At home in Montana if we find gold we try our best not to eat it! Here it is somewhat more difficult. The gold leaf that came on my desert was really stuck, so I had a hard time chiseling it off to put in my saddlebag to take to the assay office. I ended up guilding Claudia's photo with it. (But that was priceless to begin with).
The Austrians really take their holidays seriously, we've discovered. We just went to a 2-hour presentation on just the holidays between advent and Ash Wednesday. The beginning of Dec. is just one holiday after another. I gather that is how the advent calendar came about- to help them keep those days straight. In fact there is a huge civic palace downtown- the Rathaus, that is turned into a huge advent calendar for the season. With each day a numbered curtain in one or another of the windows is lifted to reveal a different artwork. Can't wait for that!
