Arrival in Wiener World

Here at last in Weiner World. Our flight got in Friday morning on schedule; like most transatlantic flights. it was no more than a minor ordeal of being cramped and sleepless. Because Austrian Air appeared to have grouped children and cats into a 6-row section just behind the business class section, we had several pleasant little children nearby, along with one screamer, and two little boys who amused themselves through much of the flight by pushing the doorbell-sounding button to summon the flight attendant, who began ignoring the calls after the first few. The screamer from time to time brought back memories of the Flight of the Angry Babies, which I took from Rome to Washington in 2004, when the Italian Government expelled these shrill and hostile little beings all on one flight, all within five rows of my seat. Our Vienna flight left us little room for legs and feet, with Walter and Earl in their sherpa bags squeezed under the seats in front of us. For the most part, the two of them remained quiet, although 2 hours from Vienna we heard a good deal of meowing and frantic clawing from Earl's bag, and then Linda noticed a large white furry paw extended from a point at which Earl had managed to push back one of the zippers on his bag. I imagined he had sequestered in his bag a volume of Poe and had just finished reading the cat version of "The Cask of Amantillado," in which the central figure while being walled up screams at his host to let him out for God's sake. Linda shoved his paw back in and secured the fabric portal once more, and Earl went back into his semi-comatose state for the rest of the trip.

Another surprise awaited us upon landing and exiting the airport: just as at the Lufthansa desk at Dulles, no one checked the cats' health certificates, not even the ones specially embossed by the USDA office in Richmond. I wanted to kick myself for not bringing a slew of rabid animals into Austria. The airport was hot and stuffy, but perhaps that is the last time for many months that I shall experience such an atmosphere. Since the warm, sunny day of our arrival, the sky has usually been cloudy and the air cool and damp with fine, blowing spray, Middle English "small rain."

Of course, I imagined that upon the ride to our apartment from the airport we would see scores of men in lederhosen playing accordions, and rosy-cheeked Alpine milkmaids bedecked in edelweiss, skipping about beer gardens. The first-impression images, however, are rather more to do with what is not here than with what is here: no graffiti anywhere, no jaywalkers, no cars crowding a single lane to make it two, no trash in the street, and generally little that could be called disorder, though police are little in presence. There are often wide bike lanes, wide sidewalks for pedestrians, and greenery; there are cars that always stop to let pedestrians cross; few business suits are in evidence, as life here seems rather casual; life here is not loud. So far, so good.