Spent the day rediscovering Vienna and wondering what might it might have looked like back when my dad sported nothing more 'n peach fuzz. Fitting as it's Father's Day. The blue Danube isn't exactly...blue. More like brown. I guess things have changed since Johann Strauss' day. The streetcars have certainly improved. They are looking sleek and - if such a thing is possible - hot! There are probably more people milling about than when Johann was busily scoring. Vienna now has a population of 2.3 million and the city was designated a Unesco World Heritage site in 2001. Are the Viennese any different personality-wise though? I can't really say but one thing I did notice is that folks around here are trusting on a corporate level that I've never seen in Canada. For example, neither man nor machine checked any of my subway tickets for validation. I later discovered that the Viennese simply don't bother paying for transportation, relying instead on heavy fines levied to visitors during high tourist season to subsidize their transport system! Also, they don't have newspaper dispensing boxes. Instead, they have heavy-duty plastic bags with a little locked coin box fastened to poles. People simply help themselves to the newspapers and are trusted to drop their coinage in the box. Highly civilized!
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