Easy Living...Vienna

I arrived in Vienna on a rainy Wednesday night and since then have eased comfortably into Jean's life. We talk past mid-night every night, both missing Kim and making her ears burn, I am sure.

Jean and I share a love for cooking and grocery shopping and many of our activities have been centered around food shopping, preparation, hints, and recipes. Friday night her good friend Martina and daughter, Leonie came for dinner. I cooked and we had an evening of laughter, poignancy (Kim is in Seattle now keeping vigil as our friend Ken is dying) and hope. After all, there was sweet little Leonie with her life in front of her.
Each day we walk 3 blocks to the Danube canal where Shadow gets to romp and run. It's a major jogging, walking, bike riding path full of activity and a great place to people watch. In the distance, the tall phallic looking item is an incinerator for garbage which then somehow becomes a major heating source for many buildings and apartments in the area. It has hardly any emission and represents smart European technology.

On our first morning, these beautiful swans were floating along the canal. Jean was totally surprised because she said they usually are not here until March..."hmmmmmm, what's up with that we wonder"?

MSN Encarta tells us:

Swans usually form pairs for life, although in some species swans are known to change mates occasionally, especially if the pairs fail to breed. Swans choose mates when they are two or three years old, although they usually do not breed until they are at least four. Breeding pairs build nests of grasses, rushes, and reeds, usually near water and sometimes on the top of muskrat lodges. The female usually lays four to six eggs, sometimes more. She incubates them until they hatch about 35 days later. The male guards the nest from predators and may take over incubation so that the female can feed.

Both parents tend the cygnets, which are sometimes seen riding on the back of a swimming parent. The cygnets learn to fly after a few months, but they usually stay with their parents through the winter. Young swans are pale gray or grayish-brown in color and do not grow their white feathers until the next summer. Swans may live as long as 35 years.

These swans are, we believe, "mute" swans and Encarta continues to inform us that:

"The mute swan also has pure white feathers. Its orange bill has a black knob at the base. The swan is native to Asia but today is commonly found in lakes in urban parks. It is the tamest of the swans and the least fearful near human habitation. According to long tradition the mute swans on England’s River Thames and its tributaries belong to the monarch. Each summer a census of the royal swans is taken during a ceremony called Swan Upping".

And, not to be outdone by the swans....