Vienna, Austria: December of 2015

Vienna, Austria

December 6, 2015

Latitude 48º 13' N

It's true you can't go home again. You can go back to what you once had, but it will never be the same. Once you leave a place, you leaeits imprint on yoiui

But all that was a long time ago, when I was a much younger man. It had been seventeen years since I'd last been to Vienna and thirty one years since I'd spent that wonderful summer is this glorious, imperial city.

Half a life time ago!

I felt like Rip Van Winkle this time around. Some weird time-travel teseracting was going on. I was here then; I'm here now. But how did all the people I knew here get so old? It seems like a few summers ago that I navigated this city. The Vienna that was imprinted in my heart was still the same Vienna, albeit in the winter. I kept bumping into myself: there I was in Rathaus Park studying. There I was again playing football in the park near where I lived with guys who truly knew how to play the game. I could see myself sitting in Votifkirche and in the Volksgarten. That was me in one of the amazing galleries of the Kunsthistoriches Museum. I was everywhere, yet it was just an illusion of myself—some phantom image that no longer exists. Time doubling back on itself.

In 2015 I am plagued with arthritis, a belly, gray hair. I'd already had one joint replacement and exploring this city tells me the other knee is going to have to be done much sooner than later. Aging.

In 1984 Vienna was far east, way off the normal European circuit. There were tourists here, to be certain, but not the hordes one sees today. For the most part, it was a touristically quiet city. Today I felt as if I were pushing my way through tourists. Kärtner Strasse was packed with people and it was Italian I was hearing most. The Japanese were everywhere and having their photos taken in every possible location. Do these people even take a look at where they are? Votifkirche, always quiet in 1984, was chock-a-block with people and both the City Hopper and Hop On/Hop Off Bus were parked in front. Global tourism in the first quarter of the 21^st Century.

But today was all that counted. I'd come to enjoy every Christmas market this city would offer and I knew I'd not be disappointed. My goal was as many of the nine Christmas markets as possible. I was everywhere—Schönbrun, the Belvedere, in Rathaus Park, Maria-Theresien-Platz. I took a day trip to Bratislava and an overnight to Budapest and was delightfully happy with all the markets. I certainly wasn't let down, but by trip's end I'd had enough—at least for this year.

On my last day in Vienna, in a flurry of nostalgia, I retraced my steps. I tracked down the Albert Schweitzer House where I lived, had a Diet Coke and pastry at the Ankor bakery nearby, slipped into the building where classes were held. I meditated in Votifkirche and sat for a bit in Rathaus Park. The park was the setting for one of Vienna's largest Christmas markets and was almost overly decorated. Unlike 1984, there was no weekly Strauss Concert, but there were marvelous choirs and horn combos entertaining Christmas revelers with beautiful Christmas music. Somehow though, a five piece jazz rendition of Bing Crosby's Mele Kalikimaka just seemed out of place in elegant Vienna.

Here we know that Christmas will be green and bright
The sun to shine by day and all the stars at night
Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii's way
To say Merry Christmas to you

Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say
On a bright Hawaiian Christmas day
That's the island greeting that we send to you
From the land where palm trees sway

I wanted to grab a bathing suit, some sun screen, find a lounge chair and spend the day pool side. Instead, I listened then bundled myself against the snow and moved on.

Still, it was good to return to Vienna. I accomplished my goal: eight out of the nine Christmas markets, a retracing of my former life and a visit with an old friend. All of that was very good. The city was still as lovely as I remembered it, and even lovelier at Christmas time.

The only thing I didn't do was eat an ice cream.