Vienna: One Big New Years Eve

According to my guidebook (which has about 60 typos and at least 4 wrong stats), Austrians are conservative. Hmm. So the first afternoon I got here I walk into a 10,000 strong gay pride parade and concert complete with the pink and glowing "Fuck the State and Masturbate fun bus" and lifeguards in laytex, cheered on by mum and dad. And then the next day I go on a walking tour featuring the "underground tunnel" connecting between the Opera House and the Sacher Hotel, which couples used to meet for extramarital affairs during an opera performance back in the 18th century, which gave birth to the very very very long and extended opera sessions here. (job creation at the same time, two birds with one stone, v clever).

The guide book goes onto state that most budget travellers may well be overwhelmed by Vienna´s diet of museums and operas. Which is only half true. The other half of the truth is that they spend their time entirely eating gelatis, sunbathing, dressing up, eating fish¨n chips, listening to free good music (some are albiet crystal), and smelling roses. Honestly I´ve never seen any one actually work seriously here. The bartenders are always drunk for example, and the food vendors are always eating, and the musicians are having so much fun that the concert that I went to involved a large anvil and a shot gun.

Thirdly, my guide book stipulates, that if New York is the Big Apple, then Vienna is the Big Wedding Cake (ie. palaces, castles, churches etc). The better description is that Vienna is like one big new years eve. The locals do nothing but party party party, twenty four seven. I wake up in the morning and see kids dancing outside. I take a train to the Danube Island and people are jumping on giant trampolines and sipping cocktails at 11am. I walk into the street and housewives are lunching to the tune of If I was a Rich Man and a string quartet on Four Seasons competing just 10 meters down, and in the evening when I walk out of the Concert Hall bejewelled and beribboned people run through the street pouring champagne onto the footpath and every one is singing some song of some sort. In the summer, which started today, the Rathause (town hall) puts on free musicals on screen EVERY NIGHT. All I can think of is new years eve 1999, but only that it doesn´t end.

Throw out your guidebooks every one, come party in Vienna!!