I wrote this post a while ago but forgot to post it. It felt like there was still so much that was left unsaid. Countless memories flooded back to me as I paced the streets of Vienna for the first time in a while. Maybe my sleep-deprived state made me feel like it was a dream.
A flood of emotions and tired ramblings consume my head as I land in Vienna. As I get off the plane, I recognize the airport that I have become so familiar with in my travels. I barely slept on the plane, but my spirits were not numbed by my drowsiness. I followed the stream of people to the border crossing and I got in without a hitch. The guy there asked me how long I would be in Austria and I told him about ten months. I told him my situation, I would get a visa later on, but I could use my Schengen days in the meantime. There was a moment of silence as he looked me up in the system. I wasn’t worried because I would be able to get in anyway, but it was a little strange. To my surprise, he said that my residence permit had been approved! I was in the country and I wouldn’t even have to worry about my visa.
My journey there had been a long one. I woke up at 4 AM to take my 8 AM plane from Seattle to Washington DC. Before I left, I was texting people in the Vienna group chat. Two people were coming in at the same time as me. I, being a second year, felt that I could give them some minimal wisdom and help them get into the city. The wisdom is summed up thus: don’t buy the city airport train tickets, it’s a scam. I didn’t have much other wisdom to give them, but I could comfort them in a moment for Austria that was utterly insane. But that will come into the stream later.
On the plane to DC, I was sitting next to someone who took most of the seat rest next to me. I was sitting by the window, and I had absolutely no space. I thought we could share the seat rest on my right side and it worked out for a bit. Until she jarringly said to me: “If you insist on touching me, then stop fidgeting!”. She said it with the slightest accent. Immediately, I bet 100 euro to myself that she would be going to Vienna with me. That sort of charm doesn’t just come out of thin air, a Seattleite would be far too timid to say something. If they did, it would be much more passive aggressive and much less direct. For the rest of the flight, I compressed my arms in so that I was definitely not “insisting” on touching her. Probably one of the most uncomfortable flight experiences I’ve ever had. Lo and behold, we saw each other on the next flight, but there was no acknowledgment. We were even in baggage claim together, waiting for what seemed like centuries for our bags. But never mind the Viennese charm, I had bigger fish to fry.
As I got in, I received a text from one of the other TAs I was supposed to meet. Those weren’t the only texts I was getting. Lower Austria, the area surrounding Vienna, had been flooded due to rainfall. The trains were down. If you wanted to get to Linz or Graz, you simply couldn’t. My plans for the day were ruined and I didn’t know if I had a place to sleep.
As I walked through the airport with the two TAs, Hope and Maksim, I extolled the beauty of the year that lay ahead of them, all the while thinking that I would have to text anyone I knew in Vienna for a place to stay. I thought of my friend Joseph or my friend Quentin. I thought of Verena, the person I had stayed with when I originally came to Vienna. Before I even texted anyone, my friend Sofia told me I could stay at her friend’s place. She was coming from Rhodes, Greece and there was no way she would be able to get back to Linz. As I’m writing from Graz, I think the trains are still not running. Hope, the TA who met me at the airport, had to go to Linz. She needed to get into her apartment and do the necessary paperwork for registering. The train ride to Linz changed from a 1-and-a-half-hour ride to an almost 6-hour ride. You have to go through Graz first, but the trains were down when I arrived.
So there I was at the airport at 8:30 AM. Sofia was getting in much later in the day so I had to find a way to occupy myself. All I wanted to do was sleep. I had gotten only one hour of sleep on the plane Maksim had to go meet his temporary roommates for the month. Hope was going to stay with another TA for the night, while she figured out what her next steps were. I decided to ask Hope if I could spend the day with her. I didn’t want to lug around my stuff and it seemed like I could help her navigate the city. As we wound ourselves through the slippery, dreary corridors of Vienna, my heart grew. I was back in the place that I had called home for the last year. All my friends that I’d made were there. My former work colleagues, my former roommates. They were there for me. I had never felt so welcomed into a place or felt that I had so many options for staying somewhere even when I was stranded. Even Hope, someone I had just met, had taken me with her to where she was staying that night.
When we got to the other TAs apartment, I was strangely energetic. I looked forward to seeing friends later in the day. I looked forward to meeting new people, although I must admit, this year I’m a bit more reluctant to meet more people. I already feel like I have so many friends that I absolutely adore and I want to make time for them while not stretching myself thin. Maybe not the best mindset, but I’m sure I’ll still make new connections without even intending it.
I had to keep myself up, so I suggested we go get a coffee somewhere. We ended up going to a largish traditional Viennese cafe. We had the marvelous coffee and cake (Kaffee und Kuchen) and then we went back to the apartment and watched a movie. I couldn’t feel myself falling asleep during the movie. I had to leave. So I walked out. My friend Theo was in Vienna so I had to go to a bookstore with him.
As soon as we saw each other (after going back and forth between stores) we went to look at some books. I love Theo because he can pick up most great works of literature and summarize them in an absolutely hilarious way. He loves an early German romantic writer named Kleist and always wants me to read him (like some people who read this blog ;)). He’ll describe how a story’s form changes in order to convey something that mere words cannot. Das Erbeben in Chile (the earthquake in Chili), for example, is described not only in its content I.e what happens, but also in the way the sentences change throughout the story to convey something about the changing of the scenes in the book and the characters’ situations. He told me to read Penthesilea, a play about an amazonian warrior who lusts after her enemy in battle. In order to consummate the relationship, she must, by her own laws, defeat him in battle. The whole story is about both sides of the battle trying to stop the two from engaging in a fiery fight forged by passion and lust rather than hate for each other. He also told me to read Der Zerbrochne Krug (The Broken Bowl) which I won’t spoil for my readers at home.
After we got our books, we sat in the middle of Wien Mitte, talking about our summers and joking around about little things as we always do. Trying out new sounds, new impressions, new dark, funny ways of speaking to strangers. We didn’t speak to strangers, of course, we merely hypothesized.
After going to dinner with Hope and Aly, Theo and I went to Westbahnhof to get his stuff. The hostel he was staying at was nice but everything had a sleek coating over it, as if it had just been bought off of Temu or something. We both went to the bathroom and then waited outside til we knew where we were going. He was off to Quentin’s place. I was off to the 7th. The day had finally come to a close and I felt like I was home.
he’s so back (vienna)(substack)