Vienna, Austria

VIENNA, Feb 22 - I arrived in Vienna from Bangalore via Frankfurt in later afternoon of Wed Feb 22.  The first thing I saw when I walked out of the jetway at the Vienna airport was this Starbucks shop:

Even though I had not seen one since I left home, I resisted the urge. "Not in Vienna," I said to myself, an imperial capital that had been known for its coffee houses and great patisserie for centuries.

It has been six years since I last visited this beautiful city at the crossroads of the East and the West.  It is just because of that - that Vienna is the most eastern western European city, and the most western eastern European city - that I've always had a soft spot in my heart for it.  

No wonder, therefore, the feeling returned as I rode into the city from the airport bantering with the taxi driver in a combination of German and English.  My next move after checking in was to send the following message to my Viennese hosts:

Just want to let you know that I have arrived safely in Vienna and found your message about printing facilities at my Marriott hotel.  I just want to let you know how excited I am to be in Vienna again. I have spent many happy days in your beautiful city, especially in the 1990s, but I don't think have been back since about 2000.  At least not as far as I can remember.  But pretty cities like Vienna don't change much.  So driving from the airport to the hotel, and now looking around the Marriott's neighborhood, I am starting to feel as if I had arrived home
again.  A very nice feeling indeed...

Since I knew that the following day I had to give a lecture, followed by a series of meetings and then a trip to Warsaw, I decided to steal an hour or so to give myself a quick walking tour of Vienna's city center.  Want to join me?

I start my "tour" at Stephandom, St. Stephen's cathedral whose spires form the most prominent part of the city skyline...

Here they are, for example, as seen the following day from the top floor of the IBM office on Donaustrasse (on the Danube).

From the cathedral, I walked through the gently winding old city streets, now a pedestrian mall, toward Hofburg, the Hapsburg dynasty's imperial palace and grounds.

...approaching the entrance to the Hofburg palace...

...at the entrance to the palace..

The sleeping quarters of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy's Hofburg palace, now a museum.

This is a nearby late 19th century building, now an art gallery.

A view of the former imperial grounds from the Hofburg palace.

I have always been fascinated by the fact that the Vienna City Hall (right) is much more beautiful and prominent a structure than is the Austrian Parliament (left).  One of my Viennese friends once explained to me that what looks like an "anomaly" by American standards actually reflects the ways in which the Viennese look at the local versus the national governments.  They regard the local as more important.  Good for them!

These two beautiful buildings, now also museums, brought back some important memories.  Walking between them on September evening of 1993, I suddenly had a vision that I was walking down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, and that all buildings alongside were museums.  This inspiration eventually led to one of the seminal articles in my geopolitical and American series - "When Cultures Collide..." - published in the Washington Times in August 1996 (also see sequels, “Dumbing Down of America”, Aug 1997, and "Toward a Nation of Morons," Feb 2006).

Here's what I wrote in an epilogue tot "When Cultures Collide..."  contemporaneously:

An Epilogue or Prologue (you decide...)

This essay has had the longest "gestation period" of any piece which I've written on any subject. More than two years have passed since my idea about the impending U.S. disintegration was born on September 8, 1993 in Vienna. Here’s an excerpt from my diary notes:

"This evening, I went for a walk around the old Vienna. As I looked again at those magnificent buildings where the Austrian royalty lived, I was reminded of the fact that even the greatest glory is but a fleeting moment in the history of mankind. Less than 100 years ago, this was one of the most powerful empires on the face of the Earth. Now, all these buildings don’t just look like museums; they are museums! I could not help but wonder if, in 100 years or so, Washington may also end up a "museum town," as the new center of world power shifts elsewhere, perhaps to China or Russia?"

After doing some research which backed up my Viennese intuition, I hesitated to share my conclusions with wider audiences partly because I was afraid that my forecast would be too shocking, disconcerting and gut-wrenching for many patriotic Americans.

In other words, I was a "chicken-shit" writer who was more concerned about being labeled a "kook" or a "weirdo" than about telling the whole truth.

Then I met an American overseas war veteran who earned more medals than my roses have petals (the late Col. Hackworth). Upon reading a draft of this essay, which I wrote while stranded in Paris on by the fog and the transportation workers’ strike (Nov. 29, 1995), he said, "your piece is right on the money. Go for it!"

Which is why you're now reading it, too...

Bob Djurdjevic, Phoenix, Arizona, Dec. 20, 1995

Well, back to the cloudy and frosty Vienna on Thursday, Feb 22... I paid my respects to the woman who is credited with more gold-yellow facades than any other human being I know - the 18th century Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. J The "Maria Theresa yellow" has become a particular color in art and architecture.

The empress was also reputed to have been partial to the Serbian honor guards whom she used to keep around the royal palace.  Can't argue with her taste... J

Further down the Ringstrasse (a circular street that runs around the old city center), I decide to stop by and pay a visit to my old and dear literary friends - Herr Johann Goethe (above)...

...and Friedrich Schiller (above).  I read and studied them in my youth, when I was fluent in German.

The Viennese Opera House, always a treat to the eye, looked more beautiful than ever.  It has been evidently renovated since the last time I saw it.

Right behind the Opera House, I finally succumbed, more to the cold than to the urge for Starbuck's coffee, and went in for a short break in my walking tour of Vienna.

View of Kaertnerstrasse, a major shopping and walking street, from Starbuck's looking toward St. Stephen's cathedral, where my walking tour would come the full circle.

I felt sorry for this Shetland pony and made a small contribution to the fund to keep the circus animals warm during the winter (which is what the sign said).  Whether or not the money actually ended up there, neither the pony nor I will ever know.  But it made me feel good.

Once back at the hotel, I felt I had to send another photo to Karen as a reconfirmation of my well-being (she still sounded worried in the phone messages I picked up upon landing).

Finally, views of Stadtpark (city park) from my hotel room at the Vienna Marriott's.

And that's all she wrote from Vienna.

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