My first thought after arriving in Vienna was that people living there must have 50% less ambient stress than us because everything just…works. Instead of sitting in traffic, hop on a fast-moving, reliable metro or tram to head home from work. Get sick? The healthcare system is both affordable and functional, and you don’t feel as if you are doomed to death by stepping foot in a hospital. The US reminds me more of the Balkans than Vienna, in the sense that it feels as if you constantly have to hustle and plan three alternate plans to get enough money to go to the doctor or survive, and money is the only thing that offers you somewhat of a safety net, but even then you’re one emergency away from instability.
The diversity of the city felt good after so long in the Balkans, and unlike in Zagreb, you see people of different backgrounds everywhere, not just as delivery drivers.
Robi pointed out that all the cops were white.
I really need to learn German. A language that in the US seemed irrelevant now is the ticket to a better future, one move rendering my past language choices irrelevant.
The organ in St. Stephen’s is stunning.
I like that you can pray anytime of night.
The butterfly house feels like a scam. We paid 20 euros for our tickets for a room that’s just a tiny portion of the Hofburg greenhouse, while most of the rest is a fancy restaurant. I wonder if it could be considered animal cruelty because the noise and the many visitors touching the butterflies despite the warning signs at every step asking people not to do so can’t be good for them.
The Sacher torte I had at a cafe owned by some Bosnians was way better than the one I had at Cafe Sacher all those years ago.
I have mixed feelings about the many museums in the city. I love museums and I love that there’s all this knowledge open to people (although it’s a question how open they are given the admission prices). But all these institutions are only possible because for generations, several extremely wealthy individuals hoarded wealth and waged war and used that hoarded wealth to hoard other stuff from paintings to rocks, sometimes claiming it was for scientific purposes, but really the primary purpose of all these objects was to showcase their power, then contribute to knowledge.
The Venus of Willendorf is smaller than I was expecting.
The Schonbrunn greenhouse, now an indoor botanical garden, sends me on another thought spiral. The cuttings inside are from everywhere, from Japan to Madagascar. Some have plaques next to them explaining that this plant dates to the 18th or 19th centuries and was collected on a field expedition by official imperial gardener something-or-other. Austria-Hungary may not have had overseas colonies (although its relationship to Bosnia could be called colonial, and is by some scholars) but it benefited from the colonial expansion of the world nonetheless and joined in on expeditions that were only possible because of the colonialist impulse.
For all we say Austria-Hungary was a different empire, maybe it was only due to the lack of opportunity to pillage overseas the way the others did.
I’m very fun at parties.
I recommend traveling with a municipal policy nerd, you look at fancy buildings while they look at sewers and point them out to you.
The parking lot at Schonbrunn was filled with tour buses from Croatia and Serbia. I immediately thought of “Drei Milionen” by Kiša Metaka.
Why the hell would one family ever need soemehing the size of Schonbrunn.
Vienna for most people from here is the main promised land, an attitude I’ve unconsciously adopted since moving to the Balkans. Maybe because it’s so close, yet wildly different from what you experience in Belgrade or Zagreb, however much Zagreb thinks it’s baby Beč. It’s the closest outpost of a different world.
When you’re a young person in the Balkans, the possibility of Vienna is always in the back of your mind, I guess especially in Croatia where legally you can pick up and go, it’s always a reminder that life could be if not better, then maybe easier.
The high immigrant population is the reason why Vienna is a true metropole today and not a museum-piece backwater, which I’m not sure the local nationalists appreciate properly.
My favorite meal I’ve ever had in Vienna is a 3 euro falafel sandwich from Brunnenmarkt.
Most people that visit Vienna probably spend their whole trip in the historic center, but the edges of the city are more interesting. Historic buildings are easy to find elsewhere well-organized cities aren’t.
I wonder where the city’s seams are.
A lot of our people who go there never integrate. Some may say it’s because they’re arrogant and never learn the language. But why don’t they? I find it hard to believe several thousand people are just too lazy to learn German.
If a bathroom attendant, cleaning person, or taxi driver in Vienna is white, they’re probably Balkan.
There are two types of Balkan people in Vienna. The mostly older wave (although there are younger people in this category as well) who do mostly manual labor, who form the working underbelly of the city. Meanwhile most of my friends and acquaintances who are more recent migrants to Vienna, or thinking seriously about i,t tend to be more educated and work office jobs or artsier stuff. For a lot of these people, the reasons for moving aren’t just economic (although many haven’t been able to find jobs in their home countries even with advanced degrees) but also the search for a kind of peace of mind unavailable back home.
I know some people that have moved back to the Balkans from Vienna. I alternate between thinking “why would you ever come back” and “what do we not see that made you come back.”
I guess people might think that about me as well.
Last time I visited Vienna, I went as an American. This time I went as a Balkan person. It’s a very different experience. Now the city is not just a beautiful place but a fated promised land, a reminder of everything we can’t be, but also everything that wouldn’t want us.
At night in the hotel room, I flip through Austrian TV. I find the world judo championships, Bones dubbed in German, and this guy.
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