"...when all the laughter dies in sorrow..." -- Kendrew Lascelles

 This is from Chicago III, with Robert Lamm reading. Serious stuff for a comparative kid. It rolled through my mind this morning while catching up on the news from back home. But already in the past week, we've referred to this particular apartment as "home." Gotta wonder how it'll all pan out.

Working with a new blog platform that I think will be easier to post things like photos and other stuff like this photo, which we'll come back to in a bit.

It has been another few days of accomplishment, most importantly retrieving our missing bag. Things were starting to get a bit serious, not so much for me because I had nearly all of my stuff in a suitcase that arrived. But Denise was getting a bit (justifiably) cranky with having to wash out her own stuff on a nearly daily basis PLUS the summer weather here can vary greatly. Our high today was only about 70, but it was in the low 90s a few days ago. When your clothing is limited and there is no a/c in the apartment, it's easy to get a bit agitated. As mentioned earlier, she has handled it well. But it's good there's no longer An Issue.

We're getting to be old pros at negotiating the Metro and the Vienna airport, having been out there twice about this missing bag and riding the Luftzug that take us. We ride the Metro daily and here's the thing -- it's a half-mile hike from our apartment to the nearest station. This means that go to anywhere, we have to walk at least a mile round-trip. Today we walked 3.5 miles, which is a bit more than our daily average so far. But it has been a solid three miles every day and it's showing in personal stamina. We had gotten entirely too sedentary in our suburbia and it's good to feel it ending. But I tell ya....

You gotta learn the rules because walking can be just flat dangerous. I had forgotten that until we went out to dinner in Copenhagen and I dawdled about two seconds too long in the bicycle lane and nearly got killed. Bikes have the right of way here and the bike lanes are twice as wide as in the US and when you cross one you need to look both ways. Pedestrians have some rights but aren't protected with left-turn signals as much as in the US, meaning turning cars are waiting for you to move your candyass.

There there's the scooters like in the photo above. Those riders are the crazy mofos.

These scooters are largely public and electrically powered and often picked up and then left wherever a rider decides. You can rent publicly owned bikes and Vespas and drop them off too, but in more defined areas. These scooters are just left out and the riders don't care if they ride in a pedestrian lane or a bike lane or in the street. They come up behind you in complete silence and blow by and if your elbow or arm happens to gesture out in their direction, you hear about it. As a sailboater, I wanted to use a bazooka on nearby jet-skiers. I am starting to feel the same way about these damn scooter riders. Walk, get on a bike or in a car. These scooters suck.

My parents lived in one of those Dallas houses built and plumbed before the days of low-flow toilets and restricted shower heads. One of the glories of going back home was to shampoo in a place that drilled a hole in your head and use a toilet that did major business on your business. Our apartment building is from that same school. Taking a shower is an event because the water temperature ranges from Scald to Arctic Circle literally every 30 seconds because the gas water "heater" is tiny (and made by Junkers -- the WWII bomber people). But the water pressure is no joke. Neither is the toilet, which flushes from back to front instead of the way I am accustomed. Can I be honest here? We're all friends. I had forgotten about this....

When you use a pot in the US, everything drops into water. Over here, it all drops onto dry land. THEN it gets washed away to Hungary or Slovenia or wherever the 40,000psi of impressive fucking water pressure takes it. And the public bathroom stalls are individual rooms with walls from floor to ceiling. They could have a meth lab in there fergodsakes. Secure af.

Grocerying remains a challenge. The selection of spices is limited. You can't just expect to go to the store to buy a little jar of, say, sage or oregano or dried basil. I can buy hard liquor and some very good wines but basic bleach is unavailable. It's just a learning process and it's part of what I love about Being Here.

It's back to the Metro and Stephansplatz tomorrow for some good charcuterie and tobacco. We're enjoying it more by the day.

I don't know if the "beauty of the human race" mentioned in the poem above will last an eternity, a millenium, a century or even a year. All I know is we're having a delightful time.

It's why we went out on that proverbial limb to do it while we can.

A great story indeed.