And I mean, REALLY.
Moscow was cool. You'd be driving somewhere and you'd catch a glimpse of St. Basil's at the skyline, and it'd be all bright colors against a gray sky. And while Addis wasn't particularly beautiful, it had its moments (I loved the jacarandas), and the countryside was really lovely.
But seriously, Vienna blows them away. First of all, it's CLEAN. The tapwater tastes amazing. The Danube may be a little dubious in color (the whole Blue Danube thing is CLEARLY just a good PR job), the air is nice, and it's such a verdant place.
For example -- this is the view from Dan's office, on the 37th floor. Tough work, huh?
But it's more than that. So many of the places just have the warmth of time to them -- roofs that are green with age, public building built with funds that a democratic government could never manage to appropriate today. The streets are mixed between pavement and cobblestone, even out of the city center. There are random wrought-iron balconies. This is just a random bit of the 9th District, where Mom and I were transferring from the bus to the tram. It's still pretty.
And it's GREEN. There are just so many parks, everywhere you turn. The main, tourist ones, but just our neighborhood has two parks, with playgrounds, ponds, and swimming pools. We went to the zoo last week, which is located on the grounds of a huge palace (Schonbrun, the Versailles of Austria). We only saw the edges of them, but the formal gardens...it's just amazing. Huge. Lots of them, and people USE them, to lay out, to play, to have picnics. Cool feeling.
Even out here in the suburbs, it's pretty -- I took the girls on a walk, and then came up on a view all of a sudden, out over the Vienna Woods. Ten points to anyone who can figure out what the castle-y thingy is in the distance.
So, while I have a lot of adjusting to do, at least I'm doing it in a lovely place.
Oh, and another lovely thing:
Ice coffee here isn't a coffee with ice. It's a coffee with ice cream. I have had worse surprises.
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