This is my last day in Viena. Tomorrow I will sleep in Brussels. Last Saturday we had farewell party in Fledermaus, where all the Teutonic, beer soaked hits sounded: “Zu Spät”, “Aus Liebe” “Lust am Leben” and so forth until (upon my request) “Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann”. Downright proper. Yesterday I gave my aunt and uncle (who came here by bus for reasons that are not relevant now) two suitcases full of things, which saved my life, I would not have managed otherwise. Afterwards I ate Zwiebelrostbraten. The last Krügln will come tonight. They live good, the Viennese. While packing yesterday, my MP3 found its way to a compilation of ballads I had never listened to. Go and imagine, I was packing, running out of time, an incredibly beautiful Autumn evening (Vienna has never been nicer than now, golden and sunny but with a marvellous temperature, and the wind has come back, refreshing), thinking on decay and decadence (okay, thinking on leaving) and listening to Boston´s “More than a feeling”. The song is horribly kitschy, but it fit like a glove (I woke uo this morning adn the summer´s gone… it´s more than a feeling, that I´m leaving something….), and I became melancholic.
Will I miss Vienna? I suppose I will, it has been 11 months. I leave nice people and good memories here. Yet I do not leave any really good friends or great moments. The most intense moment of this year was the first time I came back to Budapest; after a horrible October in Spain with the frigging ICEX 2nd stage selection and a first week in Vienna in which nothing seemed to work, I took a taxi in Keleti, got off in Oktogon and I cried at the image of Budapest streets.
I´m leaving Vienna and, by deconstruction, I´m leaving Mitteleuropa. And that´s hard to bear. I won´t be near Budapest any longer. That I will miss. And I´ll miss the pace of Vienna and my strolls along the Donaukanal; and the view from my window, upon the Donaukanal and Schwedenplatz, the hills of Kahlenberg to the west and the Prater to the east. Mitteleuropa´s rhythm, its two capitals, where one can still see nostalgia for the Empire and some (very faint) traces of Metternich´s restoration. Of less hectic times. I´ll miss the diet of meat (a veg would die here) cigarettes (everywhere) and coffee (anytime).
It hurts to leave Mittleeuropa. I love it. I need the change nevertheless. I feel like it. Time to turn the page. We´ll see how it goes.
