My partner and I got back from our European vacation last night and I am still recovering from jet lag. One thing stuck out as remarkable and a big surprise. The city of Vienna. Not only is it a remarkable jewel of European art and culture, it is so clean it was shocking. The sidewalks were sparkling and even though there were smokers everywhere, cigarette butts were at a minimum. The mass transit system is so well run and is so comprehensive that very few people drive. The delightful side effect is that Viennese seem to have nice legs, both men and women!
The dirty little secret of Europe is smoking. It seems that everyone smokes. For that, I am grateful for US smoking regulations. Restaurants in Europe are filled with a hanging haze of second hand smoke. It is a wonder the food tastes as good as it does; I can only imagine how it must be in a tobacco free environment.
Luckily the weather was terrific and we only ate a couple of meals inside the whole two weeks.
Politically Europe seems fairly stable, with the exception of Italy. More than once we heard people talking about Mussolini in fond terms. "He wasn’t such a bad guy" was the quote that disturbed me most. We also got to see a Communist parade in Rome protesting the Iraq war among other things. I thought the Communist party had disappeared, but apparently not in Italy, since they hold a few of seats in the Italian Parliament.
More later, now sleeeeeep!
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