“If there is a heartache Vienna cannot cure I hope never to feel it. I came home cured of everything except Vienna.”
By now I have spent some time in so many cities around the world, that I finally realized there is no place, which is perfect.
Berlin is quirky and never sleeps, but kind of dangerous and frankly…just dirty. Brussels is international and intelectually lively, but very grey and somehow sad. Helsinki is calm and orderly, but also fittingly cold. Bari is enjoyable, but…well Southern Italy. And the list goes on…
Each city has it’s charms and curses and each of them I have called home at least for a few months. But there is no other city that I felt so connected to as Vienna.
I always failed to explain what draws me to that city – is it the vibe, the artisticity, the grandeour of the buildings?
Perhaps, it’s because my elegant home town of Rousse (often dubbed locally as the “small Vienna”) boasts some Vienese architecture and remnants of a last-century Vienese vibe and artistic tradition on the other end of the Danube River.
Frankly, Vienna is definitely not the most foreigner-friendly place in Europe, but it’s mix of East and West kind of makes it feel like home to my internationalized personality.
The truth is that the more you entangle yourself with other cultures, languages and traditions, the more you change your own set of values and somewhat your feeling of cultural belonging.
So I guess it is easy for someone like me to fit in there, despite the outward chauvinism of many born and bred Vienese.
And as time passes and I explore new places around the world, I am surely to return again and again both to my “small” and my “big Vienna”, where pieces of my heart still remain.
Never have I ever 