Journey's End

What’s only been a little over two months feels like a year. The 30+ hour train ride from Istanbul to Vienna gave me a lot of thinking time to reflect on it all. My conclusion was that everyone who can should do a trip through the Middle East. It’s remarkably safe, most of it care-free and most is very cheap. I stand a proponent of the region, or at least the countries I visited.

Vienna, the city of music, was certainly a change from the previous 2 or so months. It seems that the moment you cross the Turkish border the remnants of the Middle East fall away at once, and the journey west moves you along a spectrum from ex-communist deep south increasingly close to stereotypical continental Europe. By the time you arrive in Vienna, you are firmly ensconced in the West, but with a lingering feeling of a restless past. A recent Austrian ruler put it quite succinctly when he said that ‘Austrians anticipate the past with great confidence’. This mood seems to permeate Vienna. A quite confidence radiates from the city; they have the music, they have the culture, they have the history. What do they need to prove themselves for now? In my few days there I saw a number of things, most notable the Schonbrunn Palace, but my favourite part of Vienna was just wandering the streets soaking up the atmosphere. A few other backpackers I spoke to said they ran out of things to do in Vienna after 2 or so days. Evidently they weren’t in it for the museums, music, galleries or relaxation, but they’re right about the lack of ‘sights’ per se. I think the thing that gives Vienna its charm is the sense you get that it was build very slowly over a very long time. Which is true of course. But the lack of sky-scrapers and traffic jams, yet profusion of beautiful historic buildings and peaceful ambiance make it a great place to get your head together for a couple of days.

Schonbrunn Palace has a grandness that sets it apart from the palaces in Turkey. To be fair, some of the detail in the Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul was more elaborate. However the Schonbrunn has all the things that readers of books like Animalia (yes, the kids’ picture book) would come to expect of a palace. A maze. Rose gardens. A zoo. A glasshouse. The sweeping lawn leading up the hill to the entertainment pavilion comes straight out of a Jane Austin novel, with plenty of secluded side-paths for unexpected encounter… It seems I don’t have the vocabulary to describe palaces, as I’ve had difficulty with this one and those in Istanbul. Suffice to say they’re very shiny and amazing.

Prague has been interesting thus far. I don’t mind bureaucracy, as long as it’s efficient. In Prague, it’s not. And, as I don’t fit in to the European ‘Erasmus’ exchange program, I get left out of a lot of information loops. It doesn’t help that I don’t speak Czech (yet!), nor that the office at my college doesn’t speak English. Or that there was a public holiday on Friday, just as I was still trying to organise my life. The running around has meant that I haven’t yet had time to see any of the sights, including the castle. It’s on my ‘to do’ list, and will probably end up happening in about a month. Luckily, I’m here for 5 or 6. But classes start on Monday, and I’m really looking forward to starting. The other thing I should mention about Prague is the beer. There’s a rumour that the beer in Prague is the best on earth. While I haven’t tried all the beers on earth, I’m prepared to believe it. It’s tasty, comes in half litre serves and is cheap (around $1.25 for a half litre). It’s no wonder that the Czechs drink the most alcohol the world over, and I’m slowly sinking into their habit of having a beer or two over lunch and dinner. It’s probably lucky it’s only for 6 months.

I still haven’t decided whether I will keep doing the blog. If I do, it definitely won’t be as regular as it is now. But, if you’d like to keep it bookmarked and log in every month or so, you might get lucky.

Hoping everyone in Brisbane is well and enjoying what they’re doing, and looking forward to reading any random emails people care to send my way,

Nick.