Shopping and Misc.

Slower Days

April 21 and 22
Written April 22 -26

Dear Friends and Family,

Our Austrian vacation days, never too terribly hectic, have now slowed down. Part of that is that we have driven north, south, east, and west -- at least a little. Now it was time to stay around home.

Marianne started out Saturday morning by snapping some sunrise shots from the bedroom window. Nice work. (Meanwhile, I was downstairs struggling with processing sunrise pictures from a couple of days earlier. Should have been shooting, not processing.

Our goal for the day was a trip to the new Klagenfurt shopping center, "City Arkaden". It is apparently a German operation and, when we walked up and down the three-story center, we recognized almost every store as ones that are in our local "Arcaden" in downtown Erlangen. Actually, shopping centers seem almost universal and I'm sure any American would feel at home in the Arkaden-- or Arcaden.

The main purchase target was for a special lunch: bakery goodies. We succeeded. Marianne had "topfenstruedel" with vanilla sauce and I had apple and poppyseed cake. Both met our expectations!

Coming back from Klagenfurt we scouted out a restaurant for Sunday lunch. The Singer guest house seemed like just the deal. The best feature was a wonderful patio looking over the Rosenthal Valley out to the Austria-Slovenia mountain border. (ps: In fact, Sunday rain chased us indoors.)

Our second stop was the Ebenau Palace and a spontaneous visit to an art show. We could tell from the film crew that this was not a normal farmer art show. The art work in the yard was nice enough, but inside, the artist Christian Ludwig Attersee was displaying a selection of his paintings (no pictures allowed). Marianne later read some art history and learned that Attersee is one of the most respected artists in Austria. I certainly respected the 35,000 euro price on a painting or two.

The rest of the afternoon was spent at home, first on the patio and later down by the river in the gazebo we refer to as "the office". This gazebo has internet coverage and has become a regular part of our vacation life. It's just impossible to be out of touch anymore!

Day Two of Slow Days

I tried to write this just four days after and discovered that I had forgotten the whole day! Fortunately, I do have a few photos and, more importantly, my traveling companion.

After reconstructing the day, I have to say I now know why it was forgettable: rain. The wet stuff started early and continued most of the day. We spent a quiet morning reading, writing, and sketching (M). For lunch we went over to the Singer Guest House, but the experience was not so great. Yesterday, when we made the reservations, a patio table sounded wonderful, with the view and all. Today, rain chased everyone into much smaller space, indoors. That meant sharing tables and, in Austria, sharing them with smokers. And the food was mediocre.

After lunch, we still had no desire to wander around, so we just came back to Wahaha Paradise and sat in the pool-side restaurant, sipping water and checking emails. Nice quiet, I suppose, but could be forgettable.

Anyway, Monday, April 23rd would see more things happening.

Regards,

John and Marianne

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