Laternenfest

So I wrote already about skipping Halloween, and how it didn't sadden me much.

Here on November 11, or 11.11, is St. Martin's day, which is not technically a holiday, but gets celebrated in schools and kindergartens, with lanterns that kids make themselves, and walk around the town with.

Unfortunately, Brian had to miss it, because he was in London all week for work.

I got asked to take photographs for our kindergarten lantern festival, but that afternoon, all their lights stopped working, and I don't use a flash in the dark (I use it in the light for other reasons)

Anyways, that morning, Felix and I made a lantern so he wouldn't feel left out, and that night, we sang lantern songs and watched the kids walk around carrying candles surrounded by wax paper. No fires occurred, but cuteness was found.

That morning, with paint brushes.

Only a few of about 50 lanterns that the kids made themselves in kindergarten.

Theodore in the middle of his class walking around. Most kids were too distracted by the candles to sing.

Felix and Tante Centa, with his candle.

A proud Henry looking into the light.

12 spoons.

A post where I share a parenting thought. I had to clean 12 spoons for one bowl of oatmeal.
But it was totally worth it... Because ... he made it himself, from start to finish, including opening the glass jar we keep raisins in, and moving chairs and climbing up and down them to get things, spilling milk, making a mess, cleaning up after himself. it's a long hard road to independence, but there's a happy felix smile along the way sometimes. i don't know why we plan to need a spoon per bite, but so be it.

(of course sometimes he says things like "i want to tie my shoes myself" when there are a million people waiting for us to be ready, and we're already late and ... umm... he physically can't tie his shoes himself. oh well.)

A super fast post

Brian's in London, and Centa's house sitting, so Irma's home alone for the week with all three boys.

I sent this email to Brian this morning, but it made me laugh so much I had to share. at 6AM this morning:




i awoke this morning (good thing i practiced this sort of thing in high school) listening to 3 different songs being sung at the same time.


henry singing mahler 1 (sad frere jacques),

a made up song by theodore (or possibly the italian laternen fest song he's learning in school),

and the tune of es tanzt ein bi-ba-butzemann from felix with these words: afickafuckafickafuckafickafuckafuck - fickafuck - afickafuckafickafuckafickafuckafuck........................
Good Morning, America! Let's now move on to a new consonant sound to practice. ;)

Seeing Things

When I was a child, I shared a room with my sisters, and the room was entirely papered in giant neon yellow green and orange flowers. The paper had been chosen by the previous owners, who seemed to have chosen the best quality and most fashionable wallpaper in the early 70s, and in the 90s it was still in such good condition it looked brand new, and now in 2015 is still there and still in terrific shape (although it's been through teenage kid poster-hanging abuse).

 Well, all those patterns made faces. That is, you lie awake in the almost darkness, and open your eyes, and there on the wall is a shape, and we humans are kind of made to find faces in all abstract ideas, so instant face. We saw beautiful ladies and garish skulls and everything in between.

 .......Fast forward........

 Now I have kids of my own, and our walls are neutral. But the face pattern search continues. :)

Like on the stairs.

Hello person with wild eyebrows.

Hello dancing man.

 Although maybe more abstract. So Henry tells me he doesn't know why "somebody made a picture of a sad boy all alone." For my life' I looked around the room, and couldn't find any pictures of any sad boys alone. I was even looking through my children-eyes, trying to imagine what he could be imagining. I asked which little boy? He said the one wearing the hat. I didn't find a hat!
So he showed me. There it was. A hat.:

As part of the wonderful pastel that his talented Aunt had done years ago: 

a copy of a National Geographic picture, which was part of an article describing a trip in a reconstruction of a Greek boat the author took on a possible route for Ulysses... 

What has been seen cannot be unseen.

Dear Tante C. reminded us there's a word for this. Copied "whole hat" from wiki:

Pareidolia (/pærɨˈdoʊliə/ parr-i-doh-lee-ə) is a psychological phenomenon involving a stimulus (an image or a sound) wherein the mind perceives a familiar pattern of something where none actually exists.

Hiking with Strangers - Technically my Halloween Costume.

Brian went on a hike a few week ago. He met a terrific doctorate student who is new to Graz, and wanted to go on a specific hike to Baerenshuetzklamm, which Brian had been to but I hadn't. We made about 48 seperate plans, but each time we were all too sick for Irma to leave and go for a hike all day. The last day the Klamm (the Gorge) is open for the year is October 31st, and on October 31st, Brian gently wiggled my shoulder at stupid-early AM and said, "are you interested in hiking today?"

my thoughts went like this:
"eeeeeeeh I have a headache, i'm congested, i'm tired, a bit cranky, i don't have any clothes, it's cold out, why didn't i pack my hiking boots.....?"

so i said "yes"

and i found myself wearing about 10 layers of cotton shirts and 2 pairs of pants, and carrying another sweat suit in my backpack at the train station in really cold foggy Graz asking the first single lady if she's going hiking today. Yes she is, and so are a lot of other people from a Facebook group I'm not part of since I haven't been using facebook. Like anywhere from 4 to 14 people. - But we're not sure. Oh! Ok.

We waited until a reasonable time, and ended up being 4 people.We bought a four person train ticket.
[incidentally, when you buy a multiperson ticket, they are not valid for rush hour and it gives you the option to buy several of them at once. So... multiperson ticket *click* for how many people 1,2,3,4 *click*,5 ... how many 0 (!), 1, 2, 3,4 we stand there confused for a second, then one of us clicks *4* and it told us an exhorbitant price. no we want ONE four-person-ticket]

The view is promising from the train.

Here are the 3 other people from our group.

We represent here from Left to Right:

Finland, Georgia, Rumania and not pictured, me, USA  Cool.

We also met a group of four girls our destination station who were hiking because of the facebook group, and a group of 4 guys who had driven there because of the facebook group.

The leaves were changing. It's not Vermont, but it's pretty pretty. ;)

Brian had told me there would be lots of bridges and wooden ladders, so I got excited and took a selfie here, but it turns out, ths was not impressive, and then I put my foot through one of the openings and a think almost broke my leg, but hurrah, no injuries!

Boy was he right. There in the gorge are LADDERS, and BRIDGES, and STAIRS oh my!

they are built like this. a little rung on the inside of the ladder, a big rung on the outside of the ladder. Sometimes they were too far apart for me, built for a Women's size 9 1/2. :) 

It was breathtaking at every corner.

The view from the top of one of the spots.

When we reached the top of the gorge, we stopped at the restaurant, had some soup (well, I didn't) and decided to keep hiking. the other 8 people, who had been hiking a bit slower** decided to go back down. We continued on over the next mountain to the next town where we were planning on catching a bus back to where we started and then wait for the train to Graz.

**a bit slower in this context means: They showed up with their cars when we arrived, with the "need to get back by 2pm, so we shouldn't hike so far, but where are we going I don't have a map or know these routes, and I don't usually hike, so I can't tell you my speed" mentality. It seemed they wanted to make our group of 4 responsible for them, but we went much faster. At some point they caught up to us at a resting spot, and told us we were going too fast. Their version of hiking included listening to really really loud Shakira on their iphones, and throwing candy wrappers on the floor. I wasn't really impressed. Oh well. 

I stopped to take a picture of the daisy in the grass which had white petals if you looked at it from the front, and pink petals if you looked at it from the back. Cool.

Also, a type of deciduous pine tree - a type of pine that looses its needles in the fall. Cool.

The view near the top. More depth in real life. ;)

We wanted a group picture, so we tried near the cross (that's what's at the top of pretty much all mountains in Austria) but we were horribly backlit. We look like winners though.

Then we tried here. On top of the world!

CODA.

There's a little more to the story. We hiked down the mountain and into town, and we were very happy and a little sore, but in a good way, and got to the bus stop and read that there was no more bus service *after september 6*.     ........ um... it's the end of october. That was our way home. 

We see a tourist bus, so we ask if the busdriver speaks English, and he says NO, with a look that says GO AWAY.

OK....

We go in the hotel/ski lodge that's teaming with people, and ring the bell at the reception (which is hidden in back of the building past the bathrooms) and nobody comes out. We ring again, nothing. Once the door to the reception area started openening and then closed again. They didn't want company.

OK.....

Then Mira (from Finland) sees a guy packing his car, and we run out, and I ask him if he would please give us a ride to Mixnitz, and he says, sure! I say there are two more people and he says, sure!

OK......

so we wait for a few minutes and go off. The drive is SO long, because we have to go around the whole mountain and gorge that we had hiked today. It takes about 30 minutes, and he explains he is  a retired lawyer who donates his services in Vienna to the elderly in hospice care with unfinished business (like estranged children, etc) so that they can die easier. He started the work after his wife died. Now he is on a relaxing trip with his two adult children hiking, and he is taking a break from them to drive us to the train station (we thought he was LEAVING! and we thought he was ALONE! oops!) and he is very congenial. And speaks very softly. 

At the end, he didn't give us his address so we could send him a card, or anything. He just told us his name was Franz, and that he was glad to help us. Aufwiedersehen, he said as he left us on the street. 

Then we see the 4 girls from this morning. They had just gotten back! The 4 guys had also just gotten back, but had left with their cars. So much for being back by 2 Haha.

Here are all of us in Mixnitz. What are the chances?

We were all super giggly, and from the Graz station had to bike/walk back. 

When I got back I we had company from Slovenia!

I didn't miss American Halloween at all - WHAT A DAY!