Seventeenth and Eighteenth Days, JAN 1st and 2nd

I believe that this will be the most difficult post I've written during my time in Europe.

It's not very often that I don't know what to write, but at this point I am facing that exact situation – words, which should come easy, are hard to swallow at times and even harder to ascribe to events which are so far beyond mere language.

In many ways, our ability to remember the past is limited by the capacity of language for such description.

It is easy to write an article about Sports. It has rules and laws, governed by the whistle of the referee and the ultimatum of the ticking clock that falls to 0:00. There is a score at the end, with either victory or defeat for each side. A sports story has one result – who won, who lost and how it happened.

But in life there aren't winners or losers nearly as often as there are just do-ers. People who act and move and breathe and stumble forward, through moments of ecstasy to moments of failure, but still always moving towards some unforeseen, but beautiful, destination.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that words aren't possible to describe the most important things in life, and yet, we try to use them anyway.

I will try to do so here too – and hopefully they will be enough to jog the memory of an old man some day, looking back at some of the best times of his life.

Mulled wine, good friends, Austrian folk music and broken chairs. Karaoke bars and badly singing, then singing well, then singing together. Late night stumble back to the house at 2 a.m. The next day, sleeping until 3:30 p.m. while Vienna waited hungrily outside.

Watching Anna's concert and the old lady behind me who looked at me strangely as I took sips of beer and spoke with my American accent. Hugs, british curse words and goodbyes. Pigs and ladybugs.

Really, really bad dance moves. Silly hats. Remembering names, good conversation with Brazilians, a pair of Vienna students, one with a very silly eskimo-esque ski hat. Good friends, easygoing friends who made the night pass by so fast, yet so vividly. Falling down by accident.

Explosive fireworks, dancing the waltz at midnight of New Years, broken park benches, a tree, sitting in the rain, bruises and scarfs.

The next day, uncertainty. Hope, then concern, then finding what could have been lost. Dorkiness, the National Globes Museum, watching a movie about America and crack-head, meth-addict, pimps. Discovering new truths in another, delving deeper and finding myself very happy with what I found. Uncertainty, but happiness. A private, candle-lit pizza place, good conversation and “good” wine (because I thought it was just fine).

Walking along the Danube.

Realizing the beauty of an imperial city trying to emerge from the shadow of it's intricate past while retaining the customs that made it so unique, so beautiful in a world full of tourist attractions and sell-outs.

Waking up on my last full day with the knowledge of having everything and nothing to lose, anticipation and uncertainty, but most of all, smiling. Knowing things do work out the way they are meant to and that we always find the right path in the end.

Ice skating, spins, falling down on purpose, talking about the little nothings that somehow mean everything in the end. A promise for return. Smiles among good, good friends.

Nervous and excited. A bar and then another walk through the city at night. Smelling wine – good wine – and getting lost. Then getting found.

A night that I will hold fondly in my memory, of revelation and uncertainty, then certainty comprised of emotion. Toes. Warmth. Happiness.

That people come into our lives, for a reason – and singing in the dark.

Beauty tinged by sadness, but beauty wins as it always should.

And the next morning, scarfs.

There – those are the little words that will have to suffice, because in the end nothing written can tell the complete story. And that will be the last introspective look at Vienna for now, ,since Brussels awaits, the next part of the journey and the next bend in the path and I will not move towards it with one eye looking back over my shoulder.

I don't need to. Vienna waits for me.