And a Happy New Year!

Jack, Joel, and I rang in 2007 in Vienna.

We had a nice dinner with our hosts, Hanna and Philip, which Philip had prepared. We took part in an Austrian tradition: we melted a piece of lead in a spoon over a candle, then dropped the liquid into water. The idea is to interpret the shape into which it cools in order to determine your fortune for the new year. Hard to interpret, but a lot of fun anyway.

Eating and melting took a long time, so we had to hurry -- it was almost midnight. I'm not sure of the original plan, but we ended up dodging security cameras and hoisting ourselves onto the uppermost ledge of the roof of one of the taller buildings in the city.

Magic. We were surrounded by fireworks, far more than I've ever seen at even the most impressive 4th of July display. It was hard to decide where to look, so you just sort of ended up spinning around in circles. They had started early in the evening and gradually built up to this point and continued until about 15 minutes after midnight.

We sipped champagne, made our way to a couple of parties, and slept until mid-afternoon on New Year's Day.

But no worries. To Jack's delight, we woke up in plenty of time to go to the opera.