Jeez, Europeans are so good with their health care that they put hospital crosses right on their planes.
THe FInal Destination
August 1: Tuesday
After waiting in LA for six hours, I was finally on a flight to Zurich, Switzerland. There was a Swiss family behind me, and I was pretty impressed by the fact that even the youngest among them was talking not only in perfect English, but also French and German interchangeably. I've heard bi- and trilingualism increases cognitive capacities, and if that's the case, we should be glad the Swiss don't involve themselves in wars - if they did, they could probably kill us with their minds or something.
Day turned to night on the plane, and it was uneventful aside from the fact that very late in the night I felt a nosebleed horrifically forming - and I was smack dab in the middle of a bunch of people. Through sheer force of will, and a little prayer, somehow I stopped the bleeding from occurring, and saved myself some significant embarrassment. I'm not afraid of flying, but I am afraid of gushing blood all over a nice Swiss nuclear family.
Arrival
At around five in the evening, at last, I arrived in Zurich, and from there, I was on to my actual destination - Vienna, Austria!
Zurich was a haven of brutality, a den full of hucksters and pirates and n'er-do-wells, sticky, fetid, squalling, horrible - nah, just kidding. The Swiss landscape is absolutely beautiful and everyone was very helpful. I got to practice my German on stewardesses (I think I'm quite obviously American to them) and I listened to music as I observed the countryside from the airplane window.
Switzerland was of course a beautiful sight, a mash of cool greens and blues, sleek buildings and distant mountains and open lands, like a cross between a fogless San Francisco and Middle Earth's Gondor.
Speaking of Middle Earth, I continued my reading of the Hobbit. Let's keep in mind that in German, the title of the book is "Der Kleine Hobbit," or "the little hobbit." Why they need to specificy that he's little, I'm not sure. It feels redundant. But maybe it's a signifier of that traditional German surety.
Like Bilbo, I was on to a new destination, and as we flew down I got to see my first glimpse of Vienna. Like a hobbit, I felt very rather small.
Taxi Rider
Left: I came into Vienna a couple hours before sundown, and the view was about as fantastic as I would have expected.
After picking up my luggage and going through customs, all I had left was to take a taxi over to my student apartments near the center of the city. Maybe I can't yet judge the driving on one car ride, but here are my takeaways:
1. Nobody turns right on red lights. Period. That's the law.
2. Using signals? More of a convenience thing than a requirement.
3. EVERYONE has this strange Viennese spider sense! Drivers changed lanes with the thinnest possible openings, coming within inches of each other but not breaking pace at all. Bikers and pedestrians seemed to be able to see into the future, fitting into this hyperspeed mish-mash of activity with no wariness at all. It seemed incredibly dangerous but it just worked. Hey, maybe after a month I'll have heightened sense too - or maybe it takes a lifetime?
I was late - very late. The professor had already taken most of the class out. Luckily, there were two other guys who had also come late due to the Los Angeles delay - and by necessity, they became my two roommates here in Vienna.
Right: Maybe I've mentioned enough Middle-Earth things today, but this painting in the Lounge of the student dorms really looks like Mordor.
My two roommates, Cameron and Jared, and our TA Jared went out to eat since everyone else was gone. The extent of my German practice was asking for "wasser and saying danke schon afterwards. The place was a Pizzeria, one of probably hundreds. There are a LOT of Italian flags hanging outside restaurants here in Vienna. My pizza had tuna on it - or thunfisch, as they say. It was amazing, and slightly cannibalistic; my middle name is Thun, after all.
I was surprised by the amount of space in my room, and with the ease I had in setting up the internet and everything else. Here at the end of the day, it's kind of hard for me to think about just what stressed me out so much before going here.
But I am very, very tired.
This was my first night in Vienna. Thirty more!
