Winter Market

I introduce you to gluhwine (gloo-vine), the nectar of the gods. Red wine, warmed (or scalding, depending how eagerly you drank it), and spiced with cinnamon, orange, and schnapps or rum. The drink is served at the very popular winter market in old town Salzburg, the set-up of which is quite lovely: there are booths everywhere, sort of like at art and wine festivals, and there are large barrels set up as de facto tables for cups of liquor and ashtrays. Lampposts distribute enough light for the frequenters to mingle, which they do at a humming pitch. The whole scene is quite Romantic. I am heading to town in a few minutes with Daniel, who refers to items for which he does not know the English term as a "bucket". We are celebrating Adam's last couple of days at the Seminar, and we're going out with a few girls from the Seminar and their friends. Then back to the bierstube in the castle for some pints, I would imagine, unless the snow directs us otherwise. This is one of the troubles with snow, I have found: when the nearest thing that you walk to is on the long side of twenty minutes away, the snow really inhibits graceful walking. Perhaps the last thing that it is wise to add is a potent mix of alcohol, but such is the price we pay for celebration. Thinking back on it, adding hard alcohol to wine seems like one of those things that you see bartenders do for those girls who come in celebrating some shrieking about a bachelorette party, but gluhwine is maybe the exception to the overkill rule. Instead, it is the domain of something closer to the caveman paradigm, which holds that one good thing plus any other one good thing becomes an equally good or better new thing. Men like twins for this exact reason.

With the snow falling intermittently and the constant traffic around the courtyard, the grounds that lead to my apartment look like the pavement in line to a children's amusement park ride, which demonstrates your intended path by showing with cartoon feet where to put your own. The soles of my penny loafers are slick by now, and it is a tenuous fifteen steps to my porch stairs, to say nothing of the staircase itself. I think the SGS might want to look into a great glass elevator (or a similar device) in order to avoid this opportunity for catastrophe, and related lawsuits.

We have begun work on our UST: a shift in physical states from mortal to "decaying otherness", irrationality, and cannibalism. More updates on this matter to follow as our zombie phenomenology warrants.