The park

This is the Volkspark that I walk through on my way past the parliament and into the city center in the mornings. From the first drop in temperatures in fall until the beginnings of spring, these rose bushes are covered with exotic Central and South American coffee bean bags. Once, I saw the Viennese garden workers wrapping each of the precious rose bushes with these bags at 6 in the morning.

In the summer, this park is remarkable. Each of the bushes has its own name label and amazing scent. It is the place to be for tourists from June-September. But in the morning, no one is here, except for me and the Viennese garden workers. It is one of my favorite places in Vienna. I told Andi that if I die some sort of unexpected, early death...he must walk here and distribute my ashes Shawshank style, one pocket at a time, under the beautiful blooming roses.

My morning walk

I have started taking morning walks from our place in the 8th district to the UN in the 22nd district. It is a pretty great time to walk here in the city. I get to see street crews cleaning up after parades or construction crews setting up for summer markets or Christmas markets. There always seems to be some kind of 'behind the scenes' going on at 7am.

Here is the bridge that I walk across every morning. When the winter began, we had an extremely windy day here and I got to see a lot of craziness along my walk. Trees were blown over, cars were dented, the Danube had white caps and this little boat down here got overturned. It remains overturned and I check on it everyday to see if it has been rescued, has sunk, or has been lost to the currents. Not much so far. It is overturned...it is wet...and so it remains.

These walks have been a pretty amazing way to get to know the city. I get to see new people on their way to work everyday. I have even come across some regulars. As I was crossing the bridge every morning this summer, I seemed to always come across the same biker who was headed in the opposite direction toward work. Eventually, this guy and I began to smile at each other as we crossed paths over the bridge. That smile eventually turned into him making faces at me, and now every time we pass, he makes me laugh with a tongue sticking out of his mouth. Ah, the city.

The fire

Back in November, Andi asked me whether or not we were going to get a Christmas tree this year. I always like to decorate our ficus and pretend it is a Christmas tree in an effort to be cheap ecological, but Andi gave me the look that meant it just wouldn't be the holidays without this tradition being fully met, trucked in Norwegian tree and all. In keeping with Austrian tradition, we also bought an 'Advent Kranz', a horizontal wreath with 4 candles stuck in it. You are supposed to burn the first candle on the the first Sunday of Advent, and then light each following week's candle only on a Sunday.

We were late to this this year and bought the candle on a Saturday, and lit two candles the next day, for good measure. The best part about buying the Advent Kranz a week late is that you get 50% off on the cheap, old, gas station versions, making it a very affordable ritual to follow. The bad part about buying the cheap, old, gas station versions of the Advent Kranz is that once that candle is burnt, man does the pine wreath go up fast.

After lunch today, we cleaned up the dishes, I lit the Advent Kranz candles because Advent is over, and who would want to waste the little numbins of candle left on your 7 Euro Kranz? I walked into the computer room to show Andi some pajamas I wanted, and as we were perusing the H&M online shopping site, we heard an odd crackling sound. We both stopped talking to best determine the actual origins of said crackling. I was pretty sure it was either the cat or the washing machine, meanwhile Andi began making sniffing motions as if he smelled fire. With both eyes widened and mouths dropped we tore out of the computer room, turn left, and saw that indeed, our dining room table was aflame, and poor Santa was in sheer agony.

While screaming and flailing my hands, I managed to grab the fire extinguisher from the bathroom, ripped the red seal off and doused the flames, Kranz, dining room table, the cat and anything else in my way with foam. It still smells like campfire in here.