Africa: Post #1... Here we Come! ...

But, we must begin our story in Vienna, Austria: 

Earlier in the year at a political event's silent auction fundraiser, Stephen made a bid --  intending only to begin the action. The item was a pair of tickets to safari at some place called Hippo Lakes, https://hippolakes.co.za/ -- but with no other bids he had bought the trip. 

 

We had already been working-out the details of a family trip to the British Isles, so that safari bid complicated our lives even more because in our usual busy-ness of NW summers... we neglected reading the details, only to discover the deadline to schedule left us less than two months to be at home between the two long trips! 

 

But in a year holding my 80th birthday & his 75th while celebrating our 30th anniversary, plus the procession of activity to facilitate my intention to retire... we acquiesced to a sense of fate & bought tickets. 

 

Oh! One more thing... to further finesse that sense of cooperating with fate -- Stephen & I decided that we would finally get married! 

 

The reasons, pro & con, are so multitudinous I will not try to explain the ins & outs of those reasoning's throes over many years. Now, however, I am  my own  quietly & slowly observing & perceiving  subtylywet profound  change in the broad fields & depths of our ever-maturing love. Thus this trip ultimately became quite more truly our honeymoon...

 

Hopefully you have read my posts about the cruise around The British Isles. Now that we have returned from Africa, I begin posting more...  with gratitude... having had one fine grand adventure!

 

This being such a long journey in distance & time Stephen's good sense & experience as a seasoned traveler gave us the gift of a a generous stop in Vienna to allow our bodies time to adjust to the 9 hours of jet lag. Besides, he had lived there for a year in the 1980s & maintained many friends with whom he maintains active connection. I've met a number on my previous visits, vicariously as well as in his stories & sharing news. 

 

 It was 24 years ago when I was spending time with Helen, Stephen's mother, with our brother Mark in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunsthistorisches_Museum. There I was astonished & delighted when I turned to find myself looking with very intimate focus on a piece I'd studied at the University of Denver... The Cellini Salt Cellar... a magnificently rare feat of sculpture chased out of gold & silver by an artist as well known for his rowdiness as for his great skill. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benvenuto_Cellini] It has long been this young, practicing grace in my aging, gay, sculptural artist jeweler's imagination. The saliera is a fair bit of erotic dream for its form as a nude pair  of male & female god-bodies lounging around a shell-shaped container to hold precious salt as a symbol of wealth & power in front of the royal diners. I can egotistically identify. Only a short time later that I learned it had been stolen. Happily it was returned so I was anxious to see it again, now in a better protected case.

What an over-the-top object! Stephen caught my wonder in the moment... from both sides of the new display

In a roomful of similar cases, each displaying more valuable & complicated objects of virtu [

a small, valuable, and exquisitely crafted item]... this museum is full of such treasures. Each salon or room, is crafted, floor to ceiling, with similar excessive attention. 

I love ivory, (& I have carved mastodon ivory, which is deemed "legal" because that species is extinct...). but because we are headed for Africa, where elephant ivory is illegal, but still poached, I am compelled to simply enjoy the work of past centuries...

With museum fatigue from such rich visual fare, Stephen somewhat ironically suggested we get a coffee at a shop offering memories he wanted to share of coffee & pastries... equally rich & creamy!

 Then, back in our room, I was struck by the quilted white headboard carrying the notion of "schlag" (the whipped cream Vienna loves on a coffee or dessert) to yet more excess.

 But then I want to share another detail of our bathroom... panels of etched glass enclosing the shower & toilet. Vienna simply doesn't really ever stop at the simpler side of design...

"Excess is best!"

 

There were three of his friends we wanted to see while there:

 Hilde, a longtime friend of Stephen's while he was living in Vienna, working with the UN. I'd met her while I was still living in downtown Seattle, & she was visiting, leading a group of university students studying English. She is still lively as a university professor having two children & grandchildren.  

 

Susie is married to an international reporter. Theirs is a complex history...  & She served us a wonderful lunch... with the dumplings I remember appreciatively.

  

 A woman named Ilka became Stephen's deepest friend from his Vienna year.  She & her husband Peter became close to the entire family through various visits back & forth over years, even before I came along & I observed her to live up to the legend when I got to meet them my on my first European travel, to Italy. They holiday at a resort close to the Austrian/Italian border... Just before another planned visit from the whole family, we got the news of her death in a kitchen fire. Peter tried, but could not rescue her, living to mourn with us rather than the reunion we'd hoped.

 

 Now Peter has passed & we've continued communication wit his widow, Christine -- "call me Cris"... whose English is only slightly so vague as our German, a difficult beginning… evolved into a lovely evenig, including a train ride to a Heurigan, a traditional rural & casual drinking spot in the vineyards with simple food. Stephen often remembers times there with Ilka & Peter. Making this an important addition to  our memories of this trip. Knitting history in continuing stories. Cris gifted us socks she'd knitted as we parted at a different station so we could go on into the city to our hotel & to pack for Paris io meet the long flight to Johannesburg!