St Illgen and Kapfenberg

We went to St Illgen and the Aflenz war memorial.

We lit candles for both of Christine's brothers. Both brothers were named Francis. The first one died in 1918 due to the flu epidemic and the second one was a pilot killed on the Russian front.


Now in the centre of the old town of Kapfenberg. It isn't very much compared to some of the others old towns in Europe. We are in Cafe Europa ready for a little food before exploring the area and maybe later going to the more modern centre. We all had a goulash soup. The Menu is limited, the cafe is a bit of a greasy spoon. The soup was OK, but I tried an extra serve of lasagne, which was really a bit too much to have.

The old town was actually deserted [see the picture for a mid-day view!] but we walked around it for a bit. Most of the shops shut for about 3 hours in the middle of the day. We then went to the C&C (?) shopping centre, which was busier than the old town, but not a great inspiration.

After that we went back to Bruck to look at some green boots Uschi had taken a liking to. Unfortunately there were none in her size, so she got the shoe name to chase up later. We then went for a gentle walk around before returning to Thoerl.

16:15
More visitors have arrived. Louis and ? to visit Christine. The house is in a bit of a turmoil as one of Franziska's friends arrived simultaneously. I expect the conversation will go on for 3 hours or so. Uschi wants me to go out and buy some more fireworks. Mitzi made a big fuss when I helped her cut some firewood.
====ooOOoo====

Some images that have stuck with me from the last few days:
-Washing the car with hot water at the Thoerl service station. The ice and salt, which is caked on from travelling the highways, washes off very easily but the hot water freezes within a minute or so. The dirty icy car becomes a clean icy car!
- Getting softdrink out of the shop fridge, it's warmer than most other things. All the fridge does at this temperature is keep the dust off.
- The evening temperatures are down between -5 and -10. Now 0C is the default “warm”