Started the day off with a early morning run. Felt good to clear my head and to think about the month to come.
I reached Schloss Schönbrunn by mile 3 and was thinking about the Habsburgs and how little I knew about them. They keep popping up in European history, but I don't have their whole story strait in my head and how each person is related to eachother. I also tried to bridge where I was with the experiences of Ruth Kluger between the towering juniper walls of Schönbrunn but that was hard. I guess I don't know what I would expect a city like the one she described in her book would be like but it wasn't a pretty picture she painted.
The smoke from all the cigarettes in the city has to be one of my first observations when running through this city. It's thick and pervasive. Definitely a contrast to the air quality I was enjoying in Norway just a couple days ago. But when I lived in Oslo it wasn't much better. I think that now, in the past three years, Norwegians have started using Snus (chewing tobacco) which affects the air quality for the better.
By the time I got to the gardens, I knew I needed to jog up the hill and see what was up there. I wasn't prepared for the magnificent view that awaited me.
A notable memory from last night was the walk that Kathy, Jose, and I went on to Schönbrunn and then a biergarten in the vicinity.
When we got up to leave I noticed Kathy was going to leave more than half her beer at the table. Norwegian culture dictates that you never leave alcohol unfinished at the table, so I asked her if I could drink the rest for her. When she said yes, I reached over and said "yoink!" before I drank it all. I found out later that Kathy mistook this for me saying "oink!" like a pig and had subsequently been telling a bunch of people about my weird drinking vocabulary for the next few days. Hahaha!
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