Well, it has been a momentous occasion. Tschortsch Dabbeljauh (original Austrian spelling) has come to Vienna! It has been over 27 years since an American president has descended from the White House to bless the little country with his presence. And, according to 80% of the Austrian population, he could have taken his time for another 27 years.
But no such luck, Mr. President came with a purpose, even if for a very short visit. All that locals could be thankful for was, that this was going to be a short visit. Since Tuesday morning Viennese have suffered great trials: their cars, bicycles, probably even garbage cans have been towed to undisclosed locations, possibly in the Parter Hauptallee (usually a pedestrian only zone), or maybe have been tossed into the Danube for lack of space. We are talking several hundreds of cars at least who had to be “evacuated” from the X-zone, i.e. the Hofburg. Come tomorrow morning, hundreds of angry Viennese will be in search of their vehicles, God help us!
Not only have means of transportation been towed, but no other transportation has been provided. If you had to go to work in the 1st district, you had to figure out a way to get there, as no tram, U-Bahn, bus or other public transportation would stop within the X-zone area. I’m not sure if the underground sewer system was checked, but I know the air traffic above Vienna was blocked, all private air traffic that is. For example, if you happened to be riding the D tram, you would be stunned to see that you could not get off at the Opera, and yelling at the driver did not help either. But even walking proved tricky enough. So many streets and sidewalks were closed, with the promise of you getting a €360 fine should you even look like you were going to get on that sidewalk. Chances were you got lost, frustrated and decided that going to work was not so important after all.
If you were a downtown merchant, that would suck too. In a very sneaky way, merchants were allowed to open their stores. However, set in a diabolical fine print, no one was allowed to get into your store. In fact, it really was in your best interest. If a terrorist would set off a bomb in your store, it would cost you way more than the couple of thousands you lost on business that day. So you see, it was only the valid concern of the government to keep you safe and out of harm’s way.
At least no one tried to make a pretense of this being a happy occasion, well, except maybe for a rather nervous Bundeskanzler offering a completely safe and sanitary bouquet of flowers to the first lady. The officials responsible for civic order and such told people to just stay home and not come downtown unless they really had to. A top police official just said in a very tired voice: “Let’s hope this is over soon!”. And so it was. Airforce One arrived untroubled last night, there was no red carpet, no marching band, just a brief smile and wave and off to the hotel suite. The hotel had previously been emptied of all its belongings, and trucks of “trice security checked” goods were loaded into the various suites, everything from toilet paper to furniture was brought in. So the honored guests really did feel at home. Rumour has it that the noble Palais Schwarzenberg was first asked to put up the world’s most powerful man for the night, but they politely declined saying they were “full”.
By this time America’s finest have left, swift as a hurricane, leaving the Viennese to recover from this honour (the show cost Austria over a million euros) and wondering what this world is coming to. Why, if Franz Josef was still alive…..Schmähstad!