Meetin' the Gang

Wiley and I had dinner last night with colleagues of his from Graz, Austria. They were here for a conference, so after the conference, we got ready to go into town to a place called Spite House. The owner of the house made the government move his restaurant one board at a time since they wanted his land to build City Hall (which turned into the library, which then turned into #1 target during the war).

It had just started snowing when we left our apartment. I wore my black boots.

In snow, when it's slippery, these boots are a bad idea. But I thought I'd be ok because we were going to take a taxi. Only when we got outside, there were no taxis at the taxi stand, where there are normally about 10. So we walked a bit farther to the tram stop. We waited for a bit, got more snow on us, and then boarded a tram that was kinda full but not terribly full. Then Wiley said, "Ok, it's time we get off," so we stepped off the tram.

And the restaurant was about another 15 minute walk from where we got off.

By the time we got to the restaurant, my hair, which had hairspray in it, was shellacked, my feet were freezing, and my coat was wet. Since I had my boots on, and they have no traction, I had to walk about twice as slow. This put me in a rather sour mood.

Dinner was nice. I had a lot of salad with tomatoes and cucumbers, tried a couple of their appetizers, and then they brought out the main course, which was a type of stew. It was pretty good, but I don't really want to think about the meat that I might've eaten. We had musical entertainment in the form of a violinist, guitarist and accordion player (is that an accordionist?). We also had some teens do some traditional dancing for us. One of the girls looked exactly like Toula from My Big Fat Greek Wedding. At one point, they grabbed some of the professors and they tried to dance with the girls. At least they didn't fall over. We even got invited to one of their houses in Graz for Easter! Yay - another 12 hour busride.

After about three and a half hours, we decided to go home. We walked, and tried to hail a cab, but got ignored, and so we walked on to the tram stop, and finally a cab stopped for us. He gave us the cheery news that cabs were raising their rates the next day. Whoopie!

While we were walking and I was trying desperately not to fall, I realized that I will never wear these boots again when it's wet, and I always need an umbrella or a hat or I'm going to die.

And of course, it's snowing again today.