Tag: living simply

Posted December 19, 2025 – Narrated by Jim

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Happy Holidays to all! ✨and thank you for waiting for us.

We’ve just returned from a three month European‑style sabbatical. We feel rested, restored, and just smug enough to pretend this was all part of a carefully executed life plan. In truth, our “surprise” 50th Wedding Anniversary trip to Vienna, Austria was launched by Beauty & The Beast, a bathroom faucet, and Billy Joel.

Aging in Places in the great state of Delight, still suits us fine. Beauty & The Beast continue to hold us in suspense – if not in youth.

Someday, they say, self-healing Airstream trailers and Ram Trucks will roam the highways. Imagine that. RVers will gather round the campfire pressing the old folks to tell stories about how repairs were once accomplished with 60% ingenuity, 30% profanity, and 10% Gorilla Tape. 🤪

Beauty, the Beast and the Fix-It List

I like tech – new tech, old tech – especially when it expands boundaries. Ten years ago, a used trailer and truck came into our lives and rewired our retirement expectations, enhancing our recreational and housing options.

Because they were new to us, we expected a great deal from Beauty & The Beast – 75,000 miles in ten years including an overland journey to Alaska, from San Diego, and back. We don’t just fix things, we’re proactive, which means the–

is never finished, only temporarily ignored.

For instance, last December, while wintering at Sun Outdoors San Diego Bay, a ten-minute DIY plumbing job on the bathroom faucet triggered a full bathroom remodel. This is how these things work.

Shopping for plumbing supplies and squeezing my hands and fingers into sharp, tiny crevices is not my preferred resort activity. Fortunately, in the midst of the grueling month-long project, a winter storm blew in blessing us with a three-day cease-fire to take naps, make soup and groove on oldies.

Billy Joel and The Look

One stormy afternoon while playing Five Crowns, Billy Joel crooned Vienna through the Bose. Carmen tenderly took my hand and flashed “the look” – eyebrow arched, sideways smile, the one that makes me wonder if she’s Elvis’ secret love child. This look has ended arguments, redirected life plans, and once caused me to apologize for something I hadn’t done yet.

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She’d clearly been rehearsing this.

When your beloved wife, for five decades, deploys the look, you give all the – okay, truth be told, I was sold the moment she said, “give the (ahem) To-Do-List to Vinnie.”

“Vienna? You mean Vienna Vienna, in Austria? Whoa! Wow. Wh-where will we stay?”

“I take that to mean, ‘it’s a go,’” she said, as she scrolled her iPhone, “No worries, I’ve been texting property owners.”

Hey, 50 years of marriage is a big deal.

In our youth, most couples celebrating their 50th anniversary looked like they’d been temporarily released from nursing care for the event.

Life has been good to us. We should celebrate.

Also, our team, Beauty & The Beast, needed a break from us and a thorough professional grooming and shoeing.

Brief Apartment Anxiety

The only cringey part of the plan concerned apartment life. Would we adapt? Could we?

For the past ten years, we’ve treasured the freedom to wake up to crashing Pacific waves and fall to sleep the same night to a frog serenade in a desert oasis. Why? Compromise. I’m a coastal guy and Carmen prefers desert solitude. Beauty & The Beast balances the extremes.

Sure, mobility is more challenging than living in a house, but what some call heavy lifting–

is, to us, uplifting – like a pinch of shaved salt sprinkled atop a Sacher torte – harsh, gritty, complex, unexpected, but in a good way. Apartments, on the other hand, sound boring.

Surprise! We took to our historic award-winning rental apartment in Landstraße as if guided by evolutionary instinct. Ooohing and Ahhhing over every mundane feature.

A home that became a destination

The apartment was more than a place to recover from jet-lag. It became a base of operations for summer mornings at the pool–

and afternoon naps before opera and philharmonic performances.

It wasn’t merely a place to put up our feet after museum days–

and soak them after long walks over cobblestone streets.

With a breathtaking view of the Danube Canal (Donaukanal)–

the apartment became a destination in itself.

With the characteristic high ceilings–

herringbone floors–

live plants–

beautifully appointed bathroom with a washer/spinner–

a sleek modern fitted kitchen and my new best bro– a Nespresso coffee machine!

We wanted for nothing.

So, after ten years of slow-rolling in America, we ran off to Europe for three amazing months.

Learning Vienna

We wanted to understand why Vienna is considered the most livable city in the EU. Armed with little more than “Grüß Gott“, and “Auf Wiedersehen,” we set out to blend in.

What did we learn? First, that this old city has layers.

There must be fifty Viennas in Vienna. We focused on our favorites.

There’s daytime Vienna–

and nighttime Vienna.

Outside Vienna–

and Inside Vienna.

Deadly serious don’t-mess-with-me Vienna–

and “don’t-worry-be-happy” Vienna.

And, most famously, there is savory Vienna–

and sweet Vienna.

Poor us. So many Viennas and so little time! It was exhausting. Deliciously, exhausting.

A culture of care

This ambitious hard-working city–

runs on a meticulously tight schedule–

because if it doesn’t, there’s hell to pay.

So, we got crackin’!

Vienna is a cultural melting pot of two-million souls. Centuries of migration and housing shortages have driven innovative development serving generations of families with quality homes in functional, desirable neighborhoods.

This mecca of accessible housing is a cultural response that values housing as a human right. Like everything in Austria, public housing is constructed to last.

We rarely strayed from our usual Living In Beauty monthly budget while losing ourselves in the dense forest of old-growth architecture.

Our Landstraße Zinshaus is visual poetry. Layered like a sonnet, it spirals from its underworld basement up to the heavens in measured stanzas, rhymed and metered, around a shared courtyard – a classic of the Wilhelminian era. We barely needed air-conditioning. Shades closed, windows opened on both sides, the building breathed.

Our neighborhood in the 3rd District has served as a trading village since the 12th century.

Work below/live above mixed‑use buildings rise like stacked wedding cakes, figures full of promise perched on top

What better place and occasion to enjoy cake?

Most mornings we celebrated the birthplace of the croissant.

From Highways to Haydn

Cake is easily accessed within fifteen minutes on the U-Bahn, trolley or bus. A monthly transit pass cost croissant crumbs compared to renting a car – if you can find a parking place.

Public transport is punctual and civilized–

Sidewalks are thoughtfully divided for pedestrians and cyclists.

The roads are parceled to accommodate safe passage for pedestrians, buses, horse-drawn carriages, and trolleys.

At first, it’s discombobulating, but within half a week, it makes perfect sense.

We never rented a car or summoned Uber.

The U-Bahn, trolleys and buses are clean and tidy. They even smell nice. We didn’t ask how. We simply accepted the miracle.

That’s how it works when women govern.

The people get to have nice things–

such as pristine Alpine water on tap.

When women rule, justice is served–

the prices of luxury items fall and chandeliers go up–

chocolate, is always on the menu–

horses wear lingerie–

the flag of The Venus is flown high and proud–

and engaging in psychotherapy is a sign of a normal healthy human being.

Vienna has a green thumb, too. Live mosses cover bus station awnings.

Bees, butterflies, birds–

and lavender are cultivated.

High, and low–

every available niche in this metropolis is dedicated to the natural world.

Summer gardens are furnished with tables where food and beverage are served throughout the fair months.

This Culture of Care isn’t new to Vienna and the preservation of these ancient values continue from special cushioned seats for pregnant women on transit, to the distribution of free outerwear for seniors in Autumn – subtle reminders that aging is expected, planned for, and not treated like a design flaw.

Vienna guided us gently through the after-effects of our brutal 48-hour flight to Austria. Delays, re-routing and over-crowded flights pushed us nearly to the brink.

We needed a hero.

Our quiet neighborhood patched us up with walks along the canal–

and rides on the bike trail. Rental bikes are on the corner.

Peaceful strolls to Rochusmarkt for pharmaceuticals and fresh fruit and veggies put us right.

Everything was nearby

The Prater, just across the canal–

and quintessential restaurants and cafes.

We saved museums till after the close of tourist season.

With lower crowds, Carmen could enjoy window shopping–

while I hung out in the park.

Not all of the gardens are ornamental. We found many public gardens for fruits, nuts and veggies and bee hives.

Outdoor public gyms furnished with fitness equipment, ping pong tables and basketball courts seemed to be everywhere.

The Viennese are healthy people. It’s a walking city and we covered several miles a day. We learned to stop occasionally and look up. There’s always something cool going on up there.

What Vienna taught us

Vienna offers a different approach to life. It taught us that the long, winding road is a wonderful way to explore the world, but so is a bench in the village square with a violinist playing in the cool shadows nearby.

And “home” can be a favorite neighborhood restaurant where everyone knows your name.

A lasting marriage, we learned, is like an expansive window view that never grows old – even if you’ve seen it every day for fifty years.

Goodbye Vienna

Summer days at the pool–

and concerts at night made the months fly by.

As October winds arrived and temperatures dropped–

we soaked in a world-famous hot springs–

took a day-trip to Bratislava, Slovakia–

and imagined how lovely the city must be all a-sparkle with frost and snow.

We consoled ourselves at favorite haunts, where cross-cultural diplomacy is only a brewery away. Nothing captures global brotherhood better than an American in Austria, drinking a Hungarian beer, crafted by a Colombian and poured by a Mexican in a Vienna taproom. Proof that world peace just needs more beer. Prost!

We celebrated our final night with a candlelit dinner at 360° Ocean Sky with a birds-eye view of the city.

The flight back to the Airstream in Sacramento was flawless. 😅

Beauty glowed when we retrieved her from Vinnie’s all freshened up with new awnings, ceiling fans, a toilet/bidet and, miracles of miracles, a spotless To-Do list. Within an hour we were hitched up and rolling.

Fifty years together taught us this: love endures, homes evolve, and the right song – or city – can still change everything.

Now, doesn’t that take the cake?!

Seconds, anyone?!

You can see our exact route on this map.

*photos in this post (unless otherwise noted) were taken and copyrighted by Living In Beauty.

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