"...I don't know much about women. I've been married for 28 years, you know." -- Wallace Beery in "Grand Hotel (1932)"

 

One of the best things about where we are has been the flowers. It's not hard to find flowers pretty much anywhere but the roses here have been particularly wonderful and only $3.50 for eight of them at the local Spar (grocery). Anywhere else in town they're $10 or more and in the 817 they'd be, well, I dunno. My friend Julie says these are lipstick roses and she'd know because she's an interior designer of some significant note. Denise has turned me into something of a flower noticer (not expert) at least to see when stuff has life in it or not. So far, so good.

Speaking of Where We Are, we have only a little over two weeks left before we vacate Vienna and go over to Liverpool until the first week of January. We're very mixed about this because we love our neighborhood and we've learned to make this apartment work despite issues we'll detail later. We still have a few significant things we want to do and see here, but the list is dwindling. We've found we're more comfortable eating at home than going out, not only for financial reasons but because (as I have mentioned) the local menu is rather short. We will be going over to Belvedere to see the Klimts and Van Goghs plus making another trip up to Stephansplatz for Cuban cigars and excellent tea. But for the most part, it's the neighborhood noises we enjoy most -- the planes landing overhead, the kids in the park, the conversations in the courtyards and the other things we hear while drifting off for a nap or in the evenings with windows open.

The old saying about living "in interesting times" has my attention lately as colder weather approaches and we anticipate a different world in England -- both positive and negative. Our costs have been fixed here -- we pay up front each month and that's it. In Liverpool, we will be responsible for our own electric and gas and, while this gives us some control, we've been reading articles about cost hikes of like 80% due to a series of factors like the war in Ukraine plus others. There is a new prime minister as of today and all sorts of stories about price caps and helping struggling businesses and 200-year-old pubs going under and whatnot. I have talked a couple of times with our landlord and he's got no more idea than anyone else because Brexit and other issues have had the UK without a functioning government for months. We're going over with a flexible attitude -- maybe even more than when we arrived in Austria.

We've been fortunate here that the dollar and the euro have been pretty much on a par for the first time in two decades. We'll also be going to the UK with the dollar the strongest against the pound than in nearly 40 years. From all we can tell, any real changes in England won't be happening until next year and, well, by that point we'll be in the Caribbean and back on the euro. Entirely by accident, we've been so far just ahead of potential issues. But we can't count on that being the case. It's yet another area in which we've been really lucky.

Another change will be the language barrier. While I joke about having to learn yet another new language when I go to the UK, it'll be nice to be able to read signs and understand the local flow of conversation a little better. I've done better with German than I thought I would and I'm pretty confident in most stores having a good idea of what's on labels. I can usually make myself understood in most situations but my issue has been pronunciation. My own last name is a fine example. Most folks pronounce it gee-SECK-kee while it's actually GEE-seh-kee and I've been having similar problems. The Viennese are not known for their patience but they've been nice to me in this struggle. Danke. Once we're done in England, we'll be doing six months of French immersion in Martinique and then France, so I'll enjoy the English break. But I feel better about French because it's at least a Latin root and I do pretty well in Spanish. But hell -- we'll see.

We're also looking forward to a change in neighborhoods. Most folks around here (and Vienna in general) live in multi-story buildings with commercial on the ground floor and apartments sometimes for 20 floors or more above. We're on the third floor of a Cold War-era concrete building with a three-person elevator and our doorbell is one of those ancient things you turn like a key and it rings like an old alarm clock. The move to England will put us in more of a traditional residential area with homes divided into three or four flats and commercial at the end of the street. We assume this will be a bit quieter, but I dunno. Some neighborhoods can be pretty damn loud.

We sent boxes to the US three weeks ago and none have arrived just yet, though tracking shows they got to the US in a week. A first-class letter sent to me here from Hurst TX took ten days. We sent men to the moon OVER FIFTY YEARS AGO yet, well, hell.

I don't know much about a lot of things and our experience here just reinforces it. But I figure with decent wine, a good cigar and conversation I can get along pretty well.

Gimme just one more day. Every day.