Austrian Robot Army

Have you ever sped past thousands of Austrian wind turbines, near the Slovakian border, at night? Well, if you have, on the off-chance, you might understand the apocalyptic nature of the scene.

For many—particularly up close—wind turbines are scary enough as it is during the day. I quite like them, but I can how their scale intimidates. At night though, as I just learned, it is a different proposition precisely because you can’t see them.

Truthfully, most of the reason I notice them everywhere now is because of Mary’s love for them, or awed fascination, at least. Seeing them dotted everywhere along the (very windy) Scottish coast whilst I played golf last month was a nice, quirky reminder of her whilst we were apart.

I don’t know if this is the same everywhere, but in Austria, the turbines shafts flash red. When you sync these sequential red flashes up, stretch them out as far as the eye can see, and stagger them in a grid-like fashion, it truly creates the impression that a sinister robot army is out there, moving towards your train, or at the very least, surveilling you.

Far more interesting, important, and fun things happened today, but this was the spontaneous occurrence I felt most compelled to write about. We visited Bratislava today. Perhaps I’ll return to it tomorrow.