A planetary conjunction

Last night Venus and Mars were the closest to each other (visually only, not physically) that they'll be for quite a number of years. I got up early this morning to have a look.

Top left: the moon; bottom right: Venus; to the left of Venus and slightly higher: Jupiter; very very close to Venus (down and to its left) (and too dim to see unless you enlarge the image by clicking on it): Mars

Miekie has been preparing a speech for her class about a foreign country. Fittingly she chose Austria. Here are some of here initial thoughts that she scribbled down a few days ago: