On the Road with Julie

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My time in Vienna has been everything I could have hoped it would be.

Perhaps you are wondering if it was everything I hoped for AND more?

Yup. There was more too.

I came to Vienna for German and for music. I had hoped I would leave Vienna with a lot more of both. And boy did I.

When I arrived in Vienna, after am immersive week of German in Germany, I arrived with a lot more of a base and a decent amount more confidence in the language than when I had arrived in Germany the week before, but I would not yet have said that I spoke German.

Leaving Vienna, I’m not totally sure I can be so bold with such a claim, but my skills are now high enough that the debate would be worth having. I can have real conversations in German. I guarantee you I will make a ton of mistakes, but information will be transferred. I wrote a bit more about this question of when you can start to say that you speak a language in another post. People ask me, especially on this trip, “what languages do you speak”? I generally respond with, “Well, I study…”. I’m just not sure when I can truly claim that I speak another language. But I’m definitely trying! Heck, I’m not even sure I’m ready to say that I speak English. There are countless times when Ryan has asked me where a something is and, for some reason, unbeknownst to either of us, the best I can do is usually, “It’s between the thing and the other thing, you know under the…you know, that thing..” So, yea.

Whether or not I can actually say that I speak German, I set aside 5 weeks for German study on this trip with the aspiration that I would leave Vienna having completely taken my German language to a decidedly different level than when I arrived. THAT, I can say with confidence, has been thoroughly achieved!

And then there is the music. Oh, the music. I chose Vienna specifically so that I could study German and music at the same time through a joint program between the ActiLingua Lanuage School and the Vienna Beethoven Conservatory. Twice a week I met with a piano teacher and twice a week I met with a composition teacher to work on my musical. To say that these lessons were a highlight of my time in Vienna is an understatement. They were a highlight of this whole trip. To read more about me waxing poetic about the coup de coeur I experienced from music in Vienna, you can check out this post.

Then there’s the “more”. Those of you that have been following along with the blog, you know that Vienna had me at airport bathrooms. So clean. So spacious. So well appointed. So beautiful. And, yes, it did turn out, for all of those same reasons, that the bathrooms were an accurate prelude to the wonderful city of Vienna itself. 

Then, of course, there is the fact that Vienna is absolutely stunning. If you are not sure where to find the next gorgeous piece of architecture to gaze it, I suggest the “pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey” approach – you know, that game we played with actual darts in the 80’s and 90’s before parents realized that blindfolding a child in a crowd of children and giving them a dart to wander around with maybe wasn’t an awesome idea. But, the approach will serve you just fine here. Close your eyes, spin around, open your eyes. Wherever you are, wherever you ended up, I’m pretty sure you are looking at something stunning.

I will admit, when I first stepped out onto the streets of Vienna, the look of the city did not immediately capture my heart. I liked it. I definitely liked it. It is, objectively, impressive. I appreciated its beauty and grandeur, but I tend to be grabbed more by a different sort of architecture and layout than the one that is here. Which is why it surprised me that, even though it didn’t grab me at first, what I did experience immediately, was a deep peacefulness. And that peacefulness sank in deeper and deeper everyday. Before I knew it, I found myself developing a new set of senses and before long, I went from “liking” the architecture and the layout to being absolutely in love with it. 

I have reflected on that feeling of peace I have experienced here. Where does it come from. There is a distinct lack of madness here that is noticeable. If it’s there, it is well hidden. Everything is so relaxed, so chill, so easy-going even though it is also a lively city. There is a surprising (to me) lack of chaos and struggle here. It’s as if all of the things in life that seem like they are supposed to be easy and you wonder why they have to be so hard – well, in Vienna, it seems as though they were just like – why don’t we do it the easy way?

Yes, Vienna, why don’t we? 

For example, why do airport bathrooms have to be so small? They don’t.

Why do I have to go to the doctor, find out I need a blood test, then leave the doctor, find another time to go to get my bloodwork, wait days for the results, then go back to my doctor? You don’t.

Yes – when I went to the doctor in Vienna when I was sick during the first week, they ordered a blood test, had me walk DOWN THE HALL to get my blood draw, sat me in the waiting room for 15 minutes, and then returned me back to the consultation room to meet with the doctor to discuss the results. (All good, by the way). So easy.

Why does getting on and off public transportation have to be so cumbersome? It doesn’t. In Vienna, you buy your tickets and then use the honor system. No cumbersome entry and exit barriers to navigate. 

I could go on and on. If there is insanity in Vienna, I didn’t see it when I was here.

And there is art and culture bursting at every seems. You feel cloaked in it. Everywhere you look, there is something stunning to look at or interesting to do. 

And, because all of the buildings are so grand, every day feels significant. You are in places that say, “What is happening here is important.” So, it feels like that, even just going about your day. I think that is part of why I love it. I love everyday things. I find life to be an absolute miracle that it exists at all. So, walking through your everyday surrounded by buildings that say, something significant happens here, feels right to me – or, at least, it feels nice.

Another wonderful part about the Vienna portion of my trip is that, because I was here for 4 whole weeks, for the first time on this trip, I was in one place long enough to sink into the feeling of just living my life in a place. I got to feel the hustle and bustle of a packed travel schedule sink into the background and just feel like a resident for a little while. And it was glorious. 

I didn’t do much touristing until late in my trip – except making a visit to the amusement park in the center of the city (that includes the world’s oldest Ferris Wheel that was in the movie The Third Man). I was just getting over being sick when I went so I could only handle two roller coasters. But it was pretty cool to just get off a subway station in the middle of a city and be in a huge amusement park!

When I finally did turn my sites towards taking advantage of the tourist opportunity of being here, I took a daytrip to Salzburg, driving through the gorgeous lakes that sit at the base of the Alps. I got to see the sights where the Sound of Music was filmed and have my mind blown when I found out that most Austrians have never even heard of the movie, let alone be a big enough fan to visit the sights where it was filmed. 

And of course, it was a highlight of my trip when a certain special someone showed up for a 6 day visit. Ryan arrived and was immediately taken by the grandeur of Vienna. By then, I had already been converted and we just drueled over the gorgeous city together. I knew I’d be able to draft off of Ryan’s tourist energy and I did more touristy things during his visit than I had in the prior 3 weeks all together. 

We saw a lightshow inside a gorgeous cathedral that was probably one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever witnessed that was made by the hands of humans. We went to see The Phantom of the Opera in German (with English subtitles) and it blew us both out of the water. I haven’t seen the show in 30 years and I forgot just HOW good it is. And the production here in Vienna was as top notch as it could be. The singing absolutely floored me. 

We even took a daytrip to Bratislava and Budapest, getting to be in 3 capital cities in one day! Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, is only 45 minutes from Vienna, and Budapest, the capital of Hungary is only another 2.5 hours from there. They were gorgeous and we had a fantastic time!

And of course, during my time in Austria, I did my duty to eat. I had my Wiener Schnitzel (found some gluten free!) and made sure to have at least one Wurst.And. I have joined the section of society that might consider chocolate a legitimate food group – and I have been getting in my daily recommended dosage – a lot.  I also found out that, in Vienna, they do lemonade right. Almost every place I went had some delicious version of lemonade – be it black currant or mango or pear mint. I did find a place that had gluten free crepes, but I was so busy eating gluten free pie, that I never actually got around to going there. 

I had intended to post more often during my time in Vienna. I thought, having so much more time in a place, I wouldn’t find myself, once again, up against the clock, in an airport trying to sum up an entire visit in one sitting. Unfortunately, I found myself busy savoring every delectable moment in Vienna, drinking up every building, every note, every bite, every sight to behold and every chance to learn and play and delight. I spent my time reveling in every millisecond of being here. Alas.

So, yes, I am writing this from the airport on my way out of town. And, yes, I did get to use the airport bathrooms again. And yes, they were just as wonderful as I remember. Shoutout to my sister that pointed out that, in my original ode to the airport bathrooms and their bounty of tremendous hooks, I didn’t actually use the hooks. For anyone that read the post, you might surmise the reason for this was not an oversight, but an emergency to get my butt on that toilet. This time, though, I got to the airport 3 hours early and I luxuriated in taking my time to partake of those glorious hooks. 

Even though I had the luxury of a whole month in this wonderful place, I am sad to be leaving. I have really loved my time here and felt very much at home. I will be sad, not just to leave Vienna, but to be leaving my time getting to steep in the German language. 

However, because leaving Vienna means going to Italy – I’m sad, but I’m not THAT sad. Next stop, Venice! 

For now, Vienna, I bid you a fond adieu with a hope that someday we may meet again. Dankeschön, liebe Wien. Bis wir uns weidersehend und viele liebe Grüße.