It's a Good Life

The end of summer camp has brought me to where it all began nearly one year ago...Vienna.

Well, depending on one's definition of "beginning." For argument's sake, I will stick with the beginning of my Austrian experience, not the beginning of this blog (for which I was still in Wisconsin), nor the beginning of my international adventure, which began in Chicago...or, Paris if the flight over doesn't count. In any case, there are several points at which I could begin, and all would remain legitimate. But there's one I choose specifically, because it has more weight than others. More significance.

Vienna is significant, because it was the first place I visited in Austria ever in my life - about four years ago now, when I was a student in Berlin. For this reason, among others, I suppose, I have continually compared Vienna to Berlin, in my mind, but also aloud to anyone who will listen. Perhaps this only makes sense to me, but perhaps it also makes sense to others who have lived in both cities. I shall extrapolate.

Both cities are German-speaking and vibrant, though Berlin is slightly larger (4.4 million in the metropolitan area to Vienna's 2.4 million) and a lot less expensive. Vienna was gauged as the second most expensive city to live in (in the EU), after Rome, in Mercer's 2011 Cost of Living Survey.  Vienna is the city of culture, tradition - a place for everything and everything in its place. Berlin is subversive: art for art's sake, not art for tradition's sake. Unadulterated creativity rather than double-checking with superiors...It seemed to me when I first visited Vienna that, although it was a beautiful city, it did leave something to be desired when compared to Berlin. I guess I just liked Berlin better. Now that I am living in Vienna, I suppose I shall truly see the difference.

But I digress. My musings are probably less interesting to the audience than photos of my new apartment. To appease:

my room

my bookshelf already filled with crap

my desk likewise filled with crap

the hall

the balcony

the dining room

the living room

the kitchen

I am subletting from a woman who is currently in the USA helping her daughter with a newborn baby. I could not afford such a nice place on my own (and certainly not in Vienna). While she's gone, I'm doing a sort of house sitting job. The apartment is right downtown, very spacious and nice. I haven't been here very long, but so far I have no complaints, and am looking very forward to the coming year. Not that Amstetten wasn't great, but...Vienna is Vienna.