Meine Tage

Ich bin ein guter Hausemann.  Yes, I am a good house man, running my errands, exploring the neighborhood, cooking meals.  This when I am not writing my serial novel and being harangued by my characters.  They are a pushy bunch.

I have been back in Vienna for ten days, three of which were compromised by jet lag.  I am usually able to reset my circadian rhythm fairly quickly, but I was not able to do so this time.  I think that the last two months of frenetic activity had literally kicked my ass.  But that is all over now, everything is stored, sold or rented and I am back home in Wien, where I belong.

So, what does a lazy writer do when he is not arguing with characters about who gets to be in the next chapter?  Well, I cook meals for My Heart.  If she mentions, for example, that she would like to try a lamb curry, then I have a mission:

 

I have other Hausemann duties, such as going to IKEA to return the drawer dividers that were the wrong size.  Yes, I get to learn new things, such as the variations in standard European drawer sizes.  

 

Oops.

Other Hausemann projects go swimmingly, such as the magnetic message board that My One desired to adorn the kitchen wall.   With all the ingredients that go into a good curry, or a home-made garam marsala, one needs somewhere to right down the shopping list.  

 

Of course, I spend a good bit of time running my errands on foot and exploring the neighborhood as well.  A typical shopping loop would be something like yesterday.  I walk up the Liesing Fluss, the little river that runs near our apartment.  Lovely trails run up and down the Fluss and I like to start my day walking along the river.  Yesterday I headed upstream until I had to turn off towards the Bäckerei Schwartze, which is located in a quirky industrial neighborhood.  There are abandoned factories, a very creepy building that looks like it could have been a jail, and the main bakery for the Schwartze chain.  These nice folks bake the Nussbrot, or nut bread, that is a favorite of My Heart.  So thence to fetch the bread.  

Along the way is a building that is being transformed into a new refugee center.  Several NGOs have gotten together to turn this old administration building into a center for up to 750 Syrian refugees.  Not all of the neighborhood is happy about this.  There were some heated public meetings regarding this new center.  The Syrian refugee situation continues to be a serious issue.  The main refugee route has been from Syria to Greece to Macedonia and then on into Europe.  Just this week the border at Macedonia was closed, trapping something like 30,000 refugees on the Greek side.  New rounds of negotiations will determine the fate of the refugees, but it is unlikely to be good.  

 

There are always discoveries to be made, little hidden gems in the neighborhood.  For instance, I found this bronze statue of a little calf.  Who knew that there would be a memorial to a brave calf who helped to lift the siege of Vienna in 1683?  The Turks were outside the walls of Vienna, trying to tunnel into what is now the Alt Stadt, or Old City.  The brave Viennese were on the walls trying to stop the Turks from taking the city.  It was your basic siege.  During the course of the siege there was a bit of backdoor trading between the Turks and some of the Viennese women.   The Turks would barter fresh foodstuffs for the bread made by the Viennese.  This trade was overlooked by the officials on both sides.  

One day, as the story goes, during a trading session conducted at one of the gates in the city walls, a calf got loose from somewhere inside the gate.  The animal dashed out into the no-man's land between the hostile Turks and the city walls.  The trading session was quickly brought to a close as hostilities were about to be resumed.  The calf, meanwhile, was running around out in the open.  The Turkish sharpshooters decided to use the calf for practice, but it dodged and swerved so handily that the Turk's musket balls could not bring the little beast down.  The sight of the Turks shooting at the defenseless calf so enraged the Viennese defenders that they mounted a sortie to rescue the beast.  In a rain of musket and arrow fire, a hardy platoon of Viennese soldiers issued from the walls and rescued the little calf, but not before making a discovery that saved the city.  Under a hail of enemy fire, one of the soldiers fell through the earth into a Turkish tunnel.  He was pulled out of the tunnel by his fellow soldiers and everyone rushed back to the safety of the walls, dragging the bawling calf with them.

The timely discovery of the Turkish tunnel prevented a disaster for the defenders.  The Turks, like any other good siege army of the day, would use sappers to tunnel under the walls of the city or castle that they were besieging.  Then they would undermine the walls while simultaneously shoring them with oil-soaked timbers.  The timbers would then be set alight and the sappers would retreat.  As the timbers burned away, so did the support for the wall.  The walls would then, in theory, collapse and allow the attackers to breach the defenses.  

So, the brave calf led the defenders to the discovery of an heretofore unknown Turkish tunnel.  The tunnel was blown up by the Viennese sappers before the Turks could damage the walls and the city was saved.  

Editor's note:  Much of what appears in the preceding four paragraphs is a complete flight of fancy on the part of the author.  There are some historical truths in the details of the Turks and the Siege of Vienna.  The part about the calf, however, is crap.  He just made that up.  Who knows why there is a statue of a little cow in the local neighborhood.  

Author's note:  The Editor is a bastard.  What does he know?  There COULD have been a little calf at the Siege of Vienna.  The Author admits there is no evidence that there was, but it could have happened.  The Author's mistake was taking the photo of the calf from far enough back that the Editor (who is a bastard) could see that there was not a plaque depicting the achievements of the heroic little calf.

Editor's Counter-Note:  There were no achievements on the part of the calf.  If that calf was at the Siege of Vienna, it was eaten.  End of story.  

Author's Note:  Whatever.  It was a fun story.  Stupid Editors!

My errand loop often ends up at what we call the Turkish Market.  We call it that because it's a small Turkish family business, unlike the chain stores Billa, Spar or Merkur.  I love the produce bins, where I can pick over apples or pears for the choice selections.   These nice folks also have a real butcher shop.  From here it is a short walk back over the pedestrian bridge and through the park area around Alterlaa.  

This coming Monday I start language class.  Five days a week, three hours a day, I will be wrestling with the labyrinth of German Grammar.  This will cut into my Hausemann duties, but I have to be able to pass the German Language proficiency test for a residency title.  Plus, a good Hausemann should speak Deutsch.  

It is very good to be back in Vienna.  I will try to keep the blog moving forward, amongst the other writing demands of Serial-Z and the language classes.  Ciao for now.