Falling in love - as a grownup - with a city I knew as a child

[Mira]

18. That happened yesterday!

Was invited to the house of a second cousin. Only knew that his father, my grandmother's brother, was a doctor who was in the grip of the Nazis and had to ascertain that murders of people who had been executed were successful - that they really were dead. Which is what he pulled my Dad aside to tell him as he wed my Mom, and then he had a death of horror himself.

Mom was 19 when they wed, blonde, had been put in front of the classroom as an example of Aryan beauty while she had to hide that she grew up in Serbia and that Serbian was her mother tongue.
She was not so sure Hitler was a horror, yet. The info by the doctor given to my Dad was what convinced my Mom.

This cousin of mine, son of that doctor, about my own age, was a young boy I once played with in my memory and once I described the visuals, he told me that it was us playing.

He turned out to have been a judge in Vienna. Now retired. Do you remember the movie "Moonstruck"? The brownstone owned by "Cher's" parents?
It turns out he owns one like that in Vienna, except it's white.
I'm blown away.
He has - in the many rooms of 10 foot ceiling height, pieces of furniture where one might possibly pay for my house in NC.

That's where I was served Sacher Torte mit Schlag.
It's a mind blowing experience.
I know you did not ask fot this, but I loved telling.