Friday, November 25, 2016

10 (funny) facts about Vienna I (dis)like

Since four months, I’ve been living in Vienna again. Apparently nothing has changed, but now I realize there is something I had forgotten during the Belgian time: those little things partly very pleasant and partly quite annoying. Here is my (new) half-serious list:

foto da ÖAMTC
+ Musical train: some Siemens locomotives “play” a music scale when starting.
- Half-filled sandwich: the bread roll is cut only on one side and the filling is therefore half in the bread and half outside it, perhaps to show the filling. Guess what! Cucumbers are always present.
+ Telephone booth: still present and working down here.
- People stuck in a spot in a half empty tram: come on guys, just a few steps and there are even free seats!
+ Dessert (cake) list in the menu: if you came to Vienna just for eating Sacher, you are wrong, very wrong!
- Church tax and TV-radio tax: even though much lower than in Germany, I don’t like the persistence in asking money (I pay both, don’t worry).
+ Weekend events: it is impossible to attend all of them, no way you get bored here.
- Smoke allowed in bar/restaurants: yes, unfortunately people smoke in public places and it is considered historical. There is a non-smoker room in restaurants… after the common room.
- Dachlawinen (ice avalanches from the roof): rather than installing a protection (like in Germany), here there is just a sign on the sidewalk. Your choice, either risking an ice avalanche on your neck from the 5-6 storey building or be run over by cars.
- Dialect: after a while I learned to like the local dialect… until you receive a voice mail from the plumber and you only understand it is a kind of germanic language. Not mentioning its own dictionary, not only for food (Erdäpfel instead of Kartoffel), but also for diseases (e.g., Feuchtblattern instead of Windpocken), so you have to learn two words at the place of one.
But I deeply love everything else in Vienna. I mean, I appreciate so many things that listing all of them would require pages and pages. I can provide a list in a personal message, if you are interested.