Day 1861. I was looking forward to sleeping in this morning, but of course, there's lots of action until Randy takes them downstairs and I still get to sleep a little more. Today I woke up with Emmy next to me as well as Tammy, and Emmy slept unusually long, until nearly 7:45 am.
I got some more sleep, then got up being very tired. I put the soup on the stove and got ready to leave the house to go vote in important national elections. Emmy saw me from the bottom of the stairs and wanted to come with me, and I said okay. And so he got dressed as well, put his helmet on, we both grabbed our scooters and left the house after I had written Randy a message that I was taking him with me.
Thanks to our scooters it didn't take long for us to get to the school, where I had to wait. It was about 11:30, and there were lines in front of every room, so we lined up as well. Then it was our turn to go inside. I gave them the paper I had received in the mail as well as my ID, then I received the paper and envelope, and Emmy and I walked inside the booth, where I took a picture of him and the voting paper. There were 11 parties on the paper. I made my cross, put the paper inside the envelope, and Emmy dropped it into the sealed box. Then we took our scooters and rode them back home.
Emmy went downstairs like he hadn't even been gone. Randy had never read my message. When Tammy heard where he had been, she said she would have wanted to come as well. I knew that all three would have wanted to come and just wanted to get it over with before lunch. I went to the kitchen and finished making the soup, then we all sat down to eat.
After lunch, I got Tammy ready for her climbing class, and Randy left with her at 1 pm. I didn't get any rest of have time to take care of things either. I started getting ready for us to leave the house as well, then I left with the boys at 1:40 pm. We took the train to the main train station, then had to find the tram stop for a special train. I had no clue where it was in that big area of the train station. We took a few wrong turns but finally found it, and then it arrived right away as well. We got on and rode it for a long time, all the way to the south-west end of Vienna, while we are in the north-east. The whole trip was over an hour long. After we got off, we still had a little bit of walking to do, then we reached our destination.
We rang the bell, and my friend from 30 years ago opened the door for us. I hadn't seen her in over 10 years. She was the only one home, as we were about 10 minutes early. The boys started playing right away, while I was catching up with her. And then her husband arrived, together for our friend who was the reason for the gathering, as well as another couple we are friends with who don't live in Vienna. We sat down at the table, started eating cake and catching up with other. It was so much fun. Emmy and Sammy were playing well, and Sammy did a whole lot of laughing for a while. After about another hour, Randy and Tammy also arrived. They had come straight from the climbing hall. They also had some cake, and Randy joined the conversation at the table, while all three were playing. Soon Randy left to be with Sammy and keep him happy.
At about 5 pm I started talking about leaving as we had a long trip home ahead of us. We said our good-byes after a wonderful few hours and started the even longer walk to the subway. The weather had been cold this weekend, and today we all needed our winter coats, especially given the wind. We had to ride three subways to get home, and it took us over an hour. By 6:40 pm we were back home.
Even though it was late, I still made bread with salami for them and cut up fruit. They ate, then they went into the bathtub. Randy and I were completely exhausted. I still read them a story before putting them to bed. Then I got myself something to eat before writing yesterday's report, working on today's pictures and writing today's report. Now it's 12:30 am, and I have yet to take care of the kitchen before going to bed. I have an intense, busy week ahead of me.
