It Means Nothing To Me?

January just changed into February, and this being 2014 means that I have now lived in Vienna for exactly three years. In the last week of January 2011 I took a train across the Brenner Pass and through the long landmass of Austria towards the city that I was ready to settle in and call my home for the foreseeable future. Before then, I had spent the previous year and a half in Northern Italy. Before that (interspersed with periods at home in Ireland) I had lived for half a year in Barcelona, 18 months in The Netherlands, 9 months in Taiwan, and over a year in London. When I was in my early 20s I had made a challenge to myself to live in as many different countries as possible, to always keep moving onto the next new experience. Yet by the age of 27, I was worn out with all the moving, tired of not being able to consider anywhere a home, and ready to dedicate a considerable amount of time to really get to know a city, rather than just passing through.

When I saw an advert for the chance to complete a PhD in Vienna, I didn’t really have to think much about it. I had been to Vienna twice before, once in 1998 on a school trip, and once again InterRailing in 2005. On that trip in 2005, I had promised myself that at some point in my life, I would come back and live here. I had learned German in school so the language barrier was not an issue, it was a medium size city so would not be very stressful, and crucially for anyone on an academic scholarship: the price level was reasonable. So I applied for the position, got it immediately, and moved here in the last week of January 2011. That I have been here for three years means that it is as close to a home as I have had in my adult life, and many of you who have hit the three year mark in a relationship will know that it is a very good time to take a step back and evaluate the whole goddamn thing.

I think it’s fair to say, uncontroversially, that Vienna is beautiful. Vienna is beautiful, and clean. Vienna is so beautiful and clean that when I go to another city, I always think it’s dirty and ugly. I went to Berlin last year and couldn’t get over how dirty the city was. Same with Palermo, and Dublin, and Frankfurt, and (I would mention Sofia here, but I would get into trouble). Vienna ruins you for other cities, as the city centre is just immaculate: The buildings so grandiose, the scale so imposing. Vienna is not an important city, yet what the city centre screams at us is that, by god, once it was the centre of an empire that thought it could rule the world. It’s impossible to live here without learning the history of wherever you are. Vienna in the early 20^th Century was a world city, seat of the Hapsburg Empire and home to the scientists, philosophers, psychiatrists and political deviants that would go on to create the world in which we now live. In the city centre, every cafe has an association with famous figures, and more is learnt throughout a stay in the city. Only last week I learnt that the modern shape of football teams was devised through ongoing post-match post-mortems in the various Kaffeehausen around town. History and mystery seep through the entire city, from the fin-de-siecle Golden Age, to the Cold War spy-rings and even the  present day international incidents that occur as a result of Vienna being one of the major headquarters for the United Nations.

As mentioned above, Vienna is also clean, very clean. This is just a facet of the exemplary public infrastructure that exists in this city. After three years here, if I have to wait seven minutes for an U-Bahn, I am enraged about the delay. Vienna Works: it should be their slogan. The Viennese authorities know how to organise things. The local Viennese complain all the time about the city government, yet anyone who has lived anywhere else knows that as far as city service goes, this is heaven on earth. The entire city is served by dedicated bike lanes, and the city will even tune up your bike for free at the beginning of spring. There are free CityBikes available if you don’t have one. They also organise countless free concerts and festivals throughout the year (they are all shite but even a cynic must admire the attempt). As well as that, the pursuit of individual freedom is actively encouraged. On the Danube river, there is an entire island of reclaimed land dedicated to the pursuit of leisure, the Donauinsel. It is mostly populated by fat naked men, but if they didn’t have that then they would be wandering around the centre of town, disrupting the tourist trade. Better out of town, than in. On the Danube Canal (within the city centre), graffiti artists are actively encouraged to redecorate the empty spaces on a regular basis. If you have a dog, you can bring it with you into a restaurant and have it sneeze on other peoples food. You are actively encouraged to smoke wherever you are: non-smokers are the downtrodden majority. Compared to other European countries, there is hardly any tax on alcohol, meaning it is very cheap to drink yourself to an early grave. Early on in my time here, the image of the suited businessman on his way to work at 8.30am drinking a can of beer on the metro while reading the financial news struck me as a icon of Vienna’s commitment to the freedom of the individual. Vienna’s strengths in my opinion, are its history, its public services, and its commitment to allowing you the freedom to kill yourself in whatever way you wish.

The main negative thing that I could say about all this is that it’s very boring. Expecting things to work and observing that they work perfectly fine, time after time, does not bring much excitement. If a train is late in Ireland or Italy there is a story to tell for at least a week, leading to curses against the government and bitter recollection of the incident come election time. The unpredictability of life has been thrown out the window, leaving dulled senses and a yearning for disappointment, just to feel something. This dull monotony of Viennese life is punctuated by the authoritarian opening hours maintained by shops around town. If you need something from the supermarket after 19:30, you are in trouble. You are in trouble because you obviously do not have a valid structure to your life in that you do not have all your possible business transactions completed before dinnertime. Your life is a mess, and you are greeted by doors that do not open, to an empty shop with the lights turned off, which is of course a metaphor for your whole disorganised existence. The only actual excitement in Vienna comes from the weather, which varies more than any other place I have lived. In February 2012, the temperature dipped to -20 degrees, while the following August we endured 40 degrees. This is a 60 degree swing, which I find ridiculous since I come from a country that fluctuates from 0-20 degrees throughout the year. The unpredictability however is tempered by the fact that we know there will be a week in February where the cold swing occurs, and the heatwave will be in August. Both of these weeks are horrible, and make every resident of Vienna question their life choices to that point.

There are many other things I could say about Vienna’s faults, failings and overarching triumphs, but such a rant was not conducive to the limits of a single blog entry of less than 1500 words. The structure of this post was that the main strengths of Vienna as a home were also responsible for its weaknesses. The simple truth is that Vienna is a very easy city to live in, but it is a city that nobody loves. There will never be a Wien, Ich Liebe Dich where a variety of famous residents tell their stories about what they love about Vienna, in the style of Paris, Je T’aime and New York, I Love You or even the forthcoming Rio, I Love You. Vienna just is not that type of city. It is a place where people live and go about their business, largely ignoring those around them. Apart from the City itself, which is obligated to provide every public service imaginable, at an impeccable standard. The fundamental point would be that Vienna is a very easy place to live, and therefore would be a very difficult place to leave.

Capitalism: I Just Can’t Seem To Get Enough of YOU (even in socialist Vienna)

Walking around the new Wien Mitte mall in Central Vienna, I was shocked to see that it contained a new Spar convenience store, open till 11pm, every day of the week. This was amazing, I thought, truly amazing, the future is here. After that I suddenly got very depressed about how such a small thing could possibly make such a big difference to my life. To get a few things straight, Vienna doesn’t do convenience stores: supermarkets close at 7:30pm, and the vast, vast majority of those are closed on Sundays. Therefore the existence of a store such as this Spar which breaks all of these rules, and located just three U-Bahn stops from my door, and on my way home from work is, rather depressingly, a big deal.

Although I have lived in Vienna for over a year, and previously in other European countries with a similar system, I am still aligned to the convenience-culture which is prevalent in the English speaking world and also much of Asia. I am not content unless there is a convenience store on my street where I can buy food at ungodly hours, any day of the week. As a result of this, I often feel a slave to the opening hours of supermarkets in Vienna, rushing home to the local Billa before 19:30 if I want to do such a simple thing as prepare a meal at home that evening. This is worse on Saturdays, as all supermarkets close at 6pm, and do not reopen until Monday. I know all of these difficulties are mostly related to my own deeply-rooted psychological problems and procrastination issues, however this has rarely stopped me ranting here before.

I have travelled around Western Europe a lot and spent extended periods in Italy, the Netherlands and most recently Austria. What has generally struck me about these countries is that they are a lot less obsessed with capitalism than the English-speaking countries in particular. The early closing times of supermarkets is just a symptom of this. Ireland was growing rich while I was growing up, and I saw the change from respecting the Sabbath day to Sundays becoming the Official Shopping Day of the entire country. Chains of convenience stores emerged, followed by 24-hour Tesco’s up and down the land. Commercial trading is done differently on the continent. Though not overtly religious, many European countries have laws preventing stores from opening on Sundays. There are exceptions, most notably at major train stations such as Wien Mitte/Landstrasse. Due to the lack of similar convenience stores around, I assume a problem is that trade licences that permit later opening hours are much more expensive than the normal licenses with state-prescribed opening hours. The innocence of the capitalist forces involved in opening this new Spar is shown in that normal supermarket prices are charged for all items. In Ireland, convenience stores charge a hefty premium, even with much competition. The Spar at Wien Mitte has no competitors for miles.

Christmas in mainland European countries is also a pleasant, non-commercial experience which contrasts greatly with the bombardment of pressure and gimmickry which those in the English-speaking world are presented with every year. While locals here still complain about the commercialisation of the festive season, it really does not compare with the yearly competition to buy as much food, gifts and everything else which defines the modern Christmas in Ireland, at least. Not that I am complaining about this of course, as since I grew up with the “Commercial Christmas”, it is that version of the holiday which I yearn for. It has to be said that a big part of my idealising of the European version could be that I am not susceptible to Austrian media and advertising in the run-up to Christmas. I do not watch Austrian television or listen to radio here, while at home in Ireland this would not be the case.

Another, more city-specific point to be made here is that while Vienna is a major capital city, it is not a major economic centre. Vienna is a very affluent city, but for different reasons than most. Vienna thrives through its tourist industry and also its designation as a major hub for international organisations. While the rush-hour commute frustrates and depresses, workers from London, New York and even Dublin would laugh at what we in Vienna must brave every morning and evening. There is no dramatic urgency with every step, there is no grabbing a coffee as quickly as possible, and there is no pushing people out of the way in order to catch that train even though there is one two minutes later. Viennese life is not fast-paced; it is structured and careful. I attribute this to the absence of a major financial sector and the presence in its stead of large-scale international institutions, however that is a story for a different day. Back to the issue, Vienna is not stressful, most of its workers enjoy predictable, steady working hours and therefore do not have much need for late opening hours or convenience stores.  Everyone who works here is busy and earns a decent wage, but no one is overtly stressed. This point is also a large factor in why Vienna is so often ranked highly in indexes of attractive places to live in the world.

As is predictable, I would obviously favour a system similar to that of my homeland, with generous supermarket opening hours combined with ubiquitous convenience stores. A 24 hour system is probably not good for society, as I am always reminded of Chris Rock’s point about the merits of 24 hour banking. Similarly, most who wish to shop at 3am should probably be offered some sort of counselling at the checkout. The  mainland European system of capitalism is charming and it almost takes us cynical expats back to a bygone era in our own home countries. However, anyone in Vienna who has ever visited one of those supermarkets in the vast, vast minority that are open on Sundays will know that the system cannot last forever. A few Billas in Vienna open on Sundays, and on this day all are absolutely crammed with people to the point of unpleasantness. I work beside one of these Billa’s, and know that it is only like this on Sundays.

With demand like this, and with more uncertain economic times ahead which are sure to eventually hit Austria, it is all but inevitable that the commercial trading restrictions I rant about now will be relaxed. Walking around the new Wien Mitte mall today, I couldn’t help but think of the adjacent street, Landstrasse Hauptstrasse, which contains all one could possibly want from a suburban shopping street, albeit stretched out over several hundred metres. When winter finally comes, this street will suffer due to the existence of the new centrally-heated Mall, and shops there may be forced to close. They will leave behind them valuable retail space which perhaps only major international brands can afford, and also the incentive to lobby the government for relaxed commercial trading laws. It is a shame, of course, but that is capitalism, and unfortunately right now we can’t even imagine a world without it.