One for the 800-year-old Road

Well, my social life seems to be picking up here. I went out drinking three times in a week. In a week! I’ve gone a year without that much alcohol. And it was a blast.

Friday night we went to the apartment of one of Markus’ high school buddies, Wolfgang. (I seriously live in a place populated with people called Wolfgang and nobody bats an eye.) We have met up with he and his wife, Iris, a couple of times with their two children: Pia, who is 2 and their newborn baby boy, Paul. They made an amazing dinner and we drank loads of wine, finishing off with a shot of Grappa at the end. I remembered from somewhere that a big glass of water and a Tylenol before bed helps with the hangover. (Or ‘being blue’ as they call it here.) They don’t seem to have Tylenol in Austria (they still mostly take Aspirin….weird) so I substituted an Ibuprofen and called it a night. Although tired, I made it through the next day without too many problems.

Saturday night (that is the next night!) I went out for dinner, drinks and…wait for it…dancing with my sister-in-law Susi and her friend Verena. What a total blast. I actually found a decent margarita and downed a couple of those before switching to wine. We went to a bar that wasn’t entirely populated by 18-year-olds and just danced the night away. I shockingly saw 3 a.m. from the other side (instead of being woken up that early).

And then on Wednesday we had our last German class of the semester, so we went out for drinks. (I’d say ‘afterwards’ but we acutally only stayed in class for about half an hour before we cut out for the bar. Love that adult education.) I chose to imbibe sweet Radlers this time, which are a very tasty mix of beer and lemonade. My teacher is also a singer in a band and so he was reciting his song lyrics to me to make sure that the English grammar was correct. They actually were very good; it must be tough to write metaphorical, rhyming lyrics in a foreign language. Tricky. Unfortunately, unlike most people’s experience, my German gets much worse when I am drunk. I did manage to slur together a couple of gutteral conversations with non-English speakers, but then called it a night.

This all really makes me appreciate, yet again, how great it is to live in the city center. I can go out, drink til I’m woozy and still stumble home over the cobblestone streets in a couple of minutes. If this is my 40-year mid-life crisis, I’ll take it.