Last Day

Today was the last full day in Vienna and I personally had mixed emotions about it. For the last 50 days I have been in Europe and had the MOST incredible experience of my life and I really didn’t want it to end. It was one big fairy tale. On the other hand, it’s been a while since I have seen my friends and family, a while since I have had a legitimately good cheeseburger and an IPA.

When I look back on the trip, there are some things that I will definitely miss:

-Public Transportation – Getting from point A to point B is fun in Europe when you don’t have a car. Since we had a month long pass for the above ground trams and the U-Bahn and city busses we were able to get anywhere with ease and see the entire city. Also, when you take public transportation, you see what is going on around you, you see who’s going to work, what they are wearing, who is going out for drinks, who just shot up heroin and can barely stand up, you really learn more about the city you are living. And of course, the public transport is pretty reliable so you do make it to where you are going in a reasonable amount of time.

-City Centers – in the US, we lack the historical city structure that is ubiquitous in Europe. All the cities here are similar in that there is a city center and then the city expanded around that. In Vienna this is obvious because you have the city center within the Ringstrasse and then outside of that you start to have more and more housing and commercial expansion and then when you get to the outskirts you have houses with yards. My city of Thousand Oaks doesn’t have a city center, so there is really no place to go where there are lots of people just hanging out. City centers are awesome!

-Wine and Beer Gardens, Cafes – in the US we lack any sort of restaurant or café that resembles these fine establishments in Europe. With cafes, I think that a lot of the reason why ours aren’t as good is attributed to the fact that our cities don’t have a city center for the most part. The beauty of the city center is that there are always people there, people walking around, people going to work, people on dates, and when you put a couple chairs facing the street, people will want to sit there and have a conversation and watch the world move around them. It is really fun to just sit down and watch, but with strip malls and random streets in the US, we don’t have the luxury of such establishments. Wine gardens and beer gardens are something so foreign because when you think wine and wineries in the US, it’s more of an adult endeavor that you might do with a spouse or your parents. But wine gardens are so much different because it is a casual experience, you sit down and get some wine and chat and enjoy, the setting is perfect, the wine is perfect and you are with good people, there is nothing snobby or stuck up about it. And if you want food, you just go up to the counter and order some pork or sausage, it is fantastic and it is really reasonable too!

-Lifestyle – everything moves at a different pace here, it isn’t that it’s faster or slower, it’s just different. It’s hard to describe it, but there are definitely hectic parts of days which are just like everywhere else in the world, and then there are slower ones, like going to a café and getting a coffee and just sitting. It is definitely something that should be experienced, because I think that the people in Europe share closer bonds with each other than we do in the US. I don’t think that TV is as big as it is in the US, I think that they do more with what they have around them, they go to parks, to the river, walk around the city, they are more personable in my opinion, at least from the people I met and spent time with. I really enjoyed this aspect of Europe!

Things that I miss from home:

-Family and friends

-Burgers

-Convenience stores

-Stores open on Sundays

-IPAs

-Live American sports

So in the end, I do miss the US, so I’m excited to get back home and grab an In-N-Out burger and watch baseball! But I will never forget this trip and Vienna, THE BEST EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE!

Thanks Kathy!