Coming home: Madrid to Portland

I can't remember ever having a more stressful journey between two points. Even though it's been over a month since it happened, in telling this story to a friend two days ago I got all stressed out all over again, which indicates to me that I'm not over it yet. But perhaps writing this blog post will help me process and get some of that energy out of my system.

My flight was scheduled to leave Madrid for Chicago around noon on Monday, Sept. 1. Since I didn't have any bags to check - in fact now only had one bag, period, because Brussels Airlines had lost one of my bags the day before - and I had checked in online the night before, I decided to leave the place I was staying at 9am so I could be at the airport by 10, which (my experience led me to believe) would be plenty of time to use one of those self-service machines to print out my ticket, go through security and find my gate. Ahahahahahahaaaaa!!!

Coming home: Vienna to Madrid

I awoke to my phone alarm at 4:30am on Sunday, August 31. As is my unintended custom when I have to get up early for something, I hadn't slept much or very well.

Veronika got up with me and made us coffee while I dressed and finished packing my bags. We stood in the kitchen chatting as I drank my coffee and ate the croissant I'd had the unusual foresight to buy the previous afternoon. Though I don't remember now what we talked about, I remember it was a pleasant and interesting conversation, and that I was grateful for her company.

Around a ten after five, I hugged Veronika goodbye, reassured us both that I'd left the keys to the flat on her entryway bench, and left her flat for the last time. With a pack full of clothes on my back and my purse and another backpack full of computer and notebooks, I went down the stairs and out the front door into the quiet, still-dark street. As I rounded the corner I heard a voice above me. "Yes, that is right!" she said. I looked up to see Veronika had poked her head out the window to make sure I knew the way to the tram stop. We waved to each other and I continued on.

Last week in Vienna

It only took me one weekend in Prague to forget how to do tipping in Vienna, and it took me most of the week to remember to answer the server with a new total.

At a Heurigen with classmates

In other news, I went out several times with classmates and/or our German teacher last week. As a result, I got to see an entirely different side of Vienna. Up until going out to her favorite bar with my German teacher, Vienna had seemed to me a subdued city with unfriendly servers and people who don't smile much or interact with random people they don't know. But at Jetzt (the bar), the servers and other patrons both were friendly and willing to chat. 

The bar itself reminded me a bit of my favorite bar in Portland, The Florida Room, in terms of lighting and quirky décor. A beat-up billiard table in the back. Plenty of regular clientele. The main difference was that I don't think there was a single person in Jetzt above the age of 40, whereas you can find people of all ages at The Flo' Ro'...but it could've just been the fact that it was a Wednesday night.

Heurigan feast!

This weekend (Vienna/Prague)

This weekend, the following things happened:

• One of my German classmates, a Japanese woman, got married to her Viennese boyfriend. Jetzt ist sie verheiratet.
• My German language teacher, Barbara, sliced off the tip of her pinkie finger, found it on the floor, washed it off, stuck it back on, and wrapped it in gauze and medical tape. Wide-eyed,  "Did you go to the hospital?" I asked in present-tense German and using the English word for hospital. "Nah," she said. And after a little more thought/discussion, "But maybe I should."
• I went to Prague.

My favorite things about Prague:

Adventures in Wien (Vienna), Part 1

A street in downtown Vienna

Weather
It feels like autumn here already. We had a week of hot (in the low 80s Fahrenheit) and humid (one day it was 97% humidity!), and now we're having a stretch of cold, cloudy and sometimes rainy days. Today, for example, it was 61 degree Fahrenheit at noon, and the breeze is chilly.

Culture of tipping

Simple breakfast

Unlike in Spain and Paris, where tipping is completely voluntary & there are no hard feelings if you don't, tipping in Vienna is the norm, and if you don't tip it's an insult. I haven't asked anyone yet what the usual amount is, but based on experience it seems that 10% is completely satisfactory, and if you leave 20% they act like you've just given them a huge present. The tricky part - which luckily I learned during my first week from Georg, my housemate's brother - is that (unlike in the U.S., Spain & France) you're not supposed to wait until they've already given you change and walked away. Instead, when the server tells you the total, you should immediately say back to them a new total that includes tip. For example, if the server says that the bill for my coffee is €3,20, then I might tell her €3,50. That way she knows I intend to leave a tip and she might actually smile at me. Or at least let one corner of her mouth lift a centimeter for a split-second. It also saves her the trouble of trying to find the right amount of change when I only intend to give part of it back to her anyway. So I tell her the new total, she immediately says, "Danke," and then gives me the correct change minus tip.