Simmering

  The area I'm staying in is called Simmering.  I think it's part of Vienna, but I'm not sure; it might be considered an adjacent town.  It's at the end of the U3 subway line, and it's really not much further before you're out in the countryside.  I'm looking into getting a used bicycle; I want to go riding along the Danube, and I may ride in to the IIASA for my work sometimes, too.  Getting to IIASA on public transit is a bit of a pain; first the tram, then the bus, and if the connections aren't smooth it can take more than an hour.  Riding through sunny meadows with birds singing (and flaxen-haired Austrian lasses looking up from their strawberry-picking to smile at me, of course) would be preferable.

  I'm staying in one room of a two-room flat in Simmering, in a guesthouse here.  A photo of my room from the door:

  Pretty typical dorm-style room: bed, desk, wardrobe.  What looks like a glass door at the far end is actually a huge window hinged at the bottom.  I thought it was a door, and went to open it, and it tipped towards me from the top, and I thought I had pulled the door off its hinges.  Very bizarre.  The shirt on the chair is a t-shirt I'm using as a towel, since I forgot to bring a towel and have not yet succeeded in buying one here.  Where are towels sold in Austria?  Life abounds in mysteries.

  Here's a view down the main street of Simmering.  The guesthouse I'm staying at (along with most of the other YSSP students) is the big building on the right.

  I don't think Simmering is the part of Austria I will miss the most.  Although there is a really awesome doner kebab joint just across the street from the guesthouse; I might miss that.