Vienna

I just wanted to start posting a few pictures of our trip to Vienna. It was as wonderful a trip as a trip to Vienna sounds, and some. The city has beautiful architechture, and it is extremely easy to get around with all the public transportation.

Everyone in Vienna speaks English, or enough to get by, but when we went out to the city of Leoben in the area of Stiermark (Styria), there were less people who spoke English, and pointing became our way of communication.

So here are a few pictures, and we'll slowly add more as we have time.

Pictures 1, 5,6,7,8 are at "The Dining Room", a restaurant that has four tables, and was recommended in a New York Times review that Danny sent us. It was our first night, so we were still a little tired, but had the best meal of our trip. Yes, the golden retriever walks around and visits you while you eat.

2 is in front of the Hapsburg Palace, where we went to see the Lipezzaner Stallions and the Vienna Boys Choir at mass. We also toured the apartments, saw the famous silver collection, and much much more in this very large and elaborate place that shows how the ruling class lived, and also why it is good they don't have them anymore!

3 is in front of the famous Demel bakery, a great place to go for coffee and a delicious pastry. They make the candy on sight, and you can watch through glass walls.

4 is a shot of the shopping area that runs in the heart of Vienna, it is not open to cars, and has stores that we probably couldn't even afford to walk in, but did anyway! As here, and all the pictures will show, the architecture in Vienna is stunning, and if you do nothing else in this fun city, it is worth going there just to walk around and see that.

In the beginning...

Just in case anyone does not remember the bathroom when we first moved in. Not only was the wallpaper atrocious, but the linoleum on the floor was black and green! And those lovely black sinks, the shower and toilet were the same maudlin black. We can really walk in this bathroom and say, "You've come a long way baby." I'm sure the bathroom had a long history long before that expression came into being.

BATHROOM TRANSFORMATION-SCROLL DOWN FIRST

Granite vanity tops with undermount sinks and new fixtures installed by Jorge

NICE shower

Getting there. New Kohler toilet with easy drop seat and detail of tile floor

Detail of Jorge's shower valve plumbing job. Thank God for Bob the retired plumber working at Home Depot

Like those black sinks and green formica?NOT!

Yeah!!! The black toilet is gone

This view is after Jorge's shower demolition

Black sinks, toilet and shower. Green formica counter tops, and black and green vinyl floors. Green flowery wallpaper. It's amazing we still ended up buying this house. But we are now almost done transforming the bathroom. Lots of hard work and some paid help from Gabe the tile guy and Moore Glass.

15 BELOW

Every trip to Montana always seem to add a special experience or dimension to our lives. Last year there was the herd of elk seemingly charging towards us alongside the road as we drove west on I-90 doing 80. Then there are those numerous bird sightings: hawks, bald and golden eagles, ospreys, ducks and geese. Some sights are not so pretty, like the cars and trucks that leave their tracks on the snowy shoulders and medians, laying motionless after skidding off an icy road.

Snowstorms are often followed by clear skies, and the frigid temperatures that invariably penetrate such uninsulated atmosphere. This was the case during our trip to Montana this weekend. By the looks of our atire, it is not hard to guess how cold it was. No boating is comfortable in this weather, but a pair of lifejackets are highly visible markers of our driveway for the snowplow driver. As the sun set and the blustery wind faded, the hot tub felt soothing and invigorating; another unique experience was filed in the records of our lives. JIR

WHITE POWDER

Moisture in Montana is a welcomed ocurrence these days, even if one has to shovel it off the deck, driveways and walkways. Arriving yesterday afternoon, we were soon greeted by winter's return: lots of snow and plummeting temperatures and wind chills. A moisturized Pacific storm working mano-a-mano with an Artic blast from neighborly Canada. This morning we had a foot of white powder, with 2-3 feet drifts on our deck. At this time we are "stuck" up here (such hardship!) until the plow clears the neighborhood and our driveway. The familiar sound of our snow shovels "pavloved" our herd into looking for cob. I told them they'll have to wait until we can go into town, but they just don't understand why a snowstorm would have us stranded up here . More pictures later, after we warm up a bit inside our cozy abode. JIR