Vienna airport

I went over to the Vienna Airport Monday afternoon for my Tuesday morning flight. I was worried that a snowstorm or traffic foul-up might make me miss my flight, so I stayed at the airport hotel and did some exploring.

My limo driver was right on time. A native of Bratislava, he is fluent in English and German. This company (Airport Service Bratislava) was recommended by previous Fulbrighters; they use e-mail, speak English, take credit cards, and are very reliable, and I would recommend them highly, too.

I’ve only been here five months, but some important things have already changed. The four-lane expressway that was under construction last September has opened, so we sailed over to the airport with ease. And no more passport checks at the national border at Kittsee, Austria. On December 21, 2007, Slovakia entered the EU’s “Shengen Zone,” as did the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia. This means that these countries are now part of “Fortress Europe.” Once inside, you can pass freely across national borders, just as you might travel from Iowa to Illinois in the U.S.

The EU insisted on heavily fortified eastern and southern borders around the Zone; that’s now where the serious checking of passports and visas occurs. Slovakia’s eastern border is with the Ukraine, in what is apparently a heavily wooded, rural area. I can’t escape the irony that, only two decades ago, that Slovak-Austrian border we sailed across today was fortified with electrified fences by the Communists to keep the Slovaks from escaping to Austria. Now the EU is determined to keep the Ukrainians (and many others) from sneaking into the Shengen Zone.

The Vienna Airport is in the midst of a massive reconstruction project, so it’s a little chaotic. The entire Airport is already a free wifi zone, a very welcome amenity nowadays. The NH Airport Hotel is right across the street from the passenger buildings, very convenient.

Austria Airlines is the dominant airline here, but signs for almost all other carriers can be seen, especially in those international alliances with U.S. carriers.

In case you haven’t gorged on enough MozartKugeln, here’s one last chance. They also have a refrigerated cart with SacherTortes. I indulged in one last piece (with cappuccino, what else) at an airport café.

More phone booths nobody is using. But they’d come in handy for Americans arriving with incompatible cell phones that won’t work in Europe.

Yup – they’re everywhere. This one had an interesting variation on the standard fare, the “Almburger hűttengaudi” on a blackbread sesame bun. The “I’m loving it” slogan is translated into nine languages on the containers.

This interesting, but unidentified, art was in the middle of the waiting area outside my gate for the flight to Atlanta, surrounded by benches. Security to the gates was lengthy and thorough. An airline official asked a long series of questions about our purposes in travelling, something they don't do in the U.S. But we never had to take off our shoes for the x-ray machine, which was a pleasant relief!

NOTE: Click on any image in this blog to see it full-size.

Bratislava beginnings

The view on the descent into the Vienna airport. Fulbright requires us to fly on American carriers, but there were several choices. The Vienna airport is closer to Bratislava than to Vienna. Bratislava also has an airport with jet service, but I couldn't get connections that worked with my schedule.

My trip to Bratislava is off to a great start. The Delta flights were on time, and the overnight nonstop from Atlanta to Vienna was two-thirds empty, so I could stretch out. The airport shuttle driver met me with a neatly-lettered sign when I walked through customs – and a Mercedes to whisk me to the hotel in Bratislava where I’m staying while I look at apartments with a local real estate agent.

The local Fulbright director urged us in the strongest terms not to make any long-term commitments to housing until we could personally inspect the options. As she said gracefully, “Not all apartments are up to Western standards.” In truth, I would not make a long-term commitment to an apartment in New York or London either without personally inspecting it.

The trip from my home in southern California took 24 hours in real time, and I am adjusting to a nine-hour time change, which will take a few days. But the adjustment to a new city in a part of the world I had never visited is off to a good start.

The previous “class” of Slovak Fulbrighters sent us a helpful letter with their recommendations for everything imaginable for life’s little details – the airport shuttle they used, the real estate agents they liked working with, a dentist for emergencies, etc. Their main criteria: they speak English, take credit cards, use e-mail, and are very nice, reliable people – what more could I want? The local Fulbright Commission director as well as the Washington, DC Fulbright staff also have been sending enormously helpful information all summer. Especially in planning a visit to a country unfamiliar to most Americans, this has been priceless.

My most striking impressions on the trip over include the huge metal windmills I saw everywhere in the farm fields in eastern Austria as we drove from the airport into Slovakia. In the U.S., the debate rages on whether we need these supposed “blights” on our landscape to generate power. But the windmills are no more unsightly than the high-powered electric lines strung across the farm fields, and they are a good reminder of environmental and energy concerns that need serious attention everywhere on the planet.

I’m also struck by the juxtaposition of old and new – quaint colorful housing and ancient stone bridges and towers interspersed with modern gas stations and grocery stores. Homes on the busy two-lane highway from the airport have a vaguely “Alpine” design with red roofs and gorgeous flowers pouring from window boxes.

The border crossing from Austria to Slovakia was downright casual. Dreary buildings look like tired left-overs from another era. My driver handed his passport and mine to an officer in a booth by the road; he seemed to barely glance at them and we were on our way. The passport check at the Vienna airport was equally perfunctory. Not a single question, not even a stamp in my passport to go with my Heathrow stamp from last October, which I earned after answering questions for several minutes about my reason for visiting London. Is this simply a difference in fears of terrorists entering the country or the realities of frequent border crossings in central Europe by an increasingly mobile population?

I was struck in the Atlanta airport by the departure lounge next to mine packed with American soldiers in desert fatigues waiting to board a Lufthansa 747 bound for Frankfurt and a trip back to Iraq – 3rd and even 4th tours for many. This is a modern army – laptops, cell phones, iPods everywhere. In a visit to London last fall, I was struck at the ever-present protesters and signs objecting to our (and the UK’s) presence in Iraq. I wonder if that war, so unpopular now in the U.S., has harmed our standing with Europeans. I wonder how Slovaks feel about the Iraq occupation, and whether they contributed to the so-called “Coalition of the Willing.”

My own mundane travel tip for now: bring a EuroSurge, which I bought from a travel supply catalog (Magellan). It plugs right into the continental plugs and gives me two U.S.-style outlets and a surge-protector for all the electronic equipment we can’t live without (laptop, blackberry, digital camera, etc., etc.). It eliminates the need for those little plug adaptors for everything (although I have a supply of those with me, too). Electrical appliances and power cables all seem to be dual-voltage nowadays, so I don’t need a converter, making things a little simpler.