May started off with a bang. May Day, also called Labor Day here, is a major event in Austria and Europe. In Vienna, the day is usually marked by lots of protests from left-wing parties and protesters. The Socialist Party (the equivalent of the Democrats here) usually has a big march around the ring road, and the Communists also have a large protest near the city center. According to some Austrians, I met on a train ride, there’s even free beer sometime!
In case you were wondering, I didn’t participate in any protests, despite the promise of free beer. May Day was a gorgeous day with a heavy southern wind. The day before, I had looked at the forecast and figured out that I could make a break for the Czech border pretty easily with the strong wind direction. So, the next day I set out with my bike for the Czech city of Znojmo, the nearest major Czech city to the border with Austria. The trip was amazing. The fields were full of blooming flowers, and the trees were now full of leaves. The southern wind helped me keep up a good pace to Znojmo, despite the hilly terrain. Along the way, I passed through dozens of Austrian countryside towns, each with its own May Pole erected in the city square. I marked the passing of time through the rings of the church bells in every town. Despite the sublimity of the Austrian countryside, it was easy to observe the political differences between the city and the countryside. The countryside was full of FPO posters (the far-right party), and every town square must have had at least a few on community message boards. The difference in patriotism was also easy to notice. Every village was Chock-full of Austrian flags. Every house was fully bedecked in the red-white-red of the Austrian flag. It was clear the countryside held on to the traditional folk-day origins of May Day, where the city had adopted the worker's day connotation of the modern holiday.
As I approached the border with Czechia, the landscape changed into a wine-growing region with vineyards clinging to the hills and wildflowers growing amongst the vines. Finally, I approached the border with Czechia. It was barely noticeable except for a small sign that had since been spray-painted black and crossed out. Only 30 years ago, it had been a hard border, but now it was barely noticeable. The biggest change was road quality, which immediately went down once I entered Czechia. The roads weren’t terrible, but the difference from the generally well-kept Austrian roads was noticeable. The roads were certainly better than in Hungary, and some towns showed signs of new houses and businesses (once again the opposite of Hungary). These were also countryside towns, so I counted it as a good sign for the Czech economy that even these small towns could afford new facilities.
The final approach to Znojmo was amazing. One minute I was climbing a hill, and then the next moment could see the spires of the city spread out along the horizon. Znojmo itself is incredible. It sits right next to a national park with a pretty reservoir area for recreation. The city has a long medieval history and was an important industrial city. It was one of the main stops along the Vienna-Prague railway, an engineering marvel at the time. The big issue for railway engineers was crossing the Thaya River gorge directly south of the city. The solution was a massive iron-truss bridge suspended on huge stone piers. It marked the entrance into the city for me as I crossed under it to reach the old city. The old city is perched on the northern side of the gorge, basically on a straight cliff into the water below. It’s a beautiful area filled with cobblestone streets (which were a bit hard to walk on with my cycling shoes) but still gorgeous.
One of the things that I still struggle to get over here is how hard the borders here are culturally. Despite no hard border between Czechia and Austria, the minute you cross the border, the language changes to Czech, and nobody really speaks German anymore. The street signs change to Czech and the restaurant menus too. Everybody speaks Czech too, and while some people do speak German, it's not super common. And this is in a town less than 10 miles from the border! I guess that’s the same with many borders (I think about the US southern border with Mexico), but at least there’s a hard border in the US. I guess I’m just surprised that after 30 years, not even the border areas have seen that big of a mixing of cultures. That’s probably a reflection of Austria’s strict citizenship laws if anything, but still an interesting observation. After spending about an hour in the city, I bordered a train to take me back to Vienna.
Here are a bunch of pretty pictures of Znojmo!
Znojmo wasn’t the only long bike ride I did since my Easter break. The week before, I traveled to Krems, a city about 50 miles west of Vienna along the Danube. It’s a nice medieval city but not too much to talk about. It’s more well known for being the entrance to the beautiful Danube River canyon in Austria. Like most places in Austria, the vistas along the ride were unbelievable. As I traveled west along the Danube bike trail, the Alps grew to the left of me. Starting off in Vienna, the Alps are nothing more than foothills, but as I approached Krems I could see the high mountains of the Alps in the distance. I could also see the entrance to the gorge straight ahead as I biked. On the left side of the Canyon, a huge monastery stood perched upon a hill and to the right side was Krems, huddled alongside the opposite bank. Honestly, I wasn’t super wowed with Krems, but maybe that was because I spent probably 20 minutes there before I had to keep riding. There were two reasons for this. One was that storm clouds were brewing in the distance, and the last thing I wanted to happen after a long exhausting bike ride was to take the hour-plus train ride back wet from rain. The other reason was that the train station in Krems was closed for renovation. Buses rain every 20 minutes from the train station to the next closest train station, but there was no way to bring my bike along. So, I had to ride from Krems to the nearest train station where my train would leave for Vienna. The train station was basically in the middle of nowhere. (Hadersdorf/Kamp Bahnhof, in case you’re interested in looking it up). There must have been about five people lined up to take the train towards Vienna. To go to the restroom, you had to literally go to the train operator’s office (the guy who activates the train switches) and ask for the key to the bathroom, which was hanging on a nail on the wall. That’s small-town Austria for you.
The ride back was eventful. As we boarded the train, I offered to help an older Austrian man load his bike onto the train. He politely refused, but he and his wife offered to have me sit next to them on their way back to Vienna. They were an interesting couple. The wife was an artist who drew comics to go on greeting cards. The husband owned a small winery near Krems and tended to his fruit trees when he wasn’t looking after the vines. Now that I say husband and wife, I’m not particularly sure if they were together. Well, I think they were together, but I’m not sure they were married. It was hard to tell. What I’m pretty sure, though, is that they were both Communists earlier in life. They were ecstatic about the recent gains of the Communist Party in Salzburg (a topic I’ll get into soon). The husband also recommended that I join the May Day protests and show solidarity with the workers. It seemed like he had been to many May Day protests in his time. Either way, they were an extremely generous couple and shared a bottle of wine with me on the train ride back. Sharing a bottle of wine on the ride back to Vienna after biking over 60 miles probably wasn’t the best idea, but I wasn’t going to refuse once they offered!
Ok, as I mentioned, the return of the communists was a big topic of discussion through April and May. The communists had a big victory during the election in Salzburg. For the first time in decades, they returned to regional government. They even won over 20% of the votes within the city of Salzburg itself. The year prior, they also took control of the government in Graz, the second-biggest city in Austria. Now this doesn’t really represent any sort of increase in votes for left-wing parties, though. The SPÖ (the socialist party and the closest equivalent to the democrats) has been in complete disarray in Austria. Many younger voters have switched to the Communists from the SPÖ because of the party's struggles. For me, the ascension of the communists is only more proof that polarization isn’t something that only the US deals with. As the communists gain more power, the far-right party looks poised to win the next election and move Austria further towards the Euro-sceptic side. By all accounts, the far-right party (The FPÖ) wants to take Austria the direction of Hungary, which would be disastrous for it. Here's hoping that cooler heads prevail, but I don’t have much hope for that.
The election in Salzburg wasn’t the only interesting election in April/May. The ÖH Wahl also occurred during the second week in May. The ÖH Wahl is the university student election for the whole of Austria. Any registered student can vote in the election, which means I could vote! There were a bunch of different parties. The AG (Aktionsgemeinschaft) is the center-right student party backed by the main Center-right Austrian Party, the ÖVP. Then there was VSSTÖ- the main center-left party backed by the Socialist Party. Then there were two different communist parties because for some reason the communists can’t seem to get along. Guess that whole together for the revolution thing doesn’t work out well even in student elections. The far right isn’t really represented. There is a far-right student party, but it never gets enough votes to be relevant. There’s also a neoliberal party and a green party. The newcomer party for this year was “Who the F**k is Herbert?” or in short form just “Herbert.” Yes, this is a real thing.
The biggest shock of the election for me was the distinct differences in party control over different universities. The University of Economics and Business (the WU or Wirtschaftsuniversität) votes strictly for the AG. The Uni Wien, where I do my Urban Planning classes, votes for the Socialist and Communist parties. The Biological University votes for the Green Party. I think it’s a shame that the universities are so polarized based on their student base. One great thing about American universities is that they include such a wide variety of income levels and experiences that they create more varied political and cultural environments (despite what the media says).
The election was just as contentious as recent elections in Austria. The communist parties were particularly aggressive, frequently graffitiing the posters of the center-right AG party.
The AG for its part, was focused on securing its power base at the WU. Durng election week they gave out free energy drinks, coffee, rolls, cookies, and apples to students. Of course, accepting the food meant having a conversation about their election priorities.
The election itself was a bit archaic. I didn’t realize this at first, but everything is through paper ballots. That means that voting takes a long time and is slow. While waiting in line, a communist tried talking to me and convince me to vote for one of the communist parties. It’s funny because you can spot a communist from a mile away. They dress in all black from head to toe, and the women usually cut their hair short so that it’s hard to separate men from women (not because of other reasons).
To vote, you had to give your ID card to a nice old pensioner who then looked through a binder of all the names of people enrolled in your department (I’m Geography) and then crossed your name with a pen. They then give you five sheets of paper with ballots for the national, university, and representative elections. You then have to mark your candidate, put it in an envelope, and slide it into the ballot box. Now I don’t have any problem using a paper-based ballot system, but this was for a stupid student election. The results don’t even do anything! I think the recent Illinois student election was a Google Form.
The middle of spring and the start of summer also represented the start of Spargel season. Spargel season is a big deal here in Austria (and also in Germany as well). It’s hilarious to hear everybody talk about it. “Have you eaten Spargel yet?” “Oh, you just NEED to eat Spargel!” “What would life be like without Spargel!” etc., etc. Spargel is asparagus in case you’re wondering. So, it’s not some revolutionary new cuisine. But for everyone here, it’s basically the indicator that spring is here and summer is right around the corner. They do have a different type of asparagus here, which is a white version. It’s essentially a worse version of the green asparagus because it has basically no flavor. My friend Samuel is a big fan of white asparagus because it goes well with meat and Spargel sauce (basically like an egg-based mayo type of thing- a bit like hollandaise). I’ve never been a huge fan of asparagus, but I thought it was the funniest thing seeing everybody freak out over it.
The middle of May meant the end of the Spargel season and also the official end of the Illinois in Vienna program. The program is geared towards business majors, and many of those people have internships over the summer. So most of the program left from the middle of May to the beginning of June. The group of 60 people quickly dwindled to around 10. Although I’ll still be in Europe for a few more months, this was the first realization that my time in Europe is coming to an end semi-soon. That week also was the end of my two German classes and another Urban Planning class, which meant that for the rest of May and June, I’d have two remaining classes.
To celebrate the end of the semester, my friends and I decided to finally go to a soccer game. We went to a game at our local soccer club, First Vienna FC. The club is in the 2nd Austrian league. If you don’t know how soccer clubs work just watch Ted Lasso or follow Ryan Reynolds's takeover of Wrexham FC because it’s too complicated to explain here. Anyway, this was a pretty local club with a stadium only 10 minutes away from our dorm. As its name suggests, it was the first soccer club in Vienna, founded way back in 1894. It was a fun environment to watch, with tons of drunk Austrians screaming at the team running back and forth across the pitch. I had absolutely no idea what was going on. The 1-0 final score probably didn’t help my interest either. But it was still a fun experience. That capped off the end of the program and the middle of May. The next edition will start with the arrival of my first visitors: Uncle Tom and Aunt Suzy!
