Liebwohl...

It seems impossible that I've been here for five months. One semester is really not that much time in the life of an academic, but the nature of the experience has been more... well, just something more than usual. All I know for certain is that this is one of those passages of my life after which things will be weighed and measured on a new scale.

I sit writing this in a heuriger outside of Vienna after a long tramp through the vineyards. I thought this might be the time to say goodbye. My last day in the city proper (after spending all day tomorrow packing and at the library) will be too much of a whirlwind.

I cannot say what Austria or Vienna is, but I most definitely have an impression of what it is to me. In the end, it was a place I could spend time with myself, something that is more difficult to do than we think. Yes, it's been productive. Yes, it's been fun and I've made new (and lasting) friends. Yes, it's been painful too. And no, I am not ready to leave. And yes, I am ready to come home.

The long goodbye...

I have two weeks left in Austria and it seems like I've been here forever. It also seems like I just moved into my fourth (fifth) floor apartment yesterday. At our "going away" party, which Fulbright Austria hosted at a heuriger in Neustift am Wald, our host reminded us that we go away so we can go home again. I know exactly what he means, thanks to the numerous opportunities I have had to "go away." I'd add, though, that we go away to make new homes, to remember that there are many ways to define "home." This has been on my mind a lot lately, largely because of how many visitors I have had in the past month.

My parents came in time for my birthday and we went to Prague together. That trip away and back drove home the idea of Vienna as "my city." So did playing host to a friend from graduate school for a couple of days--a complete and welcome surprise, not least because it meant there was somebody to go to Beethoven's testament house in Heiligenstadt who would really get it. Going to Budapest to visit another Fulbrighter, and then getting to host in return also reinforced my sense of belonging in Vienna. My German may still be rudimentary, but I have enough to make me comfortable and I no longer need a map in the city.

In honor of my home away from home, have some vineyard pics...

Halfway between Mödling and Gumpoldskirchen.

At our family's favorite heuriger in Gumpoldskirchen, after a nice walk through the vines.

Serenading under the cherry tree at the Fulbright heurigen party.

The view out back in Neustift am Wald.