Across the Pond

Other places have clubs or pubs, trattorias, bars, bistros; Vienna has coffee houses. The rules are simple: find a seat, order a cup of coffee, grab a newspaper, then another one, talk to a friend, spend the day - without placing another order. The server will let you be. He might replace the glass of water that comes with the coffee with a fresh one every once in a while, but he will not bug you. When you decide to leave and ask for the check he might take his time, showing you that he couldn't care less. It's a game, it takes practice. Vienna's coffee houses are the L.A. antithesis: they are slow and they have no regard for those who seek to produce themselves. Pictures: seating area and newspaper rack at Café Zentral

Found this article on full body veils in the New York Times and thought of everyone who enjoyed my blog post on the topic . Make sure to read some of the comments in the NYT too.

Europe has been at our doorstep these past two years. Last weekend we visited Paris, the City of Light. This may surprise but in a sense Paris is an American city: it was constructed according to plans, is not organically grown like other European places, which spread from a medieval core of small, narrow streets, in some cases from a handful of cores. Paris once had a heart like this, but the old Paris was razed in the 19th century. Modern day Paris is a wide expanse of tree lined boulevards and monuments, beautiful to behold and majestic, yet sterile, accessible to the mind, but not to the heart. Compare this to Rome, willing, sensual Rome which lays itself at the feet of its visitors. Compare it to London, crazy and eccentric, a free for all (or at least for those who ask). There are a number of cities on my "Places to see before we move back to California"-list, but time is running out. We'll have to come back - to visit. Should we ever live in Euro...

Last week the Ministry for Women presented its latest report on the situation of women in Austria . The good news is education: Women constitute slightly more than half of all people with college degrees. Gender equality at last! Let's get out the champagne, sisters! Should we? Here are some other facts: Only 7.8 percent of women with college degrees hold leading positions in the workforce, but every fourth man with a college degree works in a leading position. Women are less likely to make it into the echelons of publicly traded companies. In the year of 2008 (the last year for which data are available) there was not a single woman leading a large company in Austria. Representation among board members was six percent. Women are less likely to hold high positions in universities. Only 15.8 percent of professors are female. I find these numbers sobering enough, but what really gets me is that for the same work, women in Austria earn less money than men...

It's the simple things we miss most when we move to a different country. For me, when we leave Austria this summer, it'll be the clean, refreshing taste of unfiltered tap water. To enjoy drinking water straight from the faucet in a city as large as Vienna - what a luxury! Vienna's drinking water comes from springs located to the Southwest of town, in the mountains of Lower Austria and Styria. It travels around 140 miles, through two large aqueducts which were opened in 1873 and 1910, both under the reign of longtime Emperor Franz Josef I. The springs are part of a water reserve, and the water is so clean, it does not have to be treated. There is, of course, no such thing in Los Angeles. It's a desert. What runs out of the tap is ground water or water from the Colorado River and the slopes of the Sierra. In Southern California my favorite drinking water comes in plastic bottles. It's a designer's concoction, manufactured by one of the food giants of this worl...

Only three months until we move back to L.A.... More and more I find myself thinking about the things I will miss when we leave Vienna. Here we go, starting with treasures from the gardens of Schönbrunn Palace: Mandarin ducks, sitting alongside the pond. (My blind friend Annemarie pointed them out to me first. She was a passionate bird watcher before her eyes got bad. I will miss her too.) Lilac bushes, their fragrance and lightness, the violet and purple against the green foliage The (almost) untamed wilderness behind the zoo, the dandelions and daisies in the meadow, the damp, cool forest further on.

The Naschmarkt, a bazaar style market not far from the Opera, has been a favorite of mine since I first moved to Vienna in 1983. At the time the market was more "home grown" than it is now. Farmers came from the agricultural areas outside of Vienna to sell what was in season: asparagus and strawberries in May, cherries in June, cabbage and potatoes in the winter. The men had big working hands, and their wives wore peasant scarves, which they tied at the back of the head. In those days, Vienna was a dull, grey place, inhabited by old, grumpy people. The Iron Curtain was only an hour's drive away. It seemed to weigh on the Viennese, depress them. In the 1990s, after Communism in Europe and with the expansion of the European Union, things began to change. Vienna opened up. When we moved back here two years ago, after an absence of twelve years, I was amazed: the town was younger, more international and vibrant than I could have imagined. The Naschmark...