Vienna, Austria

Noor posing with flowers at Karlsplatz station.

There exists a certain combination of beliefs, issues, and experiences of a place that is unique to that specific time.  The Europe I am seeing today is different from the Europe of a decade ago, and presumably different from the Europe in another ten years.  There is a great word for this in German, so great that we stole it and use it in English as well: zeitgeist.  As in, the zeitgeist of the United States during the Syrian civil war has been largely one of ultra-nationalism, fear, and xenophobia.  It's not necessarily a negative thing - I could just as easily talk about the zeitgeist of New York City during the 1960's being one of drugs, free love, and partying.  However, much more often it becomes a handy shorthand to talk about all of the other stuff from your vacation you may or may not have gone there to experience.

Our trip to Vienna has been a perfect encapsulation of the modern European zeitgeist.

A pretty picture of a Votivkirche Cathedral in Vienna, to distract from the depressing stage-setting.

Noor did not spend any time on Dr. Freud's couch.

Before I get to that, I should probably talk about the good, because there's a lot of it.  The city is absolutely beautiful.  There is more of a mixture of old and new than Prague, likely since Austria has seen more conflict than the Czech Republic (you might have heard a little about it).  But the scope of the history is much larger.  From huge, sprawling castles (Noor and I naively once tried to walk to a restaurant "on the other side of the castle" - the walk was well over a mile), to spectacular art collections (especially of Gustav Klimt), to science (Freud), Vienna has it all.  It reminds me of Rome in that I could spend weeks here and barely scratch the surface.

Inside the Schloss Schonnbrunn, Vienna.

But obviously, all of this beauty doesn't exist in a vacuum, and that's what I was getting at when I was talking about zeitgeist.  Europe is going through a relatively challenging time.  It had enjoyed half a century of relative peace and stability after World War II.  It seemed as though the lessons about the dangers of ultra-nationalism and racism were well-learned following the fall of Nazism, and its people understood that a unified European continent was in the best interest of all nations involved.  Standards of life for nearly all member countries were at historic highs, even though the global prominence of European nations gradually declined.

This guy seriously doesn't like CETA.

Now, a combination of factors are disrupting the European peace.  Militarily, Russia, previously nursing its wounds after the Cold War, invaded Crimea in an effort destabilize NATO.  The United States has threatened to not protect NATO countries for failing to adequately spend on their defense.  Economically, they have been outcompeted for years by cheap east Asian labor, and are currently threatened by new trade agreements like TTIP and CETA.  Internally, they are dealing with the challenge of an unprecedented number of Middle Eastern and Asian refugees while combating a hidden violent ideology.  This combination of factors has led some member nations to question the strength and necessity of the European Union.






So this was the background, the zeitgeist of our European vacation.  For us, it was a well-earned break from our new fast-paced lives.  But this was every day life for its inhabitants, and it is not business as usual.  There is no break for most of the people who are living here.  Vienna is an old city with a magnificent history, and it was filled to the brim with timeless art and architecture.  But if you open your eyes, it's impossible to ignore all of the other factors at play in this city.

In addition to its brilliant architecture and art, Vienna also has stunning skies.  View from the entrance of the Belvedere museum.

So now that I've shown you the beautiful touristy side (and hopefully did it justice), I can discuss the rest.  Some would call this the real part.  Immediately upon arriving at Vienna's central station, we happened upon a huge protest.  Greenpeace representatives, socialists, communists, anarchists, and trade unions all surrounded city hall in defiance of the proposed trade agreement that puts European environmentalism and trade in jeopardy.  Rather than tell the story, I'll just share a few pictures.

Completely by coincidence, we also stayed in the immigrant part of town.  This proved a huge plus in the food department, where kebabs were everywhere, delicious, and cheap.  But it provided a whole different perspective on the city.  When one pictures the refugee crisis, they tend to envision predominantly Syrians.  And to the untrained eye (like my own), it would seem that way.  But aided by Noor's accent identification and hijab recognition skills, we saw a far more multicultural scene.  The majority were Turks and Yugoslavians, but we also encountered Egyptians, Tunisians, Palestinians, and Saudis.  All of them were friendly, but nearly every one had a tired fear in their eyes.  It seemed as though they bore the weight of a people who left one war and are fighting another.  It was the same look I wrote about earlier when I wrote about the Syrian refugee crisis in America.

And another photo to break the seriousness.  This is me at the Belvedere museum.

So to bring things full circle, I suppose that this feels like such a unique time to be here because it feels like things can't last the way they are.  A people living in fear like the predominantly Arab population here cannot thrive.  And if they are kept in such fearful conditions and not welcomed into society at large, hateful ideologies will find willing ears.  But we saw plenty of signs that it could just as easily go the other, more hopeful way.  We saw it in the "Migrants Welcome" signs at the political protest.  We saw it with every double-take and welcoming smile at our little white-Arab interracial relationship.  And best of all, we saw it in the children.  In groups where white kids hung out with Asian, Desi, and Arab peers.  These kids will grow up to have less fear than their parents' generation, and with less fear comes less xenophobia, less nationalism.

Enjoying a performance of Mozart here for our one-year
anniversary.  I may have set the bar too high.

It's hokey, I know, and perhaps overly optimistic.  But you have to be optimistic about a place like this.  It's too beautiful to go back to the way things were, right?