The last evening in Vienna was one to remember. It began with an organ (circa 1730) and trumpet concert in a quaint church. We'd walked by this church several times a day and never paid any attention until we found the concert there last night. A full complement of Bach, Handel, Mozart, et. al., in this accoustically wonderful setting. The church is Catholic of the Maltese Order. It's as old as the organ and is eight pews long and between 30 & 40 feet high with much marble, stone and wood giving great reverberations. One to remember.
From there we went to dinner at our favorite Italian place two doors from our hotel. It's very small, seats about 20, run by this delightful couple who immigrated 33years ago from the part of Croatia that abuts Italy. We'd made it our hangout because the food was so good and the couple so winsome. It was sad to say goodbye to them. They took great delight in our attempts to speak German. Surprisingly a bit of German came back to me from college...which must be over 100 years ago.
While we were having our dinner another American couple came in. She kept staring at us but he was facing away. Finally she asked Joanne; "Are you Mark Hanson's sister?" Joanne, of course, went into denial mode and said three times; "I do not know that man!"! JOKE. As it turns our they are John & Jen Augstine from Milwakuee whom Joanne had visited on behalf of LWR (Lutheran World Relief). John and Jen met when Jen was in the Lutheran Volunteer Corps in Chicago. She was assigned to Lutheran Family Mission at the time my cousin Al Bergh was the director. John was a seminary student an Al introduced them. You can about imagine how much we had to talk about! I'm hoping that Joanne's supervisors at LWR giver her extra credit for carrying on the work even in Vienna!
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