This = More Like It

I hit the ground running when I finally got to Vienna on Saturday afternoon - dinner and drinks and drinks and drinks after a much needed shower with R and his friend. I finally went to bed at about 1 and slept solid as a rock until 8.

We spent most of Sunday in the Czech Republic looking at old palaces in Mikulov and Brno. We visited a beautiful, working, but sort of museumized synagogue and listened in as a chamber orchestra held practice. I don't know the piece that was being played, but it heavily relied on the cello and I enjoyed it very much.

After it became clear that the rain that had started in the early afternoon was not about to let up, we made our way back to the Stammersdorf neighborhood of Vienna, where we sat in a Heurigen drinking our red wine (Philosoph, 2007). We actually did discuss politics, but we also swapped stories of odd travel experiences. (Hands-down winner- G spent December alone in Finland eating odd fatty animals and getting lost in a blizard brrrrrr)

R and I spent the rest of the evening eating more of his wonderful cooking and making big plans.

This morning I am left to my own devices while R is at work. The first item on the agenda is to figure out where we can stay in Hungary for a reasonable price over a holiday weekend. Then I'm off to explore Vienna as a tourist. I'll start with the whole Jewish quarter, museums, temples and all, then make my way over to the northwest part of the city to explore a market or two, before coming back to change clothes and go to the theater. We're seeing Eine heikle Sache, die Seele by Bulgarian playwright Dimitré Dinev.

So far, I'm an extremely happy camper. I might have to change my return plans to three weeks from never.