Friends! Hello! Welcome to my Vienna travel journal (or rather, what I intend to be my Vienna travel journal; I haven't left yet). Here you'll see a few of the thoughts of an American undergraduate student living for ten weeks in Vienna. I hope to experience the real thing, not merely the tourist version.
What's the title of this log supposta mean?, you may well ask. "Katastrophe" is catastrophe; that's simple. But "Gemütlich" is rather more difficult to translate: it's a way of living that they prize highly in Vienna, I hear. To practice Gemütlichkeit is to purposely live well; it is to abandon everyday stresses because we know they are ultimately unnecessary. (At least, that's what I gather.) Now, I think that sounds like an admirable way of life. I hope to try it.
Together, then, the words of this blog's title may bring to mind another word, Schlamperei. It is a stereotypically Viennese characteristic, a way of muddling through things, quite opposed to stern Prussian efficiency. I wish to practice it as well. We'll see how that goes.
Once More with Feeling
15 years ago
