Once the little lead toy balanced in the spoon melts, Austrian tradition dictates that you dump it into a bowl of water and read your fortune for the New Year in its shape.
Mine turned into a lumpy-looking rose…which we took to be in the same family as “Tree”, which (so the handbook said) means that my loved ones will demonstrate much loyalty in 2005. This reassuring fortune didn’t come as much of a surprise: there was a 2ft-high stack of cards waiting for me on my desk when I got back from Christmas holidays! Thank you so much for continuing to write and send treats despite my most embarrassing tendency to be late with replies… Um, on that note: please expect my Winter Cards to arrive in the mail sometime before March.
My phenomenal Christmas holiday was split between London, Bergamo and Vienna. Clare was generous enough to host me (in her gorgeous brand-spanking-new apartment) for a whirlwind 4-day visit, during which Briony kindly prepared a proper English luncheon, Anju and I spent far too much money shopping, and Dave B joined us for his first taste of homemade eggnog! It was lovely to see them all again, and though I was physically exhausted by the time I left, emotionally I felt like a juiced-up battery.
Having picked me up at the airport after London, Filippo's mom took me straight to meet a gaggle of aunties, uncles and cousins...and I spent the afternoon EATING, speaking slow and careful English and trying to figure out what the heck they were saying by transposing Italian to French. This was pretty much the theme of my vacation, actually. They were so welcoming and stoked to finally meet The Canadian; I got lots of beautiful Christmas presents and labour-intensive, individualized vegetarian meals –-including polenta taragna: oven-roasted polenta with a centre of secret cheese!!! Though most of his cousins spoke amazing English, the language barrier finally got to me on Boxing Day; following a temper tantrum, consensus was that I must learn Italian ASAP.
On December 30 we drove to Vienna and spent 4 days with some of Filippo's friends from university (he lived there for a year during his Econ. undergrad). As you can see by the photo above, new Year's Eve was a multicultural affair (Italians, Mexicans, Germans, Austrians) with unreasonable amounts of food and champagne.
Though I'm back to working mad hours and eating pocket lint for dinner, half my brain is devoted to the Job Hunt; Foreign Affairs Canada cuts the purse strings on March 18. Am calling on all my contacts and applying for every single vacancy that even vaguely suits my skill set... So far nothing is confirmed (am way too superstitious to name names), but I've had a few nibbles in Belgrade and desperately hope to stay. The only definite that's been offered is within a so-called "quiet diplomacy" peacebuilding project in Ottawa (similar to the mandate of the OSCE's High Commissioner on National Minorities) --despite being an amazingly interesting initiative, I'm not quite ready to go back to Canada or give up on the UN just yet, so will do my best to exhaust all other possibilities first.
The weather has been warm and mild until now, but looks like I'll have a White Birthday after all. Though the office cat normally wears the mascot hat, one of the drivers built someone special in celebration of yesterday's snowfall...