Orientation nation
August 2: Wednesday
Jet lag was characteristically unkind to me this morning. So was the humidity. Coming from Davis, California, I'd been used to heat - sometimes up to 105, usually averaging in the late 90s in July (Fahrenheit, of course - not sure if I'll convert to Celsius naturally or if I need to do some sort of cultish ritual to accomplish that change). But in Vienna, it's not really the heat that takes you; it's the humidity. IN California valley-living, humidity was rarely a problem, but Vienna is a green land on a great river nestled between mountains, and as the sun gets hot, the air gets thick.
Vienna's an old city, and it shows. Walk for fifteen minutes and you can see a Roman ruin, a gothic cathedral, a Baroque palace, a 19th century statue, and a modern studio apartment. What's more, it's not sectored! It's integrated - startlingly so. Old buildings mashed between new ones, right there ion the street. High-tech gyms with exuberant membership fees were tucked inside old Gothic buildings. It was amazing, to put it simply.
And public transportation seems to be something of a specialty in this great city. Between the buses and the subways, the entirety of Vienna is crisscrossed with colorful roads of travel. It's a strange feeling: everything is so big, and yet all of it so very within reach.
Below: Tucked between two marvelous palaces-turned museums is the statue of Maria Theresia, the only female Hapsburg ruler (more on the Haps later). With that green sheen, and given that it's one of the first statues in Vienna I've seen, I consider her the Statue of Liberty of my trip to Austria.
Above: Average sight in central Vienna. Just an amazing castle, folks.
A Note on Drinks
At home, I'm a constant drinker (... water-drinker, I mean). On my first full day, the differences in drinks is what I noticed first.
For one, having ice in your drinks is unusual, if not downright unthinkable. Water in a wine garden comes cool enough, but there will never be eis (plenty of ice cream, though!).
Also, Austrians seem to be very fond of sparkling water. I first realized this flying over here when, upon asking for a water, I was immediately handed the sparkling variety (edit: apparently asking for a glass of water gets you clear water as opposed to sparkling). What's more, virtually any fruit-type drink is going to be sparkling unless it's straight up orange juice. I bought a lemonade at the market that tasted more like an Izzy - not that I'm complaining. But in Vienna they definitely are more liberal with their carbonation.
Alcohol-wise, I've of course noted that Vienna is a place of leisurely drinking. What really struck me is that upon visiting a wine garden, we - the Americans - were the only ones who seemed drunk. It's as if we simply weren't as skilled drinkers as these natural Viennese. I haven't seen a single person drunk in public yet, either (though maybe by the end of the trip I'll see a few in the mirror).
