Postcard from Vienna

We are in Vienna, we arrived yesterday morning with the night train from Rome. One of the highlights of the trip for my son. He climbed the bed bunk over and over from the moment we arrived, to the moment we left. It was exciting for him, and for me it was exactly as I remember wanting to be as a child myself, I would have climbed once or twice that bed bunk before my father would have put an end to it, when it comes to patience, mine tends to be very big. We arrive in Hauptbahnhof central station, and from there we took the metro to our Airbnb accommodation which has been the most central of them all, one minute away walking from Stefansdomen, in fact I can see the tower of the cathedral from our bedroom.




We are tired, I am sick and today a couple of rude people we have encountered during the day have managed to crack me down in tears, erasing the good feelings of kindness felt from the dozen others who have been nice to us. I say to myself it is ok to cry, travel is learning to live as well, living can also be hard when we brush ourselves on the invisible sources of hardness rulling others life, the world is a harsh place, it carries beauty while it carries misery at the same time, all visible to our eyes and senses, we can't avoid it.

Crying helps to cope with life, but the question remains, was this trip too ambitious,  putting oneself and one's child through a trip like this meaningless, irresponsible, unnecessary? Well is too late to regret and in fact I don't.

I have come to Vienna, here were my great-great grandfather  and great grandfather lived, the place they loved, the place where they probably also cried a few tears after leaving Reichenberg Germany for a better life. Of Joseph it is known that he was smart, accomplished in languages and sciences, and over all restless and adventurous. Of his genetic good material, other family members have inherited his intellectual capacities, I have inherited the restlessness and adventure spirit that took him to Egypt and then to the Americas chasing  Mayan gold, that lead him to Paula, my great grandmother, a Mexican woman who made the Austrian fall in love with her and with whom he procreated eight children. I am in part the result of that union, that we exist in this world, and in knowing his story and the essence of his spirit, I  can start to comprehend the parts of myself that I could not otherwise understand or  justify.

From Vienna, 17.07.2015

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Extract from the book "  El Destino y sus Silencios" of Margarita Nettel Ross (Genealogy book)

Unauthorized translation by me

I see myself as a child holding my father Jakub’s hand, we are in Vienna, there we settled after my mother’s death; my father was a merchant and I, kept busy studying and learning many things. God had given me the gift of languages and sciences.

I was raised as a Christian by my mother, mi father always identified himself as a German Jewish. I never knew if my mother was also of Jewish background or assimilated. I became a quiet boy and with the pass of time a feeling of adventure and freedom started to germinate in me, that with time became a reality and that finalized by establishing myself in Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico.  I thought what to do with all these memories that crowded my head and my heart? I know, I will try to gather and convert them into a diary of my life.

My name is Joseph Nettel, I was born  in Reinchenberg Germany in 1872, my parents were Jakub Nettel and Maria R. Nettel. My father was born  on the 29^th of March 1853, I do not know if it was in Konignhof today Dvur Kralove or in Grossbock today Velka Bukovina, places located up north of the Bohemia Czechoslovakia. It is likely that my mother was born in Reichenberg today Liberec.  

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