High Ceilings and Oceans

I am sitting inside of our old fashioned Graz apartment, with high ceilings and windows that overlook the street where the Straβenbahns, or street cars, pass by every few minutes.  If I am feeling poetic enough they sound like waves crashing on the sea shore.  I can imagine seagulls flying overhead and a soft blue heaven with delicate clouds accentuating the scenery composed of sand, rocks, and gentle bluffs that embrace the foaming sea.

 

Our Austrian apartment is on what Americans would call the second floor, but what to a German speaking European is the “Erste Stock,” or first floor.  My favorite room is the living room, where I am sitting now, with its high ceiling, tall windows, and an old wooden floor that is perfect for reflecting the softened light from the sun as it sneaks past the tops of the many storied buildings and comes in through our windows.  The structures are all built together so that they look like one and the same building, or gigantic walls on either side of the street with rows of windows running up six layers or more to the sky.

In contrast to the busy street with its street cars, autos, cyclists and foot traffic is the dining room of our apartment which looks behind our particular building into a satisfactory yard of sorts, complete with trees that to my surprise and delight have erupted over the past few days with blossoms!  The most notable being the large tree whose white blossoms grow daily to create a natural garden in the middle of the city, and whose name I have yet to discover.  I know that I am not the only one to have noticed, because I hear the birds singing happily everyday in this little untamed bit of nature.