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Vienna Christmas, part 1

When I last left you, the two Koniecznys were about to arrive and we were going to do...well, something. And a week later we were all going to Vienna for Christmas to see some of my family members who live there (one of them is Norbert, who you might remember from canyoning). Carly and her mom got in on Sunday and we just kinda hung out the first day or two, but they wanted to see the sights and took off to see some nearby things and places, which is something they might tell you about if they were blogging but I don't think they are. Anyway, the real excitement started at the end of the week. Carly and her mom took an overnight train to Vienna on Thursday/Friday and Jenna and I had to wait until Saturday to go. We took a two-layover train; once in Verona to turn to the north and then a second stop in Innsbruck to switch onto an Austrian (OBB) train that would swoop through southeastern Germany en route to Vienna. It was a nearly 12 hour day of trains and, believe it or not, it...

New Year's Eve

One thing that seems to be a true worldwide phenomenon is the realization that my last name is used on New Year's Eve signs around the globe. At first I felt slighted, as if someone were cheapening the worth of my last name. In more recent years I've taken is as a weird sort of compliment and even occasionally tried to make it into a pseudo-attention-getting thing if I'm feeling very "look at me" on a particular day. But that's not what I'm supposed to tell you about because that's boring. What's not boring is that most of the big cities around the world do big exciting fireworks displays and celebrations that stretch way beyond a ball dropping down a pole and standing in a crowd of 500,000 people for nine hours. In short, New Year's in the states generally blows. In the northern US you either go overpay by insane amounts to go to a bar and then wait for three hours for a cab back home or you go to a friend's house and it's...fine. ...

Vienna Christmas, part 3

This is where things get a little extra interesting. Parts 1 and 2 were tame compared to how close I came to serious bodily harm in this, part 3. On the 26th of December we went to the zoo because we really had nothing else going on and had heard it was a nice zoo. It was pretty nice. That's about it. But we also began really hatching the plan to maybe go skiing on the 28th. I have never skied before in my life. Despite growing up in Ohio where it gets cold and despite having brothers who skied when they were younger and despite having a friend who was a really really really good skier who I'd go watch sometimes, I never did it. I'm still not sure why. Jenna has been on a couple of ski trips but those are the only times ever. Norbert is, iduno, a really good skier who lives in Austria and goes on week-long ski trips to crazy mountains without lifts and things. So this was a good group to get started with. The weather turned cold on about the 25th and that meant we...