The Past is Never Dead

Last night was Lange Nacht der Museen, when all of the museums in Austria stay open until 1am and are free to enter with the purchase of a 13-Euro ticket (11-Euro if you're a student like me). It's a Pflichttermin, as the Austrians say, an event you absolutely must attend. Even if, like the friends I went with, you're not really a Museumsmensch and this is your one Kulturabend of the year.

My favorite collection was at Oberes Belvedere. There was quite a bit of Austrian art from the turn of the twentieth century (including many works by Gustav Klimt, pretty much the only Austrian artist of wide international acclaim, and also the favorite artist of my friend Tatenda from last summer, who invited me to accompany her and some friends on their Lange Nacht adventure.)

Der Stephansdom

Der Naschmarkt

Der Prater

My favorite thing about these images is that they show how Wien really hasn't changed that much in the past hundred years. Empires were broken up and created and broken up again, and people still traipse to the Naschmarkt on Saturdays when the farmers from Niederösterreich show up with their fresh wares. (At least for the time being.)

Vienna, in a lot of ways, feels like a city that is stuck in the past. I don't experience it in this way, because student life is always a bit removed from the city at large, but if I had to describe "Vienna" in capital letters, as compared to Paris or London or Berlin, I would talk about the way the city is still struggling to free itself from the enormous weight of its history. I love the fact that we still move about in the structures of the past, but a lot of times, it feels like we're just inhabiting them -- they don't belong to us. There's not a sense of wearing the past like a vintage garment, honoring its tradition while transforming it into something uniquely contemporary.

I, too, am struggling to free myself from my own history in the city. Being away from a place pulls tricks on the mind -- you remember your triumphs, your best nights, your feelings of belonging. You don't remember the nights you spent alone, your struggles, the times you felt like you would never fit in.

I've been a little disappointed with the lack of companionship in my dorm, especially, in the past week. But then I remember that it took several months in Haus Salzburg before I really started to feel like I was a part of things, found friends in the Heim, and attenuated myself to the rhythms of life in the dorm.   And I've made the first movements in that direction here in Pfeilheim -- having conversations with the people I encounter on elevators and in the kitchen.

Indeed, as I told myself last night, I really only need to look at my own Lange Nacht experiences to put things in perspective. In 2010, the last time I was in Vienna for Lange Nacht der Museen, I went alone. I had only been in the city for three days, and I didn't know anyone yet. This time, even though I've been here in the city for less than a month, I have a wide network of friends and colleagues to see and hang out with. It might feel like I have to start over, to begin again the long, hard process of convincing Austrians to be friends with me, but the past isn't dead. I carry my previous experiences in the city with me, all the things I've learned in the past two years that will help me begin again, not from Square 1 but at least from Square 3.