16. August--Bike excursion

Today was day 3 of a three day weekend. After getting up around midday, I went grocery shopping. Here the milk containers only come in 1 Liter sizes, meaning I need to buy at least one container every day. People go grocery shopping here every day, and the food here does not have preservatives in it. I left a loaf of bread in a cabinet, and now it is completely moldy. Delicious.

Today we decided to try out Vienna’s public bicycle program. Without any real plan in mind (this seems to be a recurring theme in all of my day trips), we took the U-bahn to the Danube canal, to one of the many locations. Apparently, the rental process is supposed to be easy, but we spent a good forty five minutes trying to figure it out. Apparently you have to create an account with your credit card, which is then accessed every time you use it to unlock a bike. I am glad I set up a temporary bank account for this trip. I don’t like the idea of my debit card information being easily accessible on some random European computer terminal. Eventually, we figured it out and hit the streets. We made our way to the bank of the Danube and then crossed over to the Danube island. The Danube island separates the two sections of the Danube. One is used more for shipping and transportation, and the other is used for recreation. We biked along the island for a while and stopped at a café for a snack. We continued along the Danube until we came to another U bahn station, which we took to the bicycle return station. Vienna's public transportation system makes going anywhere in the city easy. Our tickets for the U Bahn also counted towards the streetcars and buses, so we were not short of transportation options. I think it would be more of a hassle to have a car in a city like this. Gas here is around 1.2 Euros per liter, which works out to about 5.6 dollars per gallon. This price is insanely high for me, coming from America. This is probably why Europe has a lot more smaller cars than America. I have not seen many parking lots in my walking tours of the city, so I think it is more convenient to travel by U bahn or streetcar.

After we had returned the bikes, we went to Karmalitermarkt, a marketplace. Because of the rain, however, many places were closed. I did manage to get some fruit there, however, getting some much needed vitamin C. Later that night we tried our luck at the Siebenstern brauerei, this time with success. I tried the chili beer, which was a mistake. It actually tasted like chili, and my mouth was burning for the next ten minutes.

I recently read an article in the New York Times about an art exhibition in Vienna featuring propagandist works from North Korea. These paintings depict North Korea as the happiest place on earth. I thought this was strange because the artists themselves were forbidden to leave Korea. I think the fact that Vienna is considered a neutral nation is one of he main reasons why these paintings were exhibited here. This would never have happened in other countries like the US. I think exhibitions like this are good because they show what the country is like on the inside--or at least how the government wants the country to look like, in which case one can infer the situation for people on the inside.