One feels a connection with the world and all of civilization. Fred particularly felt this keenly. When one walks into a museum of history and sits in a stone chair unearthed from a Turkish Amphitheater in 400 BC, when one observes dogs and cats drinking from troughs in the square made expressly for them when being walked, and casual nudity on TV, alligator handbags and couches designed in the shape of a woman’s red lips, one realizes one is truly Someplace Else. Europeans are very human in ways we Americans have forgotten to be. For example, when one orders coffee in a cafe, it is served in a fancy ceramic creamer, unlike the sterile metal container or tiny plastic throwaway package here. And, it is served with a glass of water. It’s all in the details.

Old and new seem juxtaposed serenely. Trolley cars still whiz by as folks talking on cell phones and wrapped in animal furs step lively. The pig is a Vienna icon. There are pink pig pastries and cakes in store windows and pink pig hats. We saw a student protest march from the local University in the square, accompanied by heavy police presence one night. Once a week they demonstrate against a recent government decision not to subsidize college education anymore. And the church bells ring out every hour on the hour and fifteen minutes before daily Mass as wood-burning aromas permeate the brisk winter air. Vienna is a predominantly Catholic country.

But the Viennese, to these two Americans, don’t seem to be worried about not being politically correct. Smoking is allowed everywhere. Casual sex dominates television entertainment, especially in advertisements. They seem comfortable with it and there is no shame.

Europe is a straight run, just around the corner, another neighborhood to explore. On the gateway edge of the world to places so familiar, one is reminded of them in an instant and awe-inspired at the same time. You’ll always know where you’ve been.

This New Year’s Day we will be home again. The trip to Vienna will seem like the life pause it was, as if in a dream. But this time we’ll watch the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra New Year’s Day Concert from Vienna and look at each other and incredulously exclaim, “Wow! We were there?”

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