To open this page in its own Window, click here.
by Michael E. Campana
(being a semi-fictional account of my sabbatical adventures, designed to amuse; to be read with a dose of skepticism)
2 September 2002
I finally moved out of the hotel into an apartment just off the Prater, near the Donaukanal, the Danube canal that cuts through the heart of the city. There is a strip park on either side of the canal, with a nice bike path (Donaukanalradweg), so I can bike all over (yes, I purchased a basic mountain bike for getting around).
My apartment-hunting did not result in any adventures. The IAEA Housing Office gave me a list of apartments meeting my specifications and went to look at them. I am renting a 450-square-foot apartment, completely furnished (mit washer!), for $500 per month. That is good for Vienna, which is quite expensive. It is owned by an Englishwoman who splits her time between the UK and Vienna. She has two grown sons here.
There are cruise ships on the Danube. Actually, they are "cruise barges", since the Danube cannot handle regular ships. The Danube is not only Europe's sewer but its highway as well. You can take a barge to the Black Sea, and I believe, through a series of canals and locks, you can travel to the Baltic and North Seas. There are huge dinner barges on the river, too. For a price, you can cruise the Danube and feast on a meal of rubber Wienerschnitzel, beer, and tortes. Some of the barges feature classical music, so you get Strauss, Manilow, Mozart, Smetana, Joel, and Schubert with your meal. Other barges feature lederhosen-clad men singing German-language favorites, such as "Edelweiss", "Kommen Sie mit Mir, Meine Junge Fraulein", "Wooden Heart", "Marmor, Stein, und Eisen Bricht" (I actually know the words to that one... "aber unsere Liebe nicht..."), "Braun Zucker", "Sie Liebt Dich", and the showstopper, "Deutschland Uber Alles". A wonderful evening is guaranteed -- for some, anyway. One of the cruise barges had a big sign: "Jerry Van Dyke Travel, Cambridge, Ontario, Canada". Yes, the more talented and urbane of the Van Dyke brothers is in the travel business, running cruise barges up and down the river. With sufficient cajoling, he can apparently be coaxed into entertaining those aboard, performing readings from the more memorable scenes from "Coach" and "My Mother, The Car". Jerry Van Dyke is to German-speakers what Jerry Lewis is to Francophones: a huge talent grossly underappreciated in his native country.
I was watching a BBC show last week where a panel of journalists from the UK, Germany, Jamaica, and Pakistan were discussing the Johannesburg summit. Most of the first part of the show was a diatribe against the USA and George Bush (can we do something novel, folks?), although towards the end they all did agree that Robert Mugabe has trashed Zimbabwe. So it all comes out in the wash, or something like that. On CNN, one wag did comment on the spectacle (incongruity?) of 65,000 people descending upon Johannesburg, staying in expensive hotels, meeting at an upscale suburban shopping mall-business center, and using 1000 VIP Mercedes, all to figure out how to solve world poverty and ensure sustainable development. I agree. Wish my invitation had arrived in time. Instead, I was summoned again to see the HR czarina...
I took a bike ride down the Hauptallee, the broad, tree-lined boulevard that runs through the Prater near my place. No motor vehicles are allowed, and inline skaters, bikers (bicyclists, I mean), joggers, walkers and equestrians all co-exist about as well as, well, the UN General Assembly.
The Hauptallee leads to the much-beloved (by some, anyway) Lusthaus, a building with an illustrious (sorry!) past. Legend has it that when President Bill Clinton visited here, the Austrian government wanted him to stay in the Rathaus, but he insisted upon the Lusthaus, and he got his wish (and he did stay in the Lusthaus, too). In reality (and I am not making this up) the Rathaus is City Hall. Who says the Austrians have no sense of humor?
The flood damage in Germany has had some (surprise!) political fallout. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, up for re-election this fall, was behind in the polls to Edmund Stoiber, sort of an older "Al Gore" type: good with the facts, but supposedly kind of stiff (or "schtiff"). However, the Chancellor's handling of the flood crisis has apparently catapulted him into a slight lead. The two will face off in two televised debates, a first in German politics.
On a serious note, the flood damage in Germany alone is estimated to be 10-15 billion dollars. Much of its repair will be financed by delaying a tax cut for a year. Damage in the Czech Republic is less, but its economy is not nearly as strong as Germany's. The mayor of Prague was on TV the other day, urging tourists not to cancel, that Prague would welcome them.
This would be a good time to visit. Prague is a beautiful city, but in the past few years the service industry there has acquired a reputation for gouging (not all establishments, but a fair number).
Vienna is one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world. There are over 300 miles of bike paths, and on weekends, Wieners are out en masse. What's funny is that Wieners are also great cigarette smokers, so it's not unusual to see cyclists puffing away, or stopping for a butt (or beer) break.
The cable TV in my hotel room was interesting. I got two English-language services: BBC World and CNN World News. Both were quite good, although there was a lot of repetition on each. The other TV channels were...what can I say? The best of American TV was front and center: "The Nanny", "Married...With Children", "Meine Mutter, Das Auto", "Melrose Place", etc. There were Italian and German versions of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" (not if it's paid in lira, that's for sure). There were also German judge shows, and if you think Judge Judy is tough, you need to see the German ones. Whenever "Richter ('Judge') Barbara" comes on, I spontaneously start confessing to all kinds of things. Only the good sisters at Sacred Heart Seminary made me tremble more.
When I was downtown the other day, my heart almost stopped. No, it was not Sister Theresa (aka "King Kong") my eighth-grade instructor, it was a...Starbucks! In the land of coffee shops and tortes, there it was. Talk about chutzpah! It was actually fairly crowded, too. Unlike many of the other coffee houses, Starbucks bans smoking, so a number of people find its atmosphere more pleasant.
I was standing around chatting with some colleagues the other day when I had the occasion to use the term "like herding cats". The young man from Gabon looked at me quizzically and said "Why would you want to herd cats?". I explained what the term meant and he beamed, "That's the funniest thing I've heard since Jacques Chirac said he did not have a mistress!". For several days after that, whenever he saw me, he would say "Herding cats!" and chuckle. Since that moving experience I've been filled with "Proud to be an American" feelings, knowing that I have again helped remove the yoke of colonial oppression from one of the developing world's best. The only other time I have come closest to this feeling was in Turkey, where I taught young men in a remote village how to "high-five" and wear their baseball caps backwards.
One of the more interesting aspects of watching CNN World News is reading the strip along the bottom with all the little news tidbits. Since it is the world news, CNN tries to inject diversity into the items. This leads to some interesting items and juxtapositions: "Indonesian man gored by rare dwarf buffalo", "Iraq to test weapons of mass destruction", "Greece to crack down on jaywalkers", "Turkmenistan lab accidentally releases smallpox virus", "Serb WWW porn site shut down by government", "Canadian man defies ban, sells hot dogs in downtown Montreal", "Global warming to inundate South Pacific nations", "Royal Canadian Mounted Police track down seven reindeer that escaped in Manitoba", etc. These are all things we of course need to know. But one item in particular really caught my eye, and floored me: "Britney Spears to take sabbatical, ponder future". Yes, pop diva/megatalent Britney Spears will take some time off to reflect on life's mysteries, eliminate world hunger, and design a new line of organic nail polish. I can't speak for the rest of Europe, but Ms. Spears seems markedly absent from Austria. She doesn't sell Pepsi here, and the tabloids prefer Anna Kournikova. So if she wants quiet time, this might be the place.
Several of us had lunch at a biergarten the other day to bid farewell to an American who worked in IAEA's Safeguards Division. That's the most important group here, because it is responsible for safeguarding the low prices and large selection of gourmet food, alcohol and tobacco products at the Commissary [Would you believe it's the Americans who insist on having Cuban cigars? Word has it the embassy/consulate folks are miffed because we can get Cuban cigars and rum and they can't.] We spent lunch swapping stories about our experiences with American consulates. You want what?
Next time, tales of the "Meldezettel"...Fur jetzt, das ist alles.....Auf wiedersehen....
Click for the Vienna Reports Index