Chapter 100 - Remembering the People

To get a syndication deal in television, you must have 100 episodes. Well, I managed to get to Chapter 100 on my blog so now I'll just wait for the Hollywood producers to contact me.

The living history was wonderful, one of the best parts of Europe for me. The castles, museums, palaces, especially the plague towers, old churches and cemeteries - I enjoyed all of those. But, just like everywhere else, people make the place. We met some unforgettable characters over there, quite an international group! In this last blog I'd like to share some pictures of them.

Saucy Ljuba, the manager at Sigma. She was our first friend in Klingenbach.


Immigrants from Croatia, Kreso and wife Tania love to dance more than anyone I've ever seen.


Thoughtful Milijana and her adorable children, Mena and Milos. They're part of the Novi Sad [Serbia] contingent at Hotwell.


Milijana's polite husband, Bora, with Spica, also from Novi Sad.


Croatians Dudo and Marija with their daughter, Mara. Dudo lived in Bosnia during the '90s war and shared some of the awful stories with us. He always seemed so happy. Marija used to crack me up - she always had something to say about everything!


Genuinely sweet guy Vladimir from Romania


Intense Chombe and quiet Josipa. Both from Croatia, they met at Hotwell and married and had baby daughter Zara last year.


Croatian pair Zarko and Andrea, the quietest couple I've ever met.


Charming and talkative Dragan from Novi Sad took us around when we first got to Klingenbach. He is quite a character! With him are Bob and Yu Mei, part of Hotwell China.


Principal company owner Vanja from Croatia


The other company owners, Mijo and Kreso, also from Croatia


Company lawyer Michael, one of the few Austrians at Hotwell, helped us navigate through the government bureaucracies.


I'm looking at computer pictures from Karin's wedding with, from left to right, Romanian Ionna and Austrians Karin, Christina, Gigi, Ringo and Monika. This is a fun group.


On a day trip to Vienna, Austrian Gitta and her budding-lawyer-daughter, Christina, were my guides.


Sweet, intelligent Andy from Mumbai, India, by way of Georgia Tech


Handsome and talented young Marjan from Novi Sad


Herr Mayor Johann Frank and his wife, Sylvia. He was unfailingly courteous to us.


Hotwell employees' kids playing at one of the outdoor parties at the Lower House


They enjoyed watching the Red Party put up their flagpole on May Day.


Our delightful landlord, Burschi, the proprietor of the restaurant/bar over which we lived. He is definitely a character and one of our favorite people in Klingenbach. The combination of his English and my German was hysterical and frequently frustrating for both of us. Unfortunately, I was never able to get a picture of his camera-shy wife, Hilde.


Burschi, the way you usually see him - behind the bar!


Burschi's eldest son, Michael, and fiancee, Desiree.


In the middle of the picture strides charming Thomas, Burschi's middle son and our translator, and his partner, Tina. He's wearing a gray suit and carrying the white umbrella, and she wears a flowered dress. To the right is youngest son Stefan and his [now ex] partner, Jasmine, both dressed in black.


Janusz, one of our favorite dogs. The Viszla is the mascot at Schoko's Restaurant and always greeted us for petting when we went there to dine.


And Ecco, our other favorite dog in Europe. He is Zarko and Andrea's dog and can chase a ball longer than any dog I've ever seen. It's funny watching him trying to eat or drink while not letting go of the ball.


This is a Croatian restaurant in the Hungarian village of Kophaza, east of Sopron. They have a shrimp dish I really loved. From left to right are Vladimir, Zelko, Dragan and Bob.


Probably the most memorable person I've met anywhere is the irrepressible Spica, originally from Macedonia.


I'd like to close with a few of my favorite pictures.

Chombe, Spica and me


My beautiful Kate with handsome Colin in the lovely garden at Hampton Court Palace during my London trip


With "Henry VIII" at the first gate at Hampton Court Palace


My first Mother's Day with Kate in several years


These good-looking soldiers are among those who conduct the Key Ceremony at the Tower of London each evening.


Kate, Colin and me at Liesl's gazebo during "The Sound of Music" tour in Salzburg


And the best for last... who else? The hubby! Bob and me all gussied up at the Fasching Ball in Klingenbach.


Our experience in Austria was so many things - interesting of course, sometimes fascinating, frequently instructive or informative, once in a while downright wonderful, sometimes frustrating, occasionally infuriating - but one we're so happy we were able to have. We feel like we learned a lot about other people, and we're certainly much more tolerant of people who don't speak English here. We've been on the other side of that now! The opportunity came at probably the only point in our lives when we were able to take advantage of it.

I loved doing this blog, and I hope you enjoyed reading it. But now that the "Innocents" are back home, this is the last chapter. Auf Wiedersehen!

Chapter 99 - Remembering Places and Things in Europe

When I cast my mind's eye back over our time in Europe, certain places and things leap into my memory. It's not the things you struggle to recall; they're the things you can't forget. So, in this next-to-last blog, I'd like to share a few of them with you.

This is Schloss Esterhazy in Eisenstadt, the home of composer Josef Haydn for so many decades.


Burg Forchtenstein, castle and the largest armory in central Europe. This is where we saw the saddles and other leatherwork Bob's ancestors may have made before they came to America.


The view of the valley from the parapet at Burg Forchtenstein. I like to imagine it from the other way - what the Turkish soldiers saw as they marched toward the castle. I might add that Forchtenstein never fell to the Turks.


The side of a building in Siegendorf. We saw scenes like this all over central Europe, and it reminded us of Woody Allen's comment, "Europe needs paint."


I fell in love with the doors over there. This is just one of hundreds of original doors we saw.


One of the hundreds of dogs we saw in malls, stores and restaurants all over Europe - a very civilized way to do things, I think. We never saw one misbehave.


The old, abandoned Jewish cemetery outside the hospital in Eisenstadt haunted me ...


as did these medieval Jewish graves in Wiener Neustadt ...


and the Mauthausen Concentration Camp.


It was so jarring at first to see this speed limit sign. It's in kilometers of course but still startling.


These roundabouts, or traffic circles, are the most inspired way to move traffic efficiently. I wish they had them in the U.S.


On May Day every year, the two political parties in Austria (the black right-of-center and the red left-of-center) put up these poles. It's quite an occasion for bands, convivial cheer and, of course, lots of drinking.


A few places where we spent our money. Note the empty parking lots on the first two - all retail stores are closed every Sunday and any day remotely resembling a holiday.

This is Muller's, a cross between a CVS, Ulta, and small grocery store that also has toys, CDs, DVDs and general household products.


Our favorite grocery store, Merkur.


Bob's favorite place to eat - that little slice of home. Note the Citroen-with-its-own-mind second to the right out front.


And Wabi, across the border in Hungary, where we got our mani-pedis. You can get anything there, from a haircut to spa treatments and facials, all the way to any kind of plastic surgery.


In London I'll always remember Big Ben and Parliament ...


Buckingham Palace ...


Hampton Court Palace ...


Tower Bridge ...


and the magnificent Tower of London where we witnessed the centuries-old Key Ceremony.


In Prague the Prague Castle will always stand out in my memory ...


another of the many palaces and churches in the Prague Castle complex.


... and of course the [now] picturesque Old Town, which was once a complex of narrow, dark, twisting, damp and disease-ridden lanes where the oppressed lived in servitude to those who looked down on them from Prague Castle.


In Salzburg, on "The Sound of Music" tour, this is the house where the movie Von Trapp family lived.


The alps outside Salzburg, what I thought all of Austria looked like before I went there and learned I was to live in the rolling vineyard country.


And my lovely Vienna.

This is the Hofburg, the 1000-room Hapsburg Palace still in use today for government offices as well as four museums.


Bob and Kate at a sidewalk cafe where we ate - what else - wienerschnitzel (which for Americans is kind of like a pork, hammered-thin chicken fried steak).


We loved the Vienna Rosen Garden.


These stone figures guard the Belvedere Palace and Museum.


I had wanted to see Holbein's portrait of English Queen Jane Seymour since I was a child. The painting is displayed at the Kunsthistorische (Art history) Museum in Vienna. It's a very moving portrait for me. Her dress has a detailed criss-cross pattern of gold embroidery that looks so real.


Kate and me outside the unbelievably fabulous Schonnbrunn Palace ...


the front of the palace ...


and the back.


So what will be my lasting memory of Europe? Well, that's an easy one - stairs! Every last place you go, there are stairs. In the restaurants, the restrooms are downstairs. I never liked stairs, and now I really don't! Here's just a taste.

At the University of Vienna ...


at the Kunsthistorische Museum in Vienna ...


at Hampton Court Palace in London ...


So many of the village churches were built on a hill, hence the common name Bergkirche. At this one in Donnerskirchen, you have to climb five of these flights to get to the church.


This is the scariest of all the stairs. It's a winding staircase at Burg Forchtenstein leading down to the kitchens. Nothing to hold on to except the wall, and the stairs are narrow and uneven. It seemed to go on forever down into the dark and freaked me out.


And this one saved to the last. This is part of the flight we had to climb several times a day. It's the one leading to our flat. It's steeper and longer than the typical American flight of stairs. Then when you get to the top, you go to the right down a long hallway to our flat before you can catch your breath!


Some memorable people in the next blog.