start off this way, because my friends in Oklahoma are frying in the relentless heat wave, but it was perfect yesterday, weather-wise. Blue skies, big fluffy white clouds, shirtsleeve temperatures, a slight breeze. A day where the weather itself lifts your spirits.

B learned of a long bike trail, built on the site of an old railway. To get there you ride along the Neue Donau and eventually find yourself in the 22nd District. I've only been in this district a time or two before, and it has a definite village feeling to it---indeed, it is composed of five formerly separate communities. It was fun riding through there...

We got a little turned around, even though B spent an hour on the Web, printing out maps, directions, etc. before we left. But a kindly older lady with shockingly bright, dyed red hair stopped her bicycle when we asked for help, and she guided us (more or less---we still got a little lost, I think due to the woman's incomplete directions) toward the path. More riding through the "village" that is part of the 22nd, and then you're out in the country with farm fields, rolling hills, vineyards, and small villages dotting the landscape here and there.

 A view of the infamous "European Welfare Desert"

Every so often we came to a place along the path with old train parts---axles, wheels, etc.---laid out like sculptures, along with information signs and maps.

 I'm glad we don't waste tax dollars on things like this in Oklahoma [cough, cough]

Somebody took the time, trouble, and expense to put this wonderful biking trail together for the enjoyment of----do I dare say it?---The People. Yes, ladies and gentleman, this is your European Welfare Desert, sucking the life out of each and every one of its citizens by providing picturesque bike paths, when they could be spending the money fighting a couple of wars overseas for ten years. Silly Europeans! [cough, cough]

So we rolled along for a couple of hours, finally coming to the outskirts of a village called Obersdorf. There was the train station---and also the train, which B thought we'd miss. But where was the ticket machine?!

Rather than search for it helplessly while the train pulled away---and then have to wait another 30 minutes for the next train---we just jumped on the train with our bikes and hoped there was no conductor aboard. There wasn't. We'd have paid a hefty fine if we got caught without tickets...

Back in Vienna, the sky had darkened and the wind was blowing harder. We rode home, our legs shaking and our asses sore. But it had been a great afternoon...
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A few hours after coming home, I took off again, this time for a beer and dinner with my new friend D, the young man whose sister is B's colleague, and whose parents hosted us for dinner last week.

It was maybe a 40 minute streetcar ride to the meeting place, and from there we walked to a nearby Irish (!) pub called Charlie P's. I'd never been there before. Turned out to be a good meeting place---and the burgers looked really delicious (I had a club sandwich instead.)

Our conversation was all over the map: politics in America, politics in Austria, how the two are similar, how they're different. The legal system in each country----America and England have similar legal systems, but Europe has its differences from the Anglo-Saxons.

We each learned a few new words----I taught D "disintegrate" and "inertia", and he taught me "zerfallen," which translates to disintegrate, and "Kabarettist," which he described as a comedian but one who emphasizes serious things like politics.

D also gave me a primer on the history of a few of Austria's main print news publications (Profil, Kronen Zeitung [which D said was "Austria's version of FOX News, in print form"], Die Presse, and Der Standard.  He touched on the rise of a right-wing Austrian politician named Heinz-Christian Strache, and we discussed the problem of Austrian politicians now beginning to adopt American methods of organizing and running campaigns---I told him the iconic image in American campaign brochures is the candidate with his jacket off, slung over his shoulder, his sleeves rolled up, looking off into the distance with his chin held high---just like the poses you'd see in Soviet propaganda posters of proud, strong factory workers and farmers.

Folks, the bullshit never ends----and now we're exporting it to Europe.

D told me of an important organization called Centropa. From their website:

"Centropa is a Vienna and Budapest-based non-profit NGO that uses advanced technologies to preserve Jewish memory in Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, the Balkans and the Baltics, and then uses those same technologies to disseminate our findings in creative and innovative ways."

The generation of people who spent time in concentration camps is dying off---and when their grandchildren are gone, who will remain who has heard a survivor's first-hand account? "Never again" only works if people are reminded of the horrors human beings are capable of----but also of the courage of people who survive such horrors.

D and I spent a few hours together then walked back to the subway station. I'd learned a lot, and had a good time. I enjoy being a student, and I enjoy having enlightening conversations with people who know things I don't know.

I think D got the short end of the deal, but he was gracious and seemed not to mind too much.

I Made Dinner Tonight

We take turns making dinner. Whoever does the cooking, the other one washes the dishes afterward.

Tonight I made pasta with a different (for me) sauce. Different because I used white wine instead of red in the sauce, and some beef bullion. I like what the white wine did to the sauce, color wise, and also taste-wise, compared to the red. So from now on I'm doing my sauce with white wine instead.

Stupid me, I forgot to take pictures, but the sauce had a kind of reddish-orange tinge to it, instead of the bright red or brick red my sauce usually has. Had to be the white wine.

I also had the idea of placing a sardine on a piece of prosciutto, with a bit of Parmesan sprinkled in there, then rolling it up like a burrito. When everything was almost finished, I put the sardine-prosciutto roll in the sauce to let it warm up / melt the cheese.

It came out pretty good, if I have to say so myself. (B agreed.)

Here's how it happened, in case you want to try it.

INGREDIENTS: (this served two people, with a bit left over)

• two medium onions, chopped
• four cloves garlic, chopped
• a bell pepper, sliced into thin strips about 2 inches long, 1/2 inch wide (I think an orange or yellow one would be pretty)
• about a Tablespoon of good bullion like the Better Than Bullion brand (thanks Soartstar for turning me on to this stuff; delicious and good quality!) I used beef but you could use veggie or chicken...
• five or six small tomatoes, like cherry tomatoes, sliced into small pieces (again, yellow or orange ones would be pretty)
• a can of diced or whole tomatoes
• olive oil
• white wine
• pasta
• prosciutto
• sardines
• Parmesan cheese (NOT that shit in the green can, I mean REAL cheese of good quality)
• white wine (don't buy expensive stuff here, just decent...the stuff in the box would work)
• oregano (fresh if possible)

Pour about 1/8 cup of olive oil into a small pot or big skillet. Turn the fire to about a 4 or 5 on a 10-is-max stove. Add the chopped onions and bell pepper.

Let the onions get translucent, then add the chopped tomatoes and the can of tomatoes. If the canned tomatoes are whole, kind of chop them up to bite size with a spatula.

Add about a half cup of wine and the Tbsp. of bullion paste and the chopped garlic.

Now let this rather soupy mixture cook down and get thick. Adjust your fire so nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan / skillet, which it shouldn't right now because everything's more like a soup at this stage.

The trick, I think, is to give your sauce a lot of time for all the flavors to mix well. I cook it down until it's kind of thick, and here's how I test thickness: if you're cooking in a pot, put a wooden spoon in the middle and let it go. If it more or less stands up without falling over, that's a good thickness. If you're cooking in a skillet, run a spatula down the center, making a "ditch" in the middle of the sauce. If the sauce more or less stays on either side, as if you parted the Red Sea, that's a good thickness. If you see anything that looks like red water, THE SHIT AIN'T THICK ENOUGH. You want nice thick sauce, not soup.

When it gets to this thickness, I add another half cup or so of white wine and let it cook down yet again. What's the rush? Drink a coupla glasses of wine, like I do. It makes the wait worthwhile.

Taste the sauce every so often. You'll have to add some salt, but don't go crazy. Keep tasting as it cooks, because sometimes the salt goes up with the steam as the sauce cooks down. I like it to where I can tell there's salt in the sauce, but just barely. If it's easy to tell there's salt in there, it's probably too much.

Get your water boiling for the pasta when you think the sauce is about ten minutes from being cooked down to the right thickness for the second time. Don't worry if you time it wrong----if it thickens up before the pasta is done, throw a bit more wine in there to keep the stuff from sticking to the bottom of the pan, and let it cook down.

Take a piece of prosciutto and put a sardine in it sideways to the length of the prosciutto, and add a bit of grated Parmesan (or any cheese you like, WTF.) Roll the prosciutto up and if you need to, stick a toothpick through it to hold it together. Make one or two of these for each person you'll be serving.

When the pasta is about two minutes from being done, and the sauce is thick and bubbling, put the prosciutto / sardine roll in the sauce so it can get hot. Add your oregano to the sauce at this time.

Drain the pasta when it's finished, put it in a bowl, add the sauce to the top or side, then put the prosciutto / sardine roll on the other side or on the top or however the fuck you want to arrange it to satisfy your artistic sensibilities.

Top with a bit of grated Parmesan, pour a glass of wine, and start gobbling.

NOTE TO MY PAISANS, MOD, MICHELA, and PATRIZIA:

Tell me what I did wrong. Probably everything. But it tasted OK, if not exactly authentico.

But you guys are more Italian than me. I'm willing to learn. Especially if you do the cooking.

Walking In The Vienna Woods

It's Sunday, and we're kind of wasted...took a long hike today. Lots of fun, but wearying.

We walked through the Vienna woods with our friends M (husband) and G (wife), and G's sister E. Drove to their house, loaded our packs into their car, and took off. Fifteen or twenty minutes later we found a parking spot and started hiking.

A strange summer this year: cloudy, rainy, then the sun comes out for a day or so, then back to Seattle weather. Today was sunny. For a while. And kind of humid, so there was considerable sweating as we began the first part of our hike, up a steep hill.

 Clover in the Vienna woods

B was looking for mushrooms, but not in our usual methodical way because the others mostly wanted to hike, which means, YOU WALK. You don't linger. But after we found a few mushrooms the others kind of joined in and if anyone happened to spot a fungus, it went into the Fungal Collection Bag.

 Look at the size of this mushroom. It's edible, according to B, but hard to clean. So we left it.

Walked and walked and walked, got kind of lost, found our way, then spilled out of the woods and walked along a path surrounded by giant fields of soft green grass, sprinkled everywhere with wildflowers. Beautiful.

B stopped along the way to pick wildflowers to take home.

Blackberries are starting to ripen.

When you spill out of the woods, this is one of the views you get...

...this is another. We walked to the treeline, then right another ten minutes to a restaurant.

Suzi, the restaurant cat. A friendly girl. 

The sky began getting dark just as we were finishing lunch.We hit the trail again, walking through a couple of villages on the way to the car. 

An old factory for sale in one of the villages. Repurposed as artists' space, perhaps?

It started raining. We popped our umbrellas. It was a long walk back to the car but the cool air felt good. We came to a covered bus stop and M and G said they'd walk ahead, fetch the car, and come back for us. So we spent about fifteen minutes watching the rain fall and hearing the liquid WHOOSH of cars as they passed us on the wet street.

Back home, B sauteed some mushrooms, breaded and fried the others. Delicious.