Bin wieder da

My summer in Portland has officially ended and I'm back in Innsbruck. The summer holiday was exactly that - a holiday - as I spent my days working as a bellman and valet at the Hotel Deluxe and the rest of the time hanging out with friends around Northwest PDX. The bars and cafes provided the venue for lots of beer and coffee and when the time came, I was very sad to leave.

But yesterday, after my flights from Portland to Frankfurt and Frankfurt to Innsbruck, I was greeted at the airport by three friends holding a "Welcome Home" sign, a pretzel and a Stiegl (one of Austria's beers) for me. It was a perfect arrival. Innsbruck is just the same. It's colder here than it was in Portland, but that means the weather is just right for all the old Austrian men to be slowly wandering the streets in their trench coats with their stocking caps tilted to one side of their head- which is just how I like to remember Innsbruck. It's only a matter of time until I'm nearly taken out by a person on a bicycle, and when they pass me, I realize it's a woman who, were we in America, would be in a retirement home.

Today's task is to figure out where I left the key to my bike lock. The bike is locked in the basement of my apartment building and I'm sure that in July, I found some little zipped pocket on some coat or bag and thought, "This is the perfect spot to leave a key for the summer." But now where is that pocket? Or was it even a pocket?