Urlaub, Urlaub, Urlaub, and the Retreat from Russia

Stone Street’s going to be quiet for awhile.  Giovanni and Nora are leaving for Majorca in the morning and Mona Lisa will be dark until the 28th.  Eckard’s got another week in Gran Canaria and the rest of the boys will be scattered around town, playing cards or rolling dice in their secondary environments.  I’ll be in either Almundo or Lamäng telling stories to my notebooks or the little writing machine.  The only good thing about Mona Lisa being closed is that I can get more work done.

With the exception of a black gnat invasion (I walked through two or three clouds of them on my way downtown) it was a quiet day.  Nursing a cold and a spider bite, I was pretty much out of gas for the day, although I did have a pretty interesting encounter on Saturday…

there’s an older man, late nineties (doesn’t look it) who ambles through the Gänse Markt using a walker.  He stops people randomly to let them know how good they should feel about being able to get around unassisted.  He stops me (because of the back pack and the hiking shoes) frequently.  This time, he went a little further and showed me the scars of an entry wound behind his left ear and the exit wound in his forehead, received in the retreat from Russia in 1944.  It was -55° C(that’s 67 below, kiddies) and the snow was very deep, and the Russians not very far behind.  AND he lived to tell about it.  Truth is indeed, at the least, more interesting than fiction.