Yesterday was New Year’s Eve, which is – as we sit back and contemplate our various “top 10” lists from the past year – often an occasion for nostalgia.
I was also feeling nostalgic yesterday, though my nostalgia wasn’t for what changed in 2009 so much as for what’s changed over the last century. I’m just back from a vacation in Vienna, you see. And unlike other European capitals I’ve visited in recent years — Paris, Amsterdam, Helsinki — Vienna feels decidedly less modern and cosmopolitan. Instead, it’s got that proverbial “Old European” feel, the kind that makes you reach for one more hot chocolate mit schlag, crank up the Johann Strauss and break out the Wittgenstein.
Find out the five things Vienna made me feel nostalgic for from the last century at PoliticsDaily.com…
Image: Vienna State Opera by tm boris via Flickr under a Creative Commons License.
January 2, 2010, 1:48 pm
Ah, Vien…Among many happy memories of that lovely city, I especially remember pawing the ground after the obligatory morning kaffe (“sweet as love, dark as night & hotter than hell”) in my haste to get on to whichever historic or artistic highlights my guidebooks were justifiably pushing. My husband would drag feet because he was happy embracing his 2 favorite things on earth — strong coffee & newspapers unlimited.