Series: Euro vs. US: The Bedder Bed Edition

So people keep asking me: Which do you like better? Europe or the US?

Hmm. That's not a fair question, since there are many factors to consider. Herewith I begin a series where I compare and contrast simple things. If I keep it up, maybe I'll score it.

First up, a pun: What's BEDDER?

When it comes to beds, Europe invented IKEA, so point 1 for Europe.

However, it also invented pushing two twin sized mattresses together and calling it a double bed. Ta Da.

I don't think Queen or King are a thing here.

So when you, of couple-land, share a bed, there is a fault line down the middle. Same with the covers. It got so bad, after just one week, that I sewed two twin sized quilts together, and then sewed two duvet covers together. Europe must have a good reason though: couples like Irma and Brian, with Irma always too cold and Brian always too warm. But still. We like to share, so share we will.

Altogether, I give the US 3 points (1 each for mattress, sheets, and blankets) and EU 1 for standardizing beds that fold out of couches.

Roaming to Romania

Soon after arriving back in Graz (just in time for school to start!), I (Brian) took off again on a trip to Romania.

Why Romania?  To attend FIWE (Financial Independence Week Europe), a gathering of two dozen people interested in maximizing happiness, lifestyle design, anti-consumerism, minimalism, investing, frugality, and more.

To get to Romania, I took the complicated way.  Step 1) run to Jakominiplatz, the central bus station in Graz with a backpack and a guitar (the instrument is important later), 2) take a bus to the Vienna Airport, 3) pick up a rental car and another conference attendee, 4) drive through Hungary, 5) cross the border into Romania, brave narrow 2-lane roads with speeding cars and heavy city traffic to arrive Timișoara for the first part of the conference.

A cool conference T-shirt

The first part of the conference was filled with presentations, long walks between the hotel and restaurants, chats with other attendees, and late nights.  My presentation was on what I learned about life by living in the woods for a summer (or at least part of the summer).   The other presentations ran the gamut from hard-core investing topics (options investing, peer-to-peer loans, contrarian investing), to lifestyle choices and experience reports (being a digital nomad that travels all the time, running an AirBnB business, how priorities have changed since retiring early, running an online business).

Early mornings were filled with running (and talking), eating breakfast (and talking).  Each day had multiple presentations, but with time for walking (and talking), eating (and talking), and drinking (and talking).  The conference was small enough to get to know everyone there, but large enough to have a diverse set of view points.  There were people in all stages of life: new graduates, new retirees, mid-career workers doing all sorts of different types of work: full-time workers, part-time workers, self-employed freelancers, entrepreneurs, retirees.

Sunday, we were interrupted by a freak storm with winds up to 100km/h.  Many of the street lights and traffic lights stopped working due to downed power lines.  The next morning, we dodged downed tree limbs on our run along the river.

Devastation from a freak storm in Timișoara

On Sunday night, after a conference wrap-up / feedback session, I got out my guitar and held a sing-along for songs about financial topics that I'd written over the summer.  For example "What Do You Do With a Chunk Of Money?" (Tune: "Drunken Sailor", by the Irish Rovers) and "One More Year To Work" (Tune: "One More River to Cross").  I was glad that others joined in the singing, because my voice and guitar playing aren't good enough to be solo, they are best enjoyed while being distracted by your own singing.

The next morning, most of the conference attendees moved on to the "extra" part of the conference. Everyone took a train, except for me and my carpool buddy from Vienna.  We took everyone's luggage in the car, which ended up piled high enough to block the back window.  It was an exciting experience to drive out of Timișoara with not rearview mirror and half the traffic lights not working.

We arrived in the quiet, relaxing stay in Jimbolia, a town of 10,000 on the western border of Romania near Serbia.  North of the town, there are several lakes, artifacts decades of digging out clay to produce bricks and roofing tiles that can be seen in buildings around the town and across the rest of the country.

Brick church built with local materials in Jimbolia

The lakes officially provide a habitat for fish, fishing and beautiful views.  Unofficially, they also provide swimming.   One morning, I ran there with a friend and jumped in for a cool refreshing swim.

At the lake, dodging horses and stray dogs

Abandoned factory building in Jimbolia

On the way back to Austria, I stopped in Budapest for a few hours.  For several reasons: 1) I've never been to Budapest and had heard it is beautiful, 2) I planned to meet up with someone from an online forum I frequent, 3) another conference attendee was traveling there and asked for a ride.

A view of the Pest side of the river, from the Buda side

Budapest was great.  We walked around the city for a few hours, soaking in the sites.  I ran along the river, running in the second country of the day.  Leaving just in time, we traveled back to Vienna, returned the rental car, and I caught a bus back to Graz.

At 3am the next morning, I arrived back in Graz.  Tired from the journey, but happy and full of excitement about designing our life to be as we want it and maximizing our family's happiness.  I have a hypothesis that working fewer hours, leaving more hours for other endeavors will increase my family's happiness level.  The company I work for is supportive of experiments and will likely be willing to give it a try.  First step: reduce my work schedule from four to three days a week.

How are you designing your life to maximize your happiness?

Hiking with Adults versus Children

Hiking with adults and hiking with children are very different.  Let me tell you about two recent hikes: one with adult friends and one with Felix.

Planning

Adults: 3 weeks in advance, we created a Doodle to determine a date that worked for everyone.  Several trail suggestions were muted and we eventually decided on Rote Wand.

Children: I wanted to go on a hike with Henry.  Henry was excited about the hike yesterday.  Today, he decided he didn't want to go.  He wanted to go on the "second hike" after someone else had been on a hike alone with me.  Felix was very excited to go instead.  We got on the bus to Gösting. There are several familiar children-friendly hikes there.  Felix decided he'd like to hike up the Plabutsch to Mauser Most. At the top, Felix asked see Thalersee.  

Pictures

Adults: A few pictures were taken--mostly at the summit, during breaks and when a herd of ibex mountain goats crossed our path.

Herd of ibex crossed our path

Taking a break, adult style

Children: Felix liked to take many pictures.  Here's our first pictures, waiting for the bus:

A typical Felix smile

A wild mountain man is wandering around the city

Felix can use the camera to take pictures of anything "interesting".  Here are the most interesting things to him as we approached the hiking trail:

Felix's "Interesting Things"

The peak
Adult: A short break at the top is usual, enough time to get a few pictures and soak in the view.

The cross at the peak "Gipfelkreuz" -- almost all Austrian mountains have one

The stunning view

Children:
A long break at the top is necessary, in order to play, eat, and gather strength for the trip downhill.

A playground in the sky

Climbing the walls with Graz in the background

Length
Adults: 2 hours for a 7km hike with 450m of elevation gain.
Children:  6 hours for a 6k hike with 400m of elevation gain.

Post-hike
Adults: Go to a beer garten for a post-hike Radler (Austrian half-beer half-lemonade beverage).  I fall asleep in the car on the way home.
Children: Play in a playground at Thalersee.  Felix falls asleep in the bus on the way home.

palm sunday

post more post more
ok ok
i will.

today was fun because of so many things: friends family food walking talking baking

nina was over for coffee and theodore made dinner (and included cool ingredients like radish greens and sorrel and herbs). nina also took a lot of pictures of my kids being total monkeys.

she caught us talking the neighbors who were walking by.

felix monkey

theodore and henry monkey

nina

we went for a walk to the easter market which was competing for attention with a big construction site where they are redoing the entire downtown tramtracks

"if you slack, no track"

got back in time to have dinner with manuela and read bedtime stories and talk till late and decide to maybe start a 365 project so i don't forget everything i ever did.

timimoun part 2

We were very well cared for in Timimoun. Our hosts made sure to get us a sightseeing guide for the area. There are very few tourists to that particular spot on the globe, even though there is much loveliness and history to be found there.
The next morning we had to prepare for our concert, on the way we did a lot of sight seeing.

Before the rehearsal, we were each presented with a colorful scarf, printed with "Souvenier d'Timimoun" We gave CDs in return.
During the rehearsal, we all were standing outside in the glaring direct dessert sunlight. Klaus was getting a terrible sunburn, until one of the public officials took Klaus's scarf and tied it as a turban around his head. We decided together that we would perform that way, despite our concert starting when the sun was down again

. 

The craziness from the day before in the desert led to us being on TV, and us getting special coverage. our concert was a smashing success, despite the power outage.

About the power outage: It delayed our concert by about one and a half hours. There were some reactions we slowly absorbed. One was from the Berber Tribe. "Why do the Europeans need lights to play?" another was from the officials. "The French put in the electricity, that's why it doesn't work."

The Berber tribe we played with us UNESCO protected, and is truly an amazing living proof of traditions being shared orally. They were so easy to photograph because they were so beautiful. One of the ladies was wearing hello-kitty style shoes beneath the typical dress.

they listened to us play the Radetzky March with confused "this is music?" looks, then clapped dutifully. we tried to play along with them. at least we could follow their complex rhythms a little bit. the concert we played side by side, alternating between our groups, and sometimes with us playing along. the audience roared. screamed. jumped up on the stage. took selfies with us. afterwards interviewed us. took more pictures.

timimoun part 1

We were in Timimoun for only 2 days, but so much happened i'll split this up into 3 posts.
Timimoun is a two hour drive from the airport in Adrar, not counting a stop at a solar farm that the Algerians wanted to show off to our ambassador.


Duly impressed, we caravan-ed on to our hotel.

My view

was this:

We haven't forgotten we have concerts to give. After dinner, we unpacked our things, changed strings on the cello, tuned, picked a piece to rehearse. ...... However, spontaneity is the word here. We got a call from the ambassador asking if we wanted to see the desert at sunset. Hm... What an opportunity. Crazy new plan, how about we go in our concert clothes and do a photoshoot. NOW? yes, NOW. Ok. let's go. So we did.

Klaus had to hook in all those tux buttons and everything, but he's a good sport.

Way in the back you can see our military escort standing watch over the crazy Austrians. 

Here it is! The desert at sunset! Breathtaking.

The ambassador standing next to her husband. And the consulate playing one of our violins.

During this wonderful experience, one of the military guys called a TV station, to film us. The guy who showed up to the filming got to see me and Barbara literally running and rolling down a sand dune, and asked to take his picture with us. I guess we made quite an impression.

A Tale of Two Airports, or, From Austria to Algeria

Now that I'm back from my crazy trip, let me tell you how we arrived! :)

We stayed up all night with some Schilcher champagne at Irmtraud's place, leaving with a van at 1am, arriving before the airline opened our check-in line. We waited. Klaus was exhausted and sick. Our singer, Birgitta, came later on her own. It felt so strange to be completely dependent. I had no ticket, no information. We had a group ticket, and all the details and assundries had been taken care of by Irmtraud and the Austrian embassy.

 L to R, me, Barbara, Belinda, Klaus, Irmtraud at the airport in Vienna.

A quick glimpse of the Mediterranean on our way to the hotel. This was all we saw of Algiers for now. We grabbed a quick dinner, but all I wanted was coffee, I was nearly falling over from lack of sleep.

We looked at the borrowed instruments. Poor quality student instruments falling apart at the seams with old disintegrating strings. We went to sleep around 5pm, and met again at 5am at the lobby. At the airport again, we met the Austrian consulate and his wife, and the Austrian ambassador and her husband, with whom we made the other passengers wait until we had boarded the bulky but fragile instruments, and then we were on our way to Arar - the first leg of our journey to Timimoun.

Adieu for now, Algiers.

We watched the desert appear, fascinated by the way signs of life came in tiny seemingly unconnected flashes.

We were met by a surprise reception for honored guests, in a part of the airport reserved for important visitors. The airport here is a bit more fancy than the Vienna one, or?

They served us special sweetened black tea with mint that is poured from a foot and half or so above the glassware, so that it froths and foams. 

I can honestly say it was the most beautiful airport I have ever seen.

Bill Bryson moves to America.

Bill Bryson moved to America 20 years ago, and wrote a column about living in America through foreigner eyes even if he's technically a US citizen, who lived here his entire childhood which was published as a book.

Helga loves books:

I met her at some concerts with Manfred, and she asked me to read some of Bill Bryson's stories at an event. She billed me as an American Musician, and we were overly enthusiastic about our topics and had to cut our thoughts short at the end of the evening. 

    

Here I am with her American Snacks (red white and blue popcorn) and  her poster board about Bill Bryson.
Long story short, Europe is just like America was 20 years ago, and they are converging, slowly but surely on all the commercialism Europe used to make fun of America for.

1one-by-2two

I recently spent an awful lot of time restarting an old project ....

Perspicuity and Perspicacity was a one-sentence blog, that Amanda and I did together. On good days, there are 2 sentences a day. We can both be a bit sporadic at times. I moved it over from livejournal one sentence at a time, and then I started writing there again myself. With a little bit of peer pressure, maybe Amanda will get the bug again.

here is the new link:
1one-by-2two.blogspot.com

My first Graz houseconcert.

Photo credit to the ever lovely new friend Nina.

It was a lovely day. the 17 of July. In Europe the dates are written "backwards"
We would write 07.17
They write 17.07

Europe also tends towards 24 hour time, similar to what we call military time. So 5:07 would be called 17:07.

We decided on the 17.07 at 17:07 for our little houseconcert get-together. My little party with a special thank you to our wonderful guests the Czerny's (in the photo above, Ingrid is contemplative, and Manfred is hidden by a music stand) who introduced me to the wonderful Mr. Stiegler. Together, he on fearless fiddle, me on viola, borrowing dear Cecilia's sweater, we played Mozart, Martinu annd Handel-Halvorsen, with a little extra Sibelius. Followed by plentiful wine and yummy snacks.

There were so many supportive and terrific friends there that I was a little bit overwhelmjoyed - that's a new word by the way, that will come in handy helping me describe many situations.

SPOILER ALERT:
It paved the way for my next wonderful endeavor, a reading of a Bill Bryson book about America. Which in turn paved the way for the shortest concert cycle (both Mozart duos, both Martinu duos, both Handel-Halvorsen duos) - Those two concerts will be in October, when we are back. Hooray!

housekeeping

it has come to my attention that blogger makes my pictures look very low resolution and bad within the context of my posts. very sad, and i don't know how to fix it. click on pictures to see them how i see them. :)

bach in the subway

a little bit late, but while i've been posting about birthdays, I forgot one: JS Bach's!

As a present, people all over the world play Bach's music in public spaces.

So i decided to play along, and go to the main transfer station in Graz, named Jakominiplatz and play.

Making a poster thing was important. I wanted people to know I wasn't playing for donations. I put way too much time into it. In the background, Felix is "taking a picture" of me taking a picture while Centa reads to him.

First I had to get a permit, which was easy enough after I found the building. 

Then to find a spot. Centa and Brian and Felix were very helpful picking the first spot:

directly next to a advertisement that says "Music tames the Beast"

Centa was prepared to spend all morning reading. Did I mention, it was COLD. 

'Twas the middle of March, after all.

Felix was most happy running around with music.

But we had to move often. Rules for how long you can play, and how far away a location is considered, and how far from doorways, etc. Everything is very exact.

Thanks to Brian I have photo and video evidence.

But this post is not complete without some crazy stories that come without pictures, crazier than the normal "thumbs up" and "what's a viola" and "cool"s and lots of coins left on my music stand under the sign that said "No Donations".

Three stood out.
The speed versions

*   One guy tried to give me a 20 euro note, holding it in my face, very physically trying to making me take it. I said no, and he walked away without listening to any music.

*   Two teenagers came up. One smoking and listening, one standing behind me and MIMING violin playing. For about 8 minutes.

*   One guy came to me and told me I had to let me try my violin.
"I used to play the violin, please, let me try, I would like to play your violin, it is so beautiful." After I said no, 3 different ways, and he begged again 3 different ways, I gave in. Centa is watching from the bench with very wide eyes. The guy takes my viola and puts the bow in his left hand, the viola in his right, and plays a very passable romanian fiddle tune, then gives it back without saying thank you. OK then.

Felix's Birthday

Felix is officially three.

Sometimes when I talked to people in the last few weeks, and they asked "how hold is he?" I would say something like "Oh, he's almost..." or "He's basically..." or "He's about to turn... three" 

and Felix would correct me and say "I'm TWO Mama," and show two fingers, "but my birthday is coming up, and when my birthday comes up, I will be three," and he would show three fingers.

Precision is very important.

There was an event at Schloss Eggenberg, where dancers from the Opera company were doing interpretive dances alongside people playing music from the Schloss Eggenberg time on period instruments. It was all day, all over the park, and all over the castle. We figured that was a good day for a picnic. Peacocks are absolutely everywhere there.

Stare-down.

Tante Centa and Henry amused.

 

We found a nice spot, waited for Brian to have food. We had so much fruit and salad and bread and picnic food. We couldn't find our picnic blanket, so we were sitting on an old sheet, which didn't protect us from the wet ground. But we were about to get a lot wetter.

Because ...

......

....

Thunder!

cheerfully we lit the candles on the cake in the rain.

Manuela took the quintessential birthday picture of our rainy day picnic. It was tremendous. 

We spent the next hour or so in the castle watching dancers, and they were simply incredible. Then we got home and planted some plants, had dinner and went to bed. The day was full enough, we waited for the next day to unpack anything.

When we did, Felix was enamored of his new things. A Scottish hat and tie, from his grandparents who had just gotten back from visiting Scotland, a xylophone, and ...

...all seven pairs of socks all at once from Didi Patz.

.