Wien on Foot

Wien, like any other town, is best explored on foot.  After accomplishing my Haus Mann chores, which included trimming the hedge on this frosty day, that is exactly what I intended to do. 

Walk almost anywhere in Vienna and one will see Gemeindebau, the community construction buildings.  I refer to them as the Stadt Blocks, which is not correct but it suits my needs.  At the end of World War One the old Austro-Hungarian empire was but a memory.  In December of 1918 the Socialists swept to power in Wien, the capital of the newly formed (and much smaller) republic.  The city was in a shambles, suffering from the ravages of war followed by hyperinflation, poverty and disease.  In 1918 and 1919 the Spanish Flu would kill many across the city, including the great painter Egon Shiele.  The economy was shattered, the middle-class was all but broken and the working class no better.  By the early 1920's the financial situation stabilized and the socialist government of Vienna commenced a concerted effort to build housing for the masses.  The results of these efforts were the Gemeindebauten, often built around large open courtyard spaces and equipped with laundry facilities, kindergartens and bathing buildings.  The largest and most famous of these structures is Karl-Marx-Hof, located to the North of the city.  I had the pleasure of visiting Karl-Marx-Hof on one of my earlier jaunts this summer.

On each of the Stadt Blocks (forgive me, it is easier to write) is the year it was erected.  The first early boom of construction was from 1925 until the 1934, during which over 60,000 flats were created for the residents of Wien.  

While the socialists eventually fell from power in other parts of Austria, overcome by the conservative politics of the countryside, Vienna remained solidly in the socialist camp until civil unrest broke out in 1934.  This shadow of much darker things to come also saw the end of the first building boom of the public housing blocks.  Many more blocks would follow in the second building boom of the late 1950's and 1960's, but few of these more modern versions had the elegance and Art Deco grace of the originals.

 
George Washington Hof, just south of the Stadt, is a fine example of the Community Construction Buildings from the first building boom of the 1920's and 30's.  The archways lead to inner courtyard areas and public spaces.

Before I got anywhere near George Washington-Hof I had to walk and I had to walk a long ways on a typical cold and gray December day.  I usually delude myself with some trivial reason for a walk.  This day the reason was to stop by OBI, the giant hardware store, and shop for some special storage boxes.  I didn't really care about the boxes, OBI just being an excuse that happened to be in the right general direction.

A few hundred meters from our apartment is the Liesing-fluss, the Liesing River.  Running from the hills of the Wienerwald to the Danube and lined with walking and bicycle paths it makes a great route into the Stadt.  If you are with someone who warrants a kiss, there is plenty of mistletoe hanging from the bare trees.

I wandered along the little river past herons and the gray shouldered-shouldered Hooded Crows, keeping a steady pace in the cold.  The way meanders past parks and industrial areas, ducks under a few freeway overpasses and is generally lonely and lovely.  Leaving the Liesing, I turned due North up busy Trieste Strasse and then detoured into the Wienerberg, a large park and hill that is just South of downtown Vienna and the main Banhof.

Walking in Vienna is like walking anywhere except that no one speaks English and every so often I expect to see Jason Bourne go running by, being chased by Clive Owen.  I guess I will get over that when the police sirens start seeming familiar.  Will the sirens in the USA ever seem foreign to me?  I doubt it.

Back on busy and noisy Trieste, there is not much of a tourist ambiance.  Ugly housing blocks crowd the sidewalk on the East while soulless new construction goes up on the West.  The only thing of note along this stretch of cacophonous avenue is the number of brothels along the East side, more than four in a kilometer.  I don't think this particular bit of city street is in anyone's walking guide to Vienna.  Exploring on foot is not always a pretty business, yet a city without warts does not exist.  Better to see a place as it is.

And then I am past the train lines, past OBI (a bust) and into the part of the city that I love.  I hop aboard a tram for the Alt Stadt, gliding along Wiedener-Hof Strasse past wonderful shops and cafes, coffee houses and bakeries.  I have more to ground to cover.  There is my cafe to visit for a cigar and a coffee.  Then it is down Wiedner-Hof to meet my Baby when she gets off work.  I am a busy man with things to do. 

Not everything goes as planned.  Loos American Bar is my cafe'.  When I arrive, tired and ready for some sitting and smoking, I discover that the outside tables have disappeared for the winter and the tiny inside bar is full.  Gott in Himmel!!  Then my Baby calls to tell me that she has taken sick and is heading home early and thence to the doctor's office. 

At quick walk pace I am to the U4 station in a flash.  With the magic of the Viennese transit system, I step from a U4 train into the closing doors of the U6 which whisks me home to my ailing Sweetie.  Another day in Vienna, with many kilometers covered, draws to a close.

Editors Note:  My Baby is on the mend and all is well, except Loos will not have the tables out until early spring.  Mein Gott!!

Start Making Sense

 Yesterday, I received an email from Tom Mara of KEXP in Seattle.  For those of you who are not familiar with KEXP, it is a listener-powered public radio station whose unfettered DJs play a huge variety of music without restrictive playlists.  It is truly music for the people.  I have supported KEXP since back in the KCMU days when the station was a tiny little voice at the University of Washington.  KEXP is now world wide thanks to streaming over the web.  

I asked and received Tom's permission to reprint his email to me and my response.  I know that this is a bit of a departure from my usual blog fodder, but I believe travel thoughts can take a day off.  Tom's email and my response follow.

Thanks,
Marco


 

Dear Marco,

Amidst the horror of the recent shootings in Colorado Springs and San Bernardino, a song sprang to mind. One from a mix tape my older brother made in my youth. With its swelling strings and baroque piano, the beauty of the Boomtown Rats' 1979 UK chart-topper "I Don't Like Mondays" belies its subject matter: a schoolyard shooting that killed two and injured nine, many of them children.

"I Don't Like Mondays" doesn't sound hopeful. It isn’t. Yet it epitomizes one of music's greatest gifts: the ability to help us make sense of the incomprehensible.

Because the music on listener-powered KEXP doesn’t follow a closely prescribed playlist, our DJs can address current events with songs that inspire us, even in the worst of times. In the hours immediately after the San Bernardino tragedy, you heard selections ranging from “Melt the Guns” by XTC to the Motown classics “What’s Going On” and “Ball of Confusion” on KEXP. As music lovers like you suggest songs you’d like to hear in the wake of these horrifying episodes, our community draws together. That connection replaces fear and vulnerability with hope and strength.

Phoenix live on KEXP (photo: Christopher Nelson)The Friday following last month’s attacks in Paris, KEXP responded with a full twelve hours of live music. The songs and artists varied widely, from immortal performances by Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding, to KEXP in-studios with French artists M83 and Phoenix, but a single purpose unified them: reject the fear terrorists sought to sow when they attacked our fellow music lovers at that Eagles of Death Metal concert at the Bataclan Theatre.

Consider the flipside. After September 11, 2001, Clear Channel issued twelve hundred radio stations a long list of music that they were discouraged from playing. From Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World" to the entire Rage Against the Machine catalog, this mass media giant suggested programmers silence some of the greatest music of the twentieth century. I can't fathom such an act. Can you imagine the look on John or Cheryl’s face if I marched into the booth and handed them a list of songs they can’t play? 

Your support of commercial-free KEXP enables us to champion music that honestly reflects our ever-changing world. Amidst trusted favorites like Neil Young and Public Enemy, you discover emerging acts ranging from flagship bands in Seattle's feminist punk scene (Childbirth, Mommy Long Legs) to openly gay hip-hop artists (Le1f). You probably won't like everything you hear. That's okay! But if we're completely honest in our commitment to celebrating the best music from all walks of life, we can't discount any culture or experience.

To paraphrase Wo' Pop host Darek Mazzone, it’s hard to hate people when you enjoy the music they make. While I certainly didn’t hold hate in my heart for the people of Pakistan, my attitude about the Muslim world changed when I discovered Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, master of Qawwali (the devotional music of the Sufi). Curiosity replaced indifference. The emotions Nusrat's voice stirred in me opened a door onto an unfamiliar culture half a world away from Seattle.

Music can’t solve all of society’s problems, but the connection and community it creates provides essential ballast in a turbulent world. Even in our darkest hour, we can always harness its power to make lives better. Just ask Boomtown Rats front man Bob Geldof. The next time his name appeared on a #1 record, it was as co-author of Band Aid’s 1984 famine relief single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”

What songs or artists do you turn to in times of fear or sorrow? I’m curious to know. I encourage you to email me at tom@kexp.org and share your thoughts.




Hello Tom

Thank you for your email.  It resonated with me on many levels, so I am responding. 

I am an old codger now, so I remember the Boom Town Rats well and I remember that shooting.  I have lived to see so many of these tragic events.  These days I travel the world, having left Seattle, my adopted home, behind for the most part.  I now consider myself a citizen of the world and try to live as such.

I have just returned to Vienna after a month in Sri Lanka.  In talking with the local folks, I learned a lot more about the terrible civil war that went on in Sri Lanka for almost 30 years.  I was there when I heard about the Paris attacks and the recent shootings in the USA.  During this same trip, I traveled through small towns and villages where there were Buddhist temples, Hindu Shrines, Mosques and Christian churches, all in the same area. 

The more I travel, the more I realize that people are pretty much the same everywhere.  We all want the same things:  healthy families, clean water, food, shelter and a sense of community.  The more I interact with different folks from different cultures, the greater the sense of commonality becomes.

Columbine, Nine-eleven, Iraq, Afghanistan, all tragedies.  And senseless tragedies. 
Isolation and dogma breed fear and aggression.  The recognition of commonality with our Brothers and Sisters around the globe breeds hope and tolerance.  Music is one of the bridges that bring people together. 

In times of sorrow, as in times of joy, I turn to music for solace, understanding and calm.  It could be the Avett Brothers "Brooklyn Brooklyn Take Me In" or Beethoven's Ninth, or my heart breaking for Nick Cave when he sings "Into My Arms" and I think of the recent tragic loss of his son.  There are no degrees of separation in this world.  We are, each of us, inextricably linked together as in Indra's Net.  Touch one of jewel in the net and that touch reverberates though us all, for good or ill.

Keep playing all of the Music!  That is what KEXP is all about, what it has been about since the KCMU days when those 4 huge watts of power made it to my old house in Walingford.  I supported the music then and I continue to do so today.  It is a small way to try and make the world a brighter place.

I would also ask you a favor if I might.  I keep a travel blog as I move about the world.  I would like to reprint your message and add my response if I have your permission to do so.

Be well and keep the tunes rolling and, of course, never ask John or Cheryl to edit their playlists!

Best regards,
Marco Etheridge
Currently in Vienna, Austria

Sent from the Lair of the Flying Monkeys

Retrospect Sr Lanka

I am drinking coffee, strong and black, while eating toothy Viennese bread.  For all of the bake shops in Sri Lanka, you would have to look long and far to find a toothy bread.  Sweets, yes, in myriad form and outrageous colours, but not toothy bread.  It is cold here in Vienna and gray.  The sun, when there is sun at all, is weak and beaten, too pale to combat the chill of a Wien afternoon.  Nothing here to recall the equatorial heat of Sri Lanka except the flip-flop tan lines on my feet, but it is not warm enough to shed my heavy socks.

Does this sound like regret?  It is not.  There is a comfort to me in the stark Stadt blocks as I walk to the hardware store and the market, my grandmother grocery cart clattering behind me on the path.  I sweat here as well, but it is the the heat of coming into a warm store after a cold walk; too many clothes or not enough.  Gone for now are the hot nights with a fan gently wafting the mosquito netting, laying naked on a guesthouse bed and not needing even a top sheet.  Walking through the winter-bare trees adorned with balls of mistletoe is like emerging in a Rembrandt etching, a world of fine sepia lines.  If the tropics are Gauguin, all bold lines and vibrant colour, Vienna in winter is the Old Masters.

My time in Sri Lanka is over and my new life of discovering Vienna has begun again.  The transition from there to here feels natural and without discontent.  The clock moved slowly in Sri Lanka, a blessing.  There was no rush of time at the end, no wishing for an extension.  There seemed to be a balance.  I talked about this with My One, who said she had the same feeling.  She said she felt that the reason this journey's end did not feel like an ending is that it was not, we were simply entering the next phase of the journey.  The next part of the story is building a life together in Vienna.  Happy thought.

What can I tell you of Sri Lanka?  My first though is this:  Go There Now.  This is a nation in flux, a place coming fully awake after years of conflict.  The long civil war and its tragic ending kept this island out of the collective traveler consciousness for many years.  During the last six years of peace, Sri Lanka has become a place of building.  Each year the number of tourists is increasing exponentially, guesthouses and hotels are being built at a frenetic pace, and Colombo is exploding with huge new development projects.  

As I have said in previous posts, Sri Lankans may be the friendliest people on the planet.  Even at the airport security check, I was engaged in conversation.  One is not allowed to enter the Colombo airport without a ticket.  Just as in India, no ticket, no passing through the door.  I have a picture of Che' Guevara on my phone home screen.  It is a ghostly image of a graffiti stencil, a shot I took on the streets of Southern India.  As I popped up my e-ticket to allow us passage, the soldier saw the photo of Che' and questioned me about it.  Rather than barring me as a potential radical, he asked me about the photo and "What was my country, please?"  Upon hearing that I was an American, he expressed his surprise that I was proud to have a photo of what he called "a good socialist man."  Entry was granted as well as smiles all around.  

Sri Lanka is a small island nation, even smaller than Austria (sorry My One!)  Despite its diminutive size, it boasts an incredibly diverse landscape and climate, from chilly hill country to sweltering lowlands and beaches.  There are steaming jungles, kilometers of paddy country and misty upland pine forests.  The weather is just as diverse, with rainy seasons varying dramatically from region to region and over very small distances.  Traveling during the rainy season allowed us the freedom to explore without rubbing elbows with the high-season tourists.  The penalty of rain from time to time was easily paid and we were very lucky. 

The food is Sri Lanka is a wonderful adventure in and of itself.  Engage the local cuisine on its own terms and you will not be disappointed.  The combination of spices in the fragrant curries and "gravies" will change the way your body smells.  Before too many meals had passed in Sri Lanka we began to notice the spice coming out of our pores.  On a sweaty Colombo night, in a tiny curry hut, the interior heat of the spices in your body actually make your skin feel cooler.  

Travel in Sri Lanka is not as hard as, say, travel in India.  Having said that, this is still the "developing world" (is that the new politically correct term?) and it would behoove one to leave that Western sense of personal space at home.  Buses are crowded, sometimes incredibly so.  Queues are not orderly.  Trains are slow and wonderful.  There are first class train compartments and private mini-vans for hire.  These conveyances will get you where you are going and, in my opinion, take all the fun out of the trip.  If you wish to experience life in Sri Lanka, book the third class train compartment. 

The Viennese night comes quickly here and so it has done.  It is time to attend to dinner preparations, warm winter food without a mountain of rice eaten with the fingers.  I have loaded all of my Sri Lankan photos up into my cloud.  When it gets a bit too dark or a bit too cold, I can warm my imagination with images of tropical heat and glaring sun.  

All is not gloom and gray.  There is magic here in Vienna as well.  The Christmas markets are in full swing, with crowds of smiling Viennese folks warming their hands and insides with steaming mugs of punch, warding off the cold night under twinkling lights.

So, until the next post, it is a new journey, the same journey, the only journey continuing.  I only occasionally delude myself that there is any division between the parts of the whole.  As the path continues, Friends and neighbors, Ciao for Now.

 

The Big Transit

Dateline Wien, Austria.   (Not Australia)

The big transit is over and we are back in the cold First World, where flushing the toilet paper is not a catastrophe.  It is even colder as the hot water system in our apartment is on the fritz.  That means no heat at the radiators and no hot water in the bathroom.  A cold-water shower in Sri Lanka is refreshing.  At 2 C. here in Vienna, a cold shower is not happening. 

We opted for a real taxi for our trip from the Mt Lavinia neighborhood to the Colombo airport.  Bandaranaike International Airport is 50 kilometers from Mt Lavinia.  There is a highway that starts  four klicks North of the city center, but it's surface streets from our quiet enclave through the maelstrom of Colombo's center. 

Fortunately this is not our taxi.  

We allowed two hours for the trip.  Yes, two hours.  Rush hour and tropical rain combined to paralyze the nonexistent grid.  The sheer number of buses, Tuk-Tuks, trucks, Motos and sundry vehicles overwhelmed the available space.  It is literally a slow motion ballet of steel, rubber and bravado.  

Here are several views of what it's like in the madness:

http://youtu.be/UA99xnin4U4

http://youtu.be/9qhCD7xhcnI

By the time I shot the second video, we were at the two-hour mark and the novelty of the ride was wearing thin. We did finally make it at the 2.5 hour mark.  Our driver was amazing and we tipped him well.  The final tale was 50 kilometers in 2.5 hours.  That's an average of 20 klicks or 12 miles per hour.  Brutal. 

10.5 hours from Colombo to Attaturk airport in Istanbul with a stop in the Maldives.  Then we had to clear customs and take a taxi van to the other Istanbul airport across the Bosphorus.  

Istanbul at 6:30 AM.  A lot speedier than Colombo. 

Crossing the Bosphorus.  Historic territory!  

Airports, more airports, some duty free cigars and then the final flight to Vienna. We had a nice view of the Carpathian Mountains and then the cold low clouds over Wien. Home at last.   

Hanging out by the little electric heater and waiting for the hot water repair guys, I admit to writing this post in a goofy state of sleep deprivation.  We left Sri Lanka at 9:30 PM local time after being awake all day. The final tally is 2.5 hours Colombo taxi joy plus 2 hours at the airport plus 10.5 flying plus 5.5 hours in Istanbul plus two hours flying to Wien and an hour home.  21.5 hours of travel and 33.5 hours of not sleeping.  

I can't wait to do it again!!!!   I'll try to put a cogent recap on this trip in a post to follow, but not tonight Friends and Neighbors.  Ciao for Now!!