I like Vienna

I do. Some times I hear negative comments about Germanic cultures, and I agree that it has it's weaknesses. But I just want to be on record that you do not have to believe all the hype.

True, they are sticklers for rules some times. Today I watched a lady in a minivan (they are rare, but they do exist here) almost get hit by a car that "failed to yield to traffic". What does she do? She stops in the middle of the intersection, just so that not only is she blocking three lanes of traffic, she also manages to make the cross walk impassable. WHY? Because she want to yell at the car that almost hit her and to get his license plate number to tell on him! She must have an amazing memory because she made a lot of fuss, as the cars piled up trying to find out why they can't go, of getting his plates by actually only looks at the plate for about .8 seconds. NO one seemed shocked or even amused by this. The driver that she was yelling at hardly commented back. Apparently this is how your supposed to handle an almost-wreck.

But there is a much more pleasant side to this. On the way out to visit those friends, I was reading on the U-bahn. At one of the stops my Eis Tee slipped out of being wedged from my knee at the wall and fell on the floor. The guy across from me immediately picked it up and handed it to me. I grinned up and him and said my sweetest, "Danke" to which he looked away as though I shouldn't draw attention to what he did. Or maybe I shouldn't have made eye contact. That's possible. And then almost immediately the young man next to me hopped up because an elderly lady got on the car. Then, when it was her stop she said, "Thank you so, this is my stop you can have your place." I wanted to hug everybody on the train. They lie when they say that people are cold here. They are just very very regimented.

Now if I can just find out the appropriate response to that man who stared at me off and on the whole time I was on the train and in the my train station. I mean, he turned around at the escalator to get a better look - and there was no one behind me. I mean, he was dressed nicely and usually his gaze was more, "Do I know you?" to "I can't believe anyone would wear what you have on." But, super creepy anyway because, you know, 15 minutes of studying me?! I know that staring is much more acceptable in Europe, but this was more than I was comfortable with. If I were in America I probably would have given him my most sarcastic face but that might have been taken as an invitation, so I just ignored it and slipped into the crowd at the top of the station, making sure he was far ahead of me and going a different direction before heading home. Any suggestions on creepy staring people?