Johanna got back today from a weekend spent in Salzburg with some family friends, whom she's never met before. She had a great time, and told me about the rather fascinating lifestyle her friends lead...and with her permission, I'm going to share a (paraphrased) excerpt from our conversation with you!
JOHANNA: "So, it was a fantastic weekend, and I absolutely LOVE this family. They were so cute. The kids, the parents, and especially the grandparents! I just wanted to squeeze them, cutest family ever. But I have to say, they live a different life-- they have a main house, a holiday house, a house in Vienna, a house in France, and a castle. I mean, who has a castle? That's insane. It had a dungeon thing too...the kids and I played table tennis in it. The castle's a thousand years old, and their house is 600. And in the morning for breakfast, their breakfast set was silver and from the 1600s. Crazy! Some of their furniture, they were like, 'That's from the 1400s, that's from 17th century...'. They have a horse named Welly, after the Duke of Wellington, too. I got to ride him but was a bit nervous because he was huge. The dad had ten million books, too. His mind's like an encyclopedia. And at night, we sat in this upstairs room filled with books, with like one lamp and a candelabra, and read to each other.
ME: Whoa. That's like...you were back in Victorian times.
JOHANNA: Yeah, it did feel like we were in Victorian times. Weird. And when we were in the castle, like in this weird medieval/feudal period. Which was cool, but strange. Oh, and the mom painted a picture of me and her daughter--she's an artist--and it was awesome but I looked about 50 years old. Oh well, maybe it was the light from the candelabra."
...And so on. I didn't interrupt Johanna's description too much because it sounded amazing. The family sounds about the closest to gentility I've ever heard of!
To complete this Johanna Post, here's an absolutely lovely poem by Johanna about our trip to the Aran Islands that describes the experience much better than I ever could :). Enjoy!
The Aran Islands
On the corner of Europe, riding along
amid a myriad of short walls made of stone
cutting the land and thrown in a piled line
up and down hills, only stopping at brine,
wondering, thinking and peddling surely,
with bright and glinting light warming palely.
Booming and thundering and shooting mist,
white waves beat at the quiet abyss
of Dun Aonghasa and Inis Mor's lonely existence.
Yuki pants beside spinning wheels,
dropping a rock and leaping walls with the feel
that the day is alive, fun and carefree,
digging in sand and exploring the beauty
of old, salt-crusted boats and ropes
that tie colourful buoys dangling merrily.
Enchanted and kept, the lighthouse stands
at the top of a hill leaving bikes to lean
unlocked at the bottom, but safe
against the gate. Trekking up into the glow,
an offering at the threshold, humbled then content
to let pass the explorers only touching for a moment
the blue sky and cool, uneven stone,
and flash memory onto memory and soul.
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1 comment:
Gennelle,
Thanks for sharing Johanna's weekend with us. The grandmother of the family in Austria knew Johanna's great-grandfather 60 years ago when he took her in as a foreign student. She had been with another family and was unhappy and he took her in with his 12 children. They have kept in touch over the years and now they have welcomed his great- granddaughter into their Austrian home! Kindness has been kept alive in the memories of the two families who have opened their arms to each other over three and now four generations.
Virginia (granddaughter)
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