Baby Smooches

Extra! Extra! Miss Noodle got a smooch from Sir E., probably her oldest friend (see here and here), who is only two weeks older (and whose birth date was only three days after Noodle's...they're really the same age). Cuteness ensued. At least I think it is cute and am shamelessly subjecting you to the video.  

Sir E. and his Mama joined Alex, Noodle and me for an extremely cold walk at the Jesuitenwiese yesterday. After plenty of frickin' freezing fresh air, we found a little restaurant to warm up in. The kiddos amused themselves by screeching and bouncing and waving at the people leaving the restaurant (this video was made shortly before we paid and ran away so as to stop bothering the other guests). 

We may or may not have instructed them to give each other a "Bussi" (little kiss), something we've basically been trying to do since they were born. And this time, IT WORKED. 

Are we exploiting them for adorbsness? YES. 

Life Goes Onam

Do you know what Onam is? Do YOU know what pookalam is? Of course not. You are steeped in ignorance and have no education. I, on the other hand, having learned what these things are a week ago, am sophisticated and worldly. Come, little grasshopper. I shall explain.

Our fine hostess, cooking. 

Our little family, as usual, was late getting to their apartment. Really late. 

"Hello, hello! Oh Gof you're all here already. I'm sorry. We are sorry, " I said, coming through the door. 

Alex came in after me. "Sorry, hi everyone. Sorry." We are often sorry, because we are often late. "Hello, and sorry. Sorry. Hello," we said. Actually mostly I said sorry, in hopes of being endearing. Alex is less stupid. But I digress. And so soon, too. 

We were at Nayana and Tamas' home. Nayana and her friend Geetha, who hail from Kerala in India, were celebrating Onam. As sophisticated people know from frantically reading Wikipedia beforehand, this is a Hindu festival that falls around nowish, celebrates the harvest, and involves pookalams and special food. 
By the time Alex and I arrived with Noodle on her push bar tricycle, everyone else was already there. The table was set, and also covered with food (that smelled divine). Everyone leapt to their feet as we came through the door, apparently starving. 

On the floor of the entrance was the pookalam, which I, in my as yet unenlightened state, did not recognize. "What pretty flowers," I said. 

This is a pookalam, you ignoramus. Thanks for the photo, Milica!

"I did the design," said our friend Louise. She is not Indian, but her work looked very authentic to my sophisticated and expert eye. 

"Right, please gather," said Nayana, before my child had time to even clamber down from her tricycle.  All nine of us gathered. Well, 10 if you count the dog. You could almost hear the stomaches rumbling. ("So, so sorry," I whispered.)

She continued: "Now I will tell you all the story. Geetha, I want no interruptions to correct historical inaccuracies." We looked at Geetha. Geetha seemed prepared to correct historical inaccuracies. 

Noodle and the chefs and Onam experts Nayana and Geetha

The story is this. There was once a king called pause for Google search Mahabali who was wonderful and therefore beloved. He was so popular that the "lead God," Google reminds me his name is Vishnu, decided to take action. He disguised himself as a dwarf...

"No, a small boy," Geetha said. 

"...a dwarf or a small boy," said Nayana. "Divergent narratives. In any case he was very small."

"Not all small people are dwarfs," said Louise, who has Views. Often from below.* 

Nayana said, "Anyway..."

So Vishnu disguised as a person of short stature appears in front of the great and good king Mahabali and says he has heard that the king is very charitable, so would he please grant him (little Vishnu) a favor. The king, being lovely, says he of course will. The small person then asks if the King will grant him (the short one) as much land as he can cross in three steps. The King, ever kind, tells the little person that he has short legs so perhaps he'd like to define a slightly larger gift for himself. The little boy/dwarf says no, three steps is fine. 

Team Eaters, minus me, Alex and the Noodle. And the dog.
L-R: Milica, Tamas, Louise and Markus

But, in what theologians are calling "a classic divine bait-and-switch", Vishnu then resumes his leggy god size and proceeds to cross all the earth with his first step and then heaven with the second step. At this juncture, Vishnu helpfully informs the king that pretty much all available surfaces were covered by the first two steps. King Mahabali, a proper bleeding heart if ever there was one, tells Vishnu to then please step on the king's own royal head with the third step. Vishnu triumphantly steps on King Mahabali, pushing him down into the underworld. 

However, because the King is a really good person who worked hard all his life he is allowed to leave for a couple days a year during the harvest festival and check on the folks back home. Apparently the Hindu underworld and the American service industry have similar vacation policies. Anyway, because the people of Kerala love their king so, to this day they welcome him with pookalams and have a giant vegetarian feast to demonstrate how prosperous and happy they are. This is Onam. 

The story over, all nine of us proceeded to the dining table where we descended like locusts upon a vast array of absurdly delicious dishes. 

"If you see anything that looks like a green chilli and you don't like chillies, don't eat it," warned Geetha. 

No chillies in the dessert

"Especially you," Nayana said to our friend Milica. Milica, I learned, was wary of chillies that might be lurking in the curry like tiny, cruel crocodiles. Her caution was based on a recent personal experience.

Milica explained, "I noticed the chilli first because the left side of my face was on fire, so I moved it to the right side, which was on fire, and then I didn't know what to do so I swallowed it. Big mistake. My stomach was like fzzfff..BOOOM." She made a little mushroom cloud with her hands. Upon receipt of this anecdote I started sifting my own plate for suspicious green capsicums. 

I didn't find any, though. It was all so delicious we didn't speak to each other. There were fifteen minutes of determined chomping. 

Pretty much Miss Noodle's favourite food.

And for dessert there was super sweet, cardamom-flavored milky rice dish topped with cashews and raisins that had been fried in butter. It was epic. McNoodle first ate a whole serving and then had half of Alex's. 

How fortifying was this lunch, you ask? 

The Noodle and I came home (Alex had to go somewhere else for work) and this little girl...drumroll please...walked. WALKED! No hands! First one step, then two, and then she was doing six or seven at once before collapsing with laughter. 

So thank you, Nayana, Tamas and Geetha. And thanks, King Mahabali. You are inextricably linked to my little girl's first steps. I hope her legs take her across the earth and the heavens, but I can pretty much promise she'll never step on your head. 

*******
Re: This video, sorry it's vertical (I was scurrying backwards on my butt and somehow failed to turn my phone), and also please excuse my extremely overenthusiastic voice. Best to just turn off the sound on this one, really. 

*I LOVE YOU LOUISE

My Brother is Here, Plus Socks

And what have we been up to lately? 

Let me tell you! 

Well, a week ago we went out to the Danube with friends and family to belatedly celebrate Nava's birthday. Because I am rubbish in many ways, I apparently took only one photo. Here it is! 

Thanks for coming, y'all

I also baked an orange-almond cake and spent much time and effort writing a Happy Birthday message on it. It looked like I did it drunk and left-handed, but I figured my illiterate one year-old probably wouldn't care. In the end it was a moot point since the cake got lightly squashed in the cab and all the words were peeled off along with the aluminium foil covering. So it goes. 

Poorly lit cake photo, prior to brutal smooshing.

Nonetheless, the cake did a fine job holding up a single candle and subsequently transporting ungodly amounts of butter and sugar into everyone's bodies. 

We also used this fine opportunity to release the last five tadpoles into a stand of rushes on the side of the river. It seemed sort of safe, in that it was at least ten feet from a school of approximately 10,000 carp. Some guy who was watching with interest assured us that the tadpoles would be eaten within hours. I did not enjoy his attitude. However, it is true that I had to keep redirecting one of the little swimmers into the rushes and away from the fish. He (she?) seemed quite keen to die, really. 

We did not release any baby frogs. This is because they were all dead. Well, except one. One went missing and is only presumed dead, because of how we have two cats and zero ponds in our apartment. Overall, I don't want to talk about it. 

In happier news, this past weekend my brother Elliott arrived from Los Angeles. It's his ten-year high school reunion. This is significant for me in that it means I am super old. How have those little babies been out of high school for ten years? It blows the mind.  

My brother from the same mother. And father. Also, yes we have a fan and an air conditioner. What about it.

Post-reunion face. Day four.

We are, of course, delighted to have him moping around hungover every morning and cheerily recommending that we cook/go out to eat yet another heart-stopping, rib-sticking Austrian delicacy, generally consisting of pork and onions and potatoes. 

After eight consecutive meals the likes of which I generally try to space out over six weeks, I said: "I need to eat a salad for lunch today. Seriously." 

"Ugh, I'm only here for a week," he said. "YOU can have salad." And then he ditched me to have lunch with someone else. Quite astonishing. 

But really, I see him far too seldom and I wish he lived here. I love my brother. 


And also, Miss Noodle has figured out that socks belong on feet. She just doesn't know how to get them there. Behold: 

So, So Bad at Blogging: All of July!

I haven't posted anything here for nearly a month, which must be some kind of sad record. Lame! In my defence, it is summer and my parents were in town and we've been spending as much time as possible outdoors, catching the odd breeze, swimming in the Danube, and generally trying not to melt away. The weather has turned a little cooler, and as it's now bearable indoors let me try and recall all of the things we were up to: 

Late last month we went to the beautiful wedding of our friends Jenny and Markus. It was a garden party and Noodle, like everyone else, had a blast. There were many other, bigger kids there who were all sweet to her, as were the grownups. She even ate some grownup food--vegetarian lasagna--except by "eat" I mean she sucked off all the bechamel sauce and spat the veggies out. That's my girl.  

Dad keeping an eye on our stuff as we took a playground
break after a long walk in the Lainzer Tiergarten.

My parents were here! As usual, they filled our lives with extra happiness for two whole weeks. The Noodle was delighted to be the center of attention. Unlike when she is stuck with boring old Mommy, who has to interrupt playtime to do the dishes and work and fold laundry and cook, when Grandma and Granddad are around every day is an endless party. 

Grandma and the Bubble

The grandparents also arrived, as is their habit, with suitcases stuffed full of books and toys and gorgeous gently-used hand-me-downs from the gorgeous and slightly older daughter of an old school friend, whom her parents sometimes call the Squish. Squishy, we are grateful. Your parents (and grandparents) have excellent taste and are supremely generous to boot. Thank you! 

But all this largesse was added into an apartment so stuffed that the walls seem to be creeping toward each other--but my parents, ever vigilant and willing to spoil their adult children rotten--were totally awesome and bought us another closet. They are amazing. 

Indeed they are so amazing that in the middle of their visit, Alex and I left them with our kiddo and went off for our first post-baby weekend alone. 

At the Villa Borghese

All hail the Pantheon, which
would be a wonder even if it
was built yesterday.

We flew off to Rome on a Friday afternoon, drank a lot of gin, ate a lot of pasta and saw an absurd number of impossibly perfect and impossibly ancient buildings. 

We took one incredibly crappy 10-minute tour of the Colosseum (Never ever pay Follow Me tours anything. Ever.) that was followed by an awesome tour of the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill by a guy who is usually an actor but is a licensed guide on the side. 

If you're thinking of going to Rome I wouldn't bother...

...the place is just falling apart. 

Our guide was so engaging that we signed up for another two hour walk with him in the evening, after which we were totally wrecked but pleased by the vast amount of information we'd absorbed in the span of one day. I'm going to glue his business card into our Rome guidebook for our next trip, which needs to be soon and last longer.

We were trapped by this tiny gladiator, who later insisted
that we pay him five euros for the pleasure of having been
physically coerced into taking pictures. Five each, that is.
We gave him two, total, received a hearty
vaffanculo and were sent on our way.

On Sunday evening we returned home, fatter and happier. 

Our daughter, we noted, was also fatter and happier upon our return. Apparently my mom spent the whole weekend singing this kid nursery rhymes, letting Noodle strum her guitar, practicing walking and generally feeding this baby something every five minutes all day long. My dad, who had cabin fever, undertook numerous household repairs that wouldn't even have occurred to us but which make our lives better. He even...and this is actually just embarrassing...cleaned our bedroom. True story. My father cleaned my bedroom. I am 31 years old. I am married. WTF. I love my parents. 

Now my parents have gone and we're back to our usual routine. Weekends we've spent down by the Danube with friends and every week day that isn't rainy we spend a couple of hours at one of the nearby playgrounds. 

This is on a constitutional with my parents. We are led by my father, who ends up using his cell phone's GPS to chart a course along an invisible pig trail to nowhere that forces us straight through a waist-high embankment of brambles and hog shit. Everyone ends up either bleeding or having probably contracted some swine-borne disease that won't manifest for six months, when it will be too late. A good day out. 

The Noodle has changed so much in the last month. She's right in between being a baby and a toddler. Her lovely pumpkin visage is becoming a little more butternut-squash, by which I mean thinner, and her little arms and legs are just a little less chunky. Her hair is starting to look like real hair. She pulls herself up on everything and cruises around the room at great speed, although so far no apparent ambition to stand or walk without support. She's much more interested in other children, and in the sandbox she'll sometimes crawl over and annoy the great big toddlers who are baking their sand cakes and digging pointlessly elaborate holes. 

My pookies.

Noodle babbles all the time, tries very hard to sing whenever music is playing ("DAAAAAAAH"), does the classic baby dance (bouncing on her knees, pushing her tummy forwards and backwards and saying "yeahyeahyeahyeah"), and is starting to use a couple words. In addition to using the baby signs for "milk" and "more," she can definitely say no, either by shaking her heard or babbling "neineineineinen" ("nein" is no in German), and she says "das," "this" and "that," which often sound like "dis" or "dat". 

"That?" she points. 
"That is the cat," I say. "Shiva the cat. Cat."
"Ngat. Daaat," she says. "Dis. Das. That." And then she laughs with amazement at her own brilliance.
It's pretty cute. And of course, I think she is kind of brilliant. 

Lastly, and this is a big one: WE HAVE TEETH. Two of 'em. Okay, at the moment they're only a third of the way out--but they are proof of concept. The teeth really do exist. To go with the teeth we have purchased a baby toothbrush and some baby toothpaste, and have taken up the habit of brushing those narrow slivers morning and night. It's a two second job, which may be why she doesn't seem to mind much. I have no idea how you are supposed to get a baby to rinse and spit, though. Our current method is to brush and then spill water down the front of her pyjamas. It's a good system, but we'd take any advice you might have. 

Our current all-time favorite photo, thanks to Jenny's wedding photographer.

OKAY. And I herewith declare this blog updated! 

Beached Noodle: Bubble's First Seaside Adventure

Lignano, like any really popular tourist destination, is in many ways just awful. Located in very northern Italy, Lignano has Austria's closest beach. As a result, the place both feeds on and is totally ruined by hordes and hordes of pink, German-speaking mountain people seeking a plunge in the sea.

Sand mouse.

It is filled with gaggles of drunk teenagers on spring-break type trips. The beach is packed with endless rows and depressingly deep columns of umbrellas and deckchairs, all of which are strewn with low-maintenance holiday-makers and their noisy offspring (like us). Long-suffering immigrants march the beach doing the hard sell on shitty trinkets. Miles and miles and miles of beachfront property are filled with medium-sized hotels that range from soulless to cheesy. 

From the neck up, baby.

But the good outweighs the bad: you can always find a room and an umbrella, there are arcades and amusement parks (never been myself, but Gulliverlandia sounds intriguing), they sell ice cream and sunscreen every ten feet, and you have to walk about 100 meters from the tideline into the placid sea before the water gets up to your waist. It's like going to the pool, only safer. The beach is soft and sandy and devoid of all life besides the very occasional mollusk, bait-size fish or crab. And despite the fact that it's 90% Austrians roaming about, you are actually in Italy, and so the fruit and veg, restaurants and coffee are all great. 

I've been there with friends several times over the last ten years or so, and have usually stayed in the same hotel, where you have bring your own sheets and towels and toilet paper and pay extra if you're not going to personally scrub the room clean afterwards (which I'm not, thanks). The mattresses and pillows are salty and lumpy. But every room has a kitchen and a balcony with a table and plenty of chairs, and it's directly on the shore, and in general feels like a home. I kind of love it.

Destruction.

On this trip I asked Clemens, who is responsible for making arrangements (because he speaks Italian and his family have been staying in this hotel since time immemorial) what the rooms would cost if we used booking.com. He looked at me like I was insane. 

"Have you seen Frau Kohlrabi's book?," he asked. (Everyone calls her Mrs Turnip. Apparently her actual name sounds a bit like "Kohlrabi," and she looks like one, too.) He explained that paying up involves a ten-minute wait while the Turnip licks her fingers and flips back and forth through the pages, making notes and erasing numbers with a stubby pencil. "I have no idea what she's doing in there," said Clemens. "Maybe she's just acting important." 

Bubbles helping to dismantle a castle.

We spent the evenings with our friends, drinking vino on a balcony next to the baby monitor. Ten years ago we'd be up all night at one of the truly terrible discos and would sleep it off on the beach. Now we pushed the sleeping baby down past the bars at nine p.m., shaking our heads at the sight of shirtless boys and glittery girls drinking vodka out of hollow watermelons. They were hopping around to commercial techno, showing off their boring tattoos and their very nice bodies, getting it on with randoms, and ultimately vomiting on everything nice. It's actually quite heart-warming. There is nothing more feral and human than a bunch of drunk youths. 

In the early morning Alex, the Noodle and I would go stroll around the mostly-empty main strip. A smashed watermelon, lost hair decorations, broken glass. In some cases you could almost picture exactly what had happened where. 

I should never have let her taste ice cream. She's a machine.

For instance, I tried to withdraw some money from an ATM and realized only after several minutes of pushing diverse buttons (I speak zero Italian) that it was empty and wasn't going to work. Then I noticed that the wall and floor all around the cash machine were covered in big, wet stains. Elementary, my dear Watson, I deduced. The machine must have stopped working some time last night. And then I thought, I should probably wash my hands. 

What has not changed over the years is my deep affection for building sand castles. If Alex and I have one thing in common, it's the fact that we can both really get into crafting something tedious. This year we had the added benefit of the Noodle, who was our personal Godzilla. Her presence also seemed to justify buying all the fancy plastic tools we wanted. Well, her and the fact that we no longer calculate the opportunity cost of beach toys in terms of vodka-filled melons. 



This year, with six of us working to pile sand, hold passers-by at bay and keep each other well-moistened with light white wine spritzers, we managed to do quite the project--a larger-than-life sand mermaid lying around on the beach. Lots of little kids and their parents came by to take pictures and help donate seaweed, shells and blobs of sand. (You know you're in Europe when no one gives a hoot that you've built sand hooters.) 

Noodle, for her part, had a blast at the beach. She was either laughing hysterically at the waves, the sand, the muck and the algae, or she was fast asleep. Needless to say, this was also awesome for her parents. 

First baby beach trip was a great success. Can we go back yet? 

Family selfie!

The youthful hordes I was talking about? They liked the mermaid too.

Look on our works, ye mighty, and despair!

The Parents Were Here

Grandma and Puffes Noodle

My parents were here, so of course I have been drinking.  This is not a reaction to them. This is simply the organic result of having free babysitters who are happy as little clams to bounce the baby and stuff her full of pureed carrots. 

They came last Thursday, suitcases bursting with beautiful baby clothes and toys and books and candy (that's for the grownups around here, who apparently are believed to have the dietary preferences of six year-olds raised in an American food desert), to spread merriment and good cheer around our humble abode. Hooray! And then in the wee hours this morning they left. Sorrow.

Luggage McNoodle and her dad

The trip was a great success. On Saturday we drove out to Peilstein to wander around the 7km "Erlebnisweg", but about two kilometers into our walk the sky darkened and it began to drizzle, so we turned around. The last kilometer or so we were walking into a freezing, hurricane-like wind through shards of frozen rain, which was sort of adventurous and magical until the Noodle (understandably) decided she had had quite enough thank-you-very-much and lapsed into a low-level grousing combined with repeatedly smacking her father about the head. 

Granddad in the woods

Weather notwithstanding we managed to gather a big bag of Bärlauch (bear leek, or woods garlic) and before driving home we warmed ourselves up in a Heuriger with beer, diverse pork and knödel, so we can't really complain. 

It's always good to have Noodle's grandparents around. Our baby had the time of her life because she got to be carried around all day long and there was always someone around to play peekaboo and wake up with her at five a.m. (thanks, Dad!). Alex and I could leave the apartment with nothing in our hands (hooray!) and even go on dates with each other, can you imagine, including to the cabaret. I've had three separate low-level hangovers in six days--great success! My mother spent her time campaigning hard for grandparent of the year, reading books, shaking rattles and singing nursery rhymes over and over and over again. Also she has rearranged my pantry in her usual wonderful if totally inscrutable way. 

Slightly manic mama and her indignant, pink-cheeked offspring
dry off after walking through the driving rain.

My poor father, however, did not leave Vienna unscathed. He went out on an innocent 9 a.m. hunt for sausages on Monday morning and ended up getting punched in the face by a flying street sign, which had been dislodged by a tremendous gust of wind. Sadly for all of us scroungers at home he didn't file a complaint or otherwise extort the responsible shopkeeper. Such a nice man. As of yesterday the bleeding had stopped and the swelling has gone down, so that's good. He has refused all offers of ice but has been eating copious amounts of ibuprofen and appears to be recovering well. He is a beacon of manly suck it up-ness. Stiff upper lip and all that...get it? GET IT?  

Battle scars.

Come again soon, Mom and Dad! We miss you already.

Strolling on Sunday

The Russian Breakfast. Photo by Louise, because I am
stupid and forgot to take pictures. 

I don't know how other people spent their Sunday morning, but I was drinking vodka while caring for my daughter. Okay. It was just one shot, and in my defence it came with breakfast at Cafe Ansari. 

On the other hand, my fabulous companions Louise and Nayana and I may or may not have ordered that particular meal (the "Russian Breakfast") because it included the vodka. It doesn't sound like something we'd do, but one never knows. In any case, it was delicious - the food and the vodka - so everyone in Vienna should just get over there immediately. It helps to bring Louise and Nayana if you can. (Thanks for the tip, Nora-San!)

Nava was with us but did not order the vodka-laced brunch combo. After being a dear and allowing us grownups to have a proper conversation about whatever it is grownups talk about, Nava ate a pumpkin-based slurry from a convenience store that was romantically and optimistically named something like "spaghetti in a mild vegetable sauce". 

My pumpkin eats pumpkin (on a different occasion).
Only one of us is *really* enjoying herself.

Like everything else she eats, it was in fact a flavourless homogenous paste, but of course when your main goal is seeing how much of it you can fling across the shiny new world that hardly matters. She smeared it across her face, got some under her chinny-chin-chin and dribbled gobs across her tights, dress and onto the floor, so overall I'd say that was a great success. Heck, she even ate some. 

Nava and I then went to meet Alex's family for a stroll through the Prater, which is an enormous park and fairground in Vienna. The Jesuitenwiese and its accompanying playgrounds are a municipal treasure and I hope they live forever. 

Anywhere along the Hauptallee. I swear, every other part of the park is really quite charming.

Of course, I am a dodo and didn't take a picture of the pretty part, which looks a lot like the place where the Teletubbies live. I forgot to break out the camera until we were on the Hauptallee (main avenue). This is an endless paved road lined with chesnut trees that cuts through the park and that is shared by every unimaginative runner, walker, stroller, in-line skater and biker in Vienna. It's kind of amazing how long and boring it is, but on either side are any number of playgrounds and tree-lined groves and meadows to hang in, so we'll forgive it. 

Taking a break from walking with my handsome
husband and father-in-law.

After walking pretty much all the way down this baby we sat slowly freezing to death and drinking coffee and eating cake in the falling darkness. We came home pooped and the little one slept like a lump of pumpkin all night long. 

Salzburg: Ancient Home of Blond, Blue-Eyed Baby Jesus

Last weekend our little family headed out to Salzburg. Our mission was to show Nava to her great grandmother and a couple of Alex's wonderful cousins and their families, and to coo over another freshly baked baby girl named Floriana, who is an adorable porcelain princess with rosy cheeks and sweet blue eyes. 

Alex's Oma 

She is also blonde, because this is Salzburg. 

There are so many natural blonds in Salzburg that it is one of the last remaining homes of blond, blue-eyed Baby Jesus. Other places may have swapped His image for something a little less European, but Salzburg is old school like that. Blond Jesus (and his blond parents) have had their pictures carved, painted, frescoed, lacquered and cross-stitched all through the city. The traditions of Christendom are obvious in other ways - for example, I heard someone with no particularly religious leanings use "Christian" as a synonym for "civilized" (as in, "Why don't you call at a Christian time of night?"), which I've never heard in Vienna. 

Salzburg has just under 150,000 residents, and at least that many tourists wandering around day and night. The main reasons for the tourist boom are the architecture, the Mozart, and especially The Sound of Music, that great American classic, which no Austrian has ever seen but which everyone has heard of because tourists bring it up all the time. It was filmed in Salzburg. That scene where the Von Trapp family are hiding from the Nazis in a cemetery? Yeah, that's basically Alex's grandmother's backyard. 

St. Peter's Abbey. Don't let that 18th century dome fool you.
In the same century as this place was first used as a church,
Attila the Hun battled Rome, the Shaolin Monastery was founded
and Mayan civilization was enjoying its glory days. Sidenote:
The building on the right houses the oldest continuously running
restaurant in the world. "Genuine Salzburg hospitality for over 1200 years".

There is a part of Salzburg where young and dynamic people hang out, or so I'm told, but like most tourists I've never been there. I've only ever spent time in the the Altstadt, or old city, which radiates a stony coldness even on hot days. It also radiates conservatism and wealth, and many of the oldest (and most touristy) streets in town are filled with designer shops that have had a sort of Ye Olde Catholick Towne facelift. 

Alex's Oma lives in an area at the foot of an enormous rock called the Mönchsberg, atop which sits a properly medieval fortress. Around its base are chunky edifices and pathways that look like they were scraped into the mountain by monks who had nothing but wooden sporks to work with. Growing outward from the cliffside are cobblestone alleys lined with baroque-looking churches (and other buildings, but it feels like mostly churches) that hide truly antediluvian cellars in their bowels. 

Regular people in Salzburg

This city is old as they come. It was once a Celtic settlement, but in 15 B.C. the Romans took over. That city, Iuvavum, fell apart in the 5th century but was later reestablished as the bishopric of Salzburg in 696 A.D. by Saint Rupert, or so Wikipedia tells me. 

You want to know how old this place is? St. Peter's Abbey, in which Alex's grandmother resides, is the oldest known convent in the German-speaking realm and indeed it is SO OLD that when St. Rupert came through he had the place renovated. The core of the building and spire that exist today were built in the Middle Ages, but of course at that point the site had been used as a church for a good five hundred years already. Despite the sometimes kitschy renovations, there's a kind of Indiana Jones feel to Salzburg, like some crusader might have stashed the Holy Grail in what is now the basement of the local Prada. 

More regular people

And in such a place, I guess it shouldn't be THAT surprising that traditional Austrian dress is back. Alex and I were told that young, hip people across Salzburg can now be seen rocking their Dirndl and Lederhosen, like, all the time.  And to our utter amazement, it was true. In Vienna, if you wear such things others will assume you are either selling cheese at a farmer's market, attending a wedding, or have atrocious politics. (Which is too bad, really, because a good Dirndl gives every woman--flat, fat or otherwise--a lovely hourglass figure.) 


Anyway, in Salzburg wearing your Tracht (national dress) these days doesn't mean anything! It just means you're wearing clothes! I wish I had gotten a picture of the one guy who was wearing Lederhosen with a V-neck sweater and a slouchy beanie over his dreads, but you'll just have to take my word for it. However, I did manage to take photos of these other perfectly regular people wandering around in their Dirndl and Lederhosen without goose-stepping, getting married or carrying wheels of cheese. 

Sadly we had to leave Salt Castle after only one night. 

Spot the Austrian detailing at this crosswalk!
(I see one hat and at least two pairs of Lederhosen.)

And thus we abruptly find ourselves at home on the Gumpendorfer Strasse of the 21st century, where the Volk have assiduously hip tattoos, do hot yoga, drink gin, and dress like the Amish. It's good to be back around normal people. 

Pennsylvania Dutch Country or Gumpendorferstrasse? This photo shamelessly plundered
from this website: http://www.theinquiringmind.net/2008/10/peoples-of-america-amish.html

This is What Constitutes a Major Achievement in My Life These Days

Because Alex and I are adherents of the Path of Least Resistance School of Interior Design, we decided to conveniently locate Nava's diaper changing table in our living room. For the same reason, and because we are almost entirely innocent of either good taste or disposable income, our living room is basically monochromatic: everything is either black or white or a shade of gray. 

But the changing table was made of wood stained a fairly deep yellow, which didn't match, and it was missing an attachment that would have made it deep enough to fit a baby (we'd been laying her sideways). 

So last weekend, we built an attachment and painted it white!

BOOM. White changing table. Shot from below to add majesty.

Um, and that's it. 

Gosh. I was hoping this would be more of a blog post. It seemed like a serious achievement at the time. It involved planning the table extension, dismantling parts of the table, going to the hardware store, having wood cut, sanding the whole thing, nailing new bits together and painting everything twice. All on a Saturday. OH, oh, AND blogging about it. WITH a baby! I think we should get extra points for doing it with a baby. 

Not that our baby can talk or propel herself, or anything, but she does squall* loudly and for no reason for a couple hours every evening, and that made it pretty hard to concentrate. On the plus side, it made it totally irrelevant that Alex could have woken the dead when he was nailing pieces of wood together (at that point I was making futile efforts to calm our hysterical and inconsolable bairn, who was not hungry or in pain but was having her usual 6 pm bout of what I imagine is Creeping Existential Dread). 

Whatever. Fixing up the table was really hard and we are proud of ourselves. 

Here's a picture of our baby. She continues to be by far the best thing we've made. Didn't even have to go to the hardware store. 

P.S. Shana Tova, to those who celebrate it 

* By the way, the expression "a squalling infant" was a cliche I'd often read, but I feel like now I really understand. And we're lucky enough to have what they call an easy baby (knock on wood, salt over left shoulder, etc)!