16.9.17

Side trip to Vienna, Oct 2015

It's fun to write in trains. One gets the time to think and the continuously changing landscape helps the strolling of ideas. Free-range ideas to make up a little story. 

I'm coming back from Vienna, after having visited Paola. It's been a long time, last time I was here was some five years ago. I came at the time with the very specific purpose of showing my parents the wonderful city of Vienna. I didn't try to meet Paola, don't remember exactly why. What no one expected was to meet at the St. xxx cathedral (the one with the funny columns) by complete chance. The year after (2011), Paola came to visit me in Zurich, bringing along Ferenc and Vale, Bruno was not there yet. Now, after paying a visit to Sofie in good old Brno, I took a quick detour to Vienna, arriving Sunday night and staying less than 24 hours. I stayed at her place, which she shares with a mom-daughter duo that just moved in a month or so ago. There's also two cats, Carlos and Lua, who happen to be siblings and resemble Matias a tiny bit. Well, most generic cats resemble Matias. Wait, no, Matias had a white belly and at least one or two white paws, which always look like gloves in cats. One would expect those cats to suddenly take the gloves off, or just to stop the traffic and from any given broken light, start controlling the flow at busy streets. But that never happens, I haver never seen it at least.


Last night I came to Vienna, I landed at Paola's, had some chitchat with her flatmates and had pizza for dinner. Bruno was not doing well and threw up, which made me realise how unpredictable and full of little issues rearing children is. They bite each other, demand lots of attention and only think about themselves. I'm always fascinated and look at them very attentively, then I can't help thinking every person that has ever walked the Earth was exactly like that. After the incident we slowly went to sleep. I got the children's room, slept very well and woke up quite early. Should have gone for a run, but I'm lazy and it didn't happen. In the morning I witnessed the ritual to get the kids on their feet ready for the kindergarten, from convincing them to get to the table to finishing their breakfast. After dropping the kids, we went for a Wiener Frühstück and had a catch up talk as the morning sipped through. Then we went to Paola's shop and even had the chance to try some cider. I took some bottles back home, not to many, glass bottles are heavy! Afterwards, we got back to the flat and started to make the way back to the station. Once I got to the station I realised time allowed for a couple of hours of wandering in the city. I didn't miss the chance and drop the suitcases in a locker, then went straight to the centre by U-bahn, trying to do the best of the little spare time I had before starting the way back home. I'm quite satisfied from my two hours killing time in Vienna: I finally got my hands on the portrait of Brahms I gave to Prof. Cea years ago after I came back from Brno. I was pleased to witness the static nature of this sort of goods, in 8 years the price didn’t move a euro cent. Finding the antiquariat happened completely by chance, because first I went to the Aida for a mélange plus sacher, then got into thinking I could check out the TNF shop and buy a new pair of running shoes. I also thought about visiting Mahler in Grinzing. I resolved the only time-effective thing to do was to walk to Mitte and check out TNF (the consumerist drive is the most immediate of all, always). On the way to the shop I realised I was walking the ring, which immediately brought to my memory the antiquariat shop, but I had no idea where it was located, only remembered it was somewhere along the infinite Ringstrasse. By walking and carefully looking at the windows, first I spotted the Vienna star dedicated to Shostakovich, made a picture of it, then kept walking. I haven't done more than 250 m and suddenly came across the V.A. Heck,  exactly the place I was looking for. They had the Brahms I wanted, so I bought it and even got ten postcards designed in Jugendstill style. I also reached the TNF shop but they didn't have my shoe size. Nevermind. I realised I really like to walk around guided by randomness and sudden, almost harmless impulses. Guided by wide-open eyes one can get very far and memories come always along right when you need them. If I were a reviewer of my these two hours full of flashbacks, I’d give it five solid, pointy stars, like those perched on the banners of .

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