On to Austria!

The trip to India was an amazing experience! One that I never imagined taking a year ago when I first began this process or when I received my acceptance letter from IREX (look at one of my first posts from December 17, 2014 for the full story). It was truly wonderful, start to finish, but I'M NOT FINISHED YET!

Woo hoo!

I was fortunate enough to find a flight that left around the same time as my colleagues who were leaving Delhi, but mine went to Vienna instead. After a 9 hour flight on Austrian Airways, I landed in Vienna and took the PostBus to the WestBahnhof near the center of town. After a few short hours taking the U lines around the city and visiting Stephansdom and the Rathaus, I walked back down Mariahilferstrasse and was surprised at how clean and bright everything was! After three weeks in India, the shap colors were mesmerizing! It was like putting in a new pair of contacts after fussing with the clouded ones for a while. Fountains sparkled in the sun (I hadn't realized that there were no fountains in India) and sidewa

lks were completely clear of debris. It had become a "new normal" to see trash piles and people urinating along the streets. There was not a sari in sight and, out of habit, I looked around for a shop that sold gulab jamun or dhosas. Seeing none, I grabbed a semmelkase and bottle of Coke and hopped on the train to Amstetten.

In Amstetten, I met Vera (half of the famous 'Sepp and Vera' who I stayed with when I was an exchange student at age 16) and we headed back to their house in Steinakirchen.

Tired and a bit overwhelmed by quiet, we talked all afternoon and settled in by a large bonfire in the backyard in the evening. Vera brought out her photo album from when she visited India with a group of social workers a few years ago and we shared stories of hope and heartache.

On Friday, Sepp and Vera had to go to work, but that left me with time to catch up a bit with posts and photos and I took a two hour walk through town. When I was in school there, I walked the same trail through a field and down the same streets to get the bus each morning. It's amazing and a bit comforting that not much has changed! The small cafe where I used to meet friends, the pay phone where I'd sneak a call back home, and the stone church were all waiting for me. The church is surrounded by scaffolding, getting a bit of a facelift. A second cafe has closed recently because, as Sepp says, "there just aren't enough people around." It was so peaceful and felt strange not to hear the incessant honking of Indian cars.

Coming to Austria was the perfect ending to my adventures in India because it allowed me to reconnect with amazing people and share my adventures with those who also love to connect with various cultures.