A View from the East
Vienna is a fascinating place. I'd never really thought about this city until I moved here, and if anyone had asked me where it was, I would've pointed roughly under Germany somewhere, but after moving here, I realised how wrong I was. Despite its comparative wealth and Western credentials, one of the first things you notice is just how un-Western it feels in many ways. The German spoken here sounds nothing like the cosmopolitan, well spoken, clearly understandable German tones you'll hear in Germany (or indeed like polite English or French), but instead like a sort of lazy, operatic, half-singing, half-whining drone which is undecipherable to anyone but the most concentrated listener. But this is not the point I want to make. The point I want to make is how I had now idea just how far East I was moving. This is not some city an hour from Switzerland, or a short train journey from the Austrian Alps where I'd skied as a child, but instead a city that lies east of Prague