Innsbruck

Up early the morning after dancing--the plan was to go to the Alpenzoo in Innsbruck.  Christoph's left eye was swollen shut due to an allergic reaction to a mosquito bite in the night.  We were all groggy enough to be tempted not to rally.

 

Ah, what the heck, we went, hopping the 10:30am train for the 45 minute ride into the city.  From the station we walked to the zoo on the outskirts of the city, passing through the old part of town-- a tourist destination.  Flea market on the perimeter, saw a couple things I wanted to get -- a skull cap with small antlers for Jack (a Jack-a-lope!) and an antique doorbell with a pig on top of it.  Alas, we have no room in our small packs for such things.  Sorry, Jack!  It probably would have broken anyway :-(

 

Of course, the Alpenzoo was on the side of the steep foothils of the high mountains just on the outer perimeter of Innsbruck--more hard puffing for these out of shape and mildly sick tourists!  This zoo set-up would never survive in America.  "What?!  we have to exercise to see the animals?"

 

It was a very sweet zoo--reminiscent of the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle in its effort to provide beautiful natural settings for the animals.  There was a great play area for the kids.  We had to make sure the the slide worked properly :-)  Does the Woodland Park Zoo sell beer in its food area?  I had a Radler--half beer, half 7-up.  Our favorite snack here in Austria is Snips--a bag of peanut butter flavored corn puffs. (the bag reads "Authentic American Flavor!")

 

Incidentally, what has the Woodland Park Zoo has done much better than the Alpenzoo?  Odor management.  There were areas that made my eyes water from the smell of general animal earthiness.  Jeff says that Europeans have a better understanding and toleration of funk, that we Americans are too antiseptic.  Mebee so.  Not something I'm thinking I'll train myself out of.

 

A tired trot back to the center of town for a dinner before our ride home.  Fabulous dinner at a restaurant Jeff and I had discovered last time we were here.  I must admit I had a few bites of veal :-O !  It was the children's wiener snitzel--and it was so guht!  My dish was a couple fillets of cold smoked trout accompanied by dry toast and a little bowl of tasy horseradish butter.  Yum!  Jeff had the Grillteller (grilled meat plate) with boiled potatos fried in butter.  No lack of calories in our vacation diet...

 

BTW, the PC movement (not the computer, but the social sensibility) has yet to find its way here.  A couple double takes since we were here:  On the day of Gabi's party the children were playing a game with each other that resembled tag.  One child would yell a singsong chant to a group of kids standing across the way, then they would race past him in a charge, trying not to be tagged by him.  When I asked Kati what the chant was, I was told that he was saying something like, "I am the big Black Man -- who is afraid of me? Come and I will get you!"  When I told Kati that this would never be okay where I was from, she got a quizzical look on her face and said "Wow, I never thought about this chant in this way.  We played it as children, I always assumed that 'Black Man' was refering to a demon!"  hmm, would fly even less with this...  The other "huh?!" moment was at this restaurant in Innsbruck.  Bernhard wanted chocolate cake for dinner--so the plate he ordered had a name which translated to "Negro in a white shirt".  Gabi said that this dish was so well known that the cafe who invented this refused to call it anything else lest people not know how to ask for it.  Not too much of an active African-Austrian population from what I could see. 

 

At home again Christoph treated us to a DVD of "Dick und Dorf"--the German translation of Laurel and Hardy.  It was more fun to watch Christoph convulse in laughter than to watch the film.

 

Schnaps makes a fabulous night cap.

 

Tomorrow we leave for Italy.  Two nights in Verona, two nights in Venice, then we come back to Landeck Friday night.  Don't know if I'll blog from there, but stories to tell when I come back if I don't.

 

Hey!  I don't think I mentioned it, but they liked our cooking!

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Radfahren, sprechen und tanzen

We rode bikes on Friday, Jeff and I.  It was glorious, glorious.  Sunny and fresh--the weather has been just spectacular here, only one day of rain so far.  (Three years ago we came in early September and it rained all but about 3 days.  Such a difference a month and a half makes...  And the crazy thing is, things are cheaper now, because the tourist season is over. Better weather, more affordable--a good thing to remember!) We didn't go too far, just to the next small town--Zams.  Although I feel better, I tire quickly and, as this is vacation, I'm not pushing myself. 

 

Biking is a little more challenging here.  Not that it's more dangerous or difficult to do, it's just that they expect the average biker to have exceptional sleuthing abilities.  In Seattle the bike paths are clearly marked, very obvious.  Here, the bike path abruptly ends at odd places -- and then picks up again where it's not necessarily intuitively expected.  No matter, no place to be other than here. Now.

 

When you come upon another person on the path or mountain trail, it is customary to say Grös Gott (pardon the potentially wrong spelling you Deutsch speakers)--which is, "greet God".  The ones of our generation smile, the older ones look dower, usually. Do people take this in at some deep sub-conscious level that they greet God in everyone? 

 

I make due surprisingly well with the 2 1/2 months of German I took 13 years ago (you should be proud of me, Herr Fast, meine Profesor!) at the University of WA.  The crowning glory of my accomplishment here in the practice of German linguistics took place after our bike ride in a little Kebap restaurant back in Landeck.  (Kebap is a Turkish sandwich--like a gyro)  Jeff doesn't like to eat raw onions and wanted them to leave them off his sandwich.  As we didn't know the German word for onion--and the turkish owners of the restaurant didn't know English, this was a communication puzzle.  No readily available pictures of onions to point to, no ingredients in sight to refer to.  Ah well, he could pick them off.

 

After a few minutes of puzzling this to myself, I got back up and approached the counter, the translation of my dazzling language skills follows:

 

Me: Excuse me, but what is the name of the white vegetable?

Owner:  ????

Me:  The white vegetable, he likes no white vegetable.

Owner: (pulls out a drawer with three compartments holding tomato in one, white cabbage in the second, and white onion in the third)

Me:  yes! yes! in the one, two, three-- the three--this!  He wants no this!

Owner:  Oh yes, without onion?

Me: Yes!  But I, I like this onion.

Owner: Okay, one without and one with onion.

Me: Ah yes, thank you, thank you!

Jeff:  (applauds entusiastically)

Owner: (looks bemused)

Me: (very proud)

 

That night we went dancing at a little disco a couple towns away.  Roman and Elisabeth dance very well together--everyone was surprised that he even consented to coming.  Roman is generally a very serious and thoughtful man, not often frequenting pubs and discos.  (He is a massage therapist in St. Anton, the local European Ski Resort destination.  A true audiophile, he gave a demonstration of how amazing a record can sound on the right equipment when we were at his house last week (I hadn't a clue that records did not mandatorily come with the popping and crackling sounds I was accustomed to).  In addition, we were treated to a disturbing demonstration of just how strong a cell phone's (radiation? frequency?  I can't remember what his meter was reading--but it was very strong) is.  Enough to make me wonder if we are all due for brain cancer from cell phone use.  Anyway, he is a thoroughly interesting, sweet and thoughtful man who dances like someone who does it more regularly than he does.)  We all sweated and gyrated, sang and laughed--silly and very uncool in our gleeful bopping.  Just about the time that Jeff and I had to step out to rest our lungs from the smoke--Huber, the babysitter opa, summoned us home with a phone call saying that the kids were up and crying for mama.

 

A rush home, giddy happy kids to greet us, smoky clothes hung on the balcony, bed and reading and sleeping coming not until past 3am.

 

Incidentally,  "Cold Mountain" is not a very cheerful book.

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Gute Fahrt mit der Furz Machine

Proof yet again that there is a common sensibility among the different cultures of the world:  fart humor is universal.

 

Being that my husband is a clown, we have been in posession of not one, but two "fart machines" --remote controlled little speakers that make a different fart noise every time the remote button is pressed.  Both were given as gifts to Jeff (our friends and family know him so well).  Wanting to spread the love, we packed one with us--not really knowing if it would be appropriate.  But when has this stopped us before?

 

We started in on Christoph--with Gabi in cahoots--hiding the machine by their sleeping child who had gotten up hours after bedtime to snuggle on the couch between the chatting adults.  Gabi and Jeff and I howled with laughter and tears as Christoph looked confused at the amount of noise emanating from his beautiful little sleeping girl.

 

The next day the toy was a hit with the kids.  Bernhard, the 6 year old eldest, has taken to carrying the remote with him every where.  According to Gabi, she overheard a conversation between him and the next eldest, 4 year old Mirjam, scheming about how they could possibly get this from us for good (not knowing yet that it was a gift):

 

Bernhard:  Oh, I hope they give this fart machine to us, I have been wanting one my whole life!  (funny, as he had never known one had existed until now)

Mirjam:  Well, we will just hide it before they leave so that they can't find it--and then we will keep it!

 

Ahhh, how to lever such gaseous power?

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Walk Like a Tiroler

Well, this post was supposed to show up the day after my last one, but it didn't take...

 

We went up into the mountains today.  Of course, Gabi and Christoph would laugh to hear me say this--to them we did an "easy" hike into the foothills.  Easy for them is a very steep, breath catching path--steeper than Mount Si; easy for Seattlites is the gentle rolling trails of Couger Mountain.

 

The road to the trailhead went through the sweetest village--the type of place that proved we ain't in America any more:  narrow streets flanked by classic Tirolian houses, bakeries tucked away, goats and sheep in little fields lining the road. After the "easy" climb we had bread, cheese and salami overlooking the glorious valley.  Even sleeping in the sun had a nice European feel to it :-) 

 

Today was a brilliant sunny day.

 

Tonight we cook for them.  My Indian vegetables are still not ready--they don't quite smell as I am used to when I normally cook them.  We had to improvise with the BBQ sauce for the pulled pork as they don't have this sort of thing here.  We shall see if our hosts pleased--or pained--as they eat.

 

I am starting to talk like a person who speaks English as a second language--simply and with a funny accent. 

 

My love, what you think I am sexy?

 

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Ich verstehe

So far, this is vacation:  Sleep until 11 or 12, eat bread and butter, play with the kids (Gabi and Christoph have three), read, take a walk, help with house chores (actually fun as it's not my house), read, eat, play, talk until past midnight, sleep until late morning...

 

Gabriele and her family live upstairs in a duplex made from the family home she grew up in.  Her youngest sister, Katharina lives in the downstairs unit with her husband and two children; Elisabeth, the other, middle sister lives in the next village with her husband and two kids.

 

From the balcony of Gabi's apartment is a breathtaking view of the Tirolian Alps, steep rolling meadows, lush greenery, and the proud, clattering steeple of the aforementioned church.  The quiet which is usual for her neighborhood has been temporarily altered by the buzz of the wood saw in their driveway.  Hubert, their red haired, red nosed, quiet father has been helping cut and store away wood for the winter.  His German Shepherd lays close-by, barking at us when we get too close.  Both Hubert and his dog smell strongly of goat--apparently due to the fact that one lives in the basement of the little house he occupies on a meadow not so far away.

 

Today we went food shopping in anticipation of stores closing for tomorrow's holiday (Austrian Independence Day).  Jeff and I are going to attempt to cook them a couple of our specialties:  pulled BBQ pork and ayurvedic Indian vegetables.  I am reminded how spoiled we are in Seattle--EVERY food item one could possibly dream of is readily available.  Here--we were hard pressed to find any sort of cooking greens, fresh beets--or produce variety in general.  But, no matter--can't expect paradise to be absolutely perfect!

 

In the checkout line the woman at the register apparently knew who I was.  In '88 I went to Austria for the first time--and she remembered me from then.  Elisabeth had been dating a man named Hansjörg many years ago--and this was his sister.  18 years ago she last saw me--and recognized me today.  Wow.  I didn't even remember that Hansjörg had had a sister.

 

Feeling better as the days go by--but I have a nasty cough that shakes my whole body.  Still feel a little weak with exertion--but hey I'm on vacation, who needs to work?

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Sick In Paradise

So, I spoke too soon...maybe it was allergies--I did feel better when I took the allergy herbs--but 27 hours of travel took their toll....and I'm nursing a cough as well as swollen lymph nodes in my neck.  Fortunately no one here really seems concerned to have me in their house.  As Gabi explained it, "with kids there is always someone sick in the house, so this is nothing new, nothing worrisome."

 

Too zonked to write more--but for those of you who knew about our visit being a surprise to Gabi--she was very surprised --and very pleased (thank god)--I don't think she could have faked that response.  The look on her face was priceless when we arrived at her surprise party--there was lots of jumping, hugging and crazy laughter.

 

Already some great conversations, some glorious vistas in gorgeous Tirol, and the amazing European butter that I have been dreaming of.  Had a Stiegel (Austrian beer) tonight that is impossible to get in Seattle--and the lymph nodes that were almost fully receded are now fat yet again.  Ah!  a small price to pay...but ask me again tomorrow when I wake up.

 

There is a quaint Catholic church half a block down the road from the house we are staying in....its bells are ringing maddly this very moment as they have done every evening and morning here for many decades to call the faithful of the town and surrounding hills to worship.  Lovely and culturally rich--but, as morning worship is at 6am, we get one hell of a wake up call tomorrow.  Did I mention that those bells are only half a block away?

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Well, I'll be darned!

Turns out--I wasn't sick after all! I went to the chiropractor this AM and he muscle tested me for a virus and a bacterial infection. Both negative. Allergies--positive!

Went to the supplement store, got a homeopathic for mold allergies, some herbal allergy medicine--and voila! No more sick feeling. Weird. I could have SWORN I was sick. I'm trained to think that allergies make you all sneezy and itchy. These allergies just made me feel ill.

Yay! I get to enjoy my trip to Europe after all!

Off to Europe....

And I'm sick :-(

In my desperation to not have yesterday's throat tickle and
congestion turn into a full blown cold--I ran around buying every
supplement I could think of to stop what ended up being inevitable.

Anti-infective tincture from Dr. Fernando Vega--tastes horrible.
Gan Mao Ling from Dandelion Botanical.
Chai with cayenne pepper and Lemon from Morning Glory (has astragalus
in it)
Throat spray with propolis and astragalus
Vitamin C
Zinc
water

I dropped some of the Anti Infective tincture in my nose. Bad idea.
Not only did it burn like a mother--but my mucus membranes started
closing up --which made breathing difficult. Fortunately, I
survived--but I honestly wonder if my tingling throat today is more a
function of virus or bad judgement...

I have two days for this to go away. We leave on Friday.