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That depends where in Austria of course, but I'll start by telling you what it's like living in Vienna. I moved here 3 years ago for the first time as I had to do military service and had lived abroad all my life before - I'd only really ever been to Austria on holiday. The military service was only 6 months and easy, so about 60% of the male adult population do it - it's shorter than civilian service.
The people in Vienna are mostly Austrians or from the extended old Austrian Empire (so there are large communities of Serbs, Bosnians, Croats, Slovenians, Hungarians, Czech, etc) and Turkish immigrant families. You may see one or two black people when you walk down the street. This may sound odd as a description to give you, but it's just to give you a feel of what it's like to walk through the centre. Don't expect to only hear German! Quite the opposite in fact.
There are many, many tourists all year round but especially around now - we have Europe's number 1 Christmas market (we beat Nurenberg in a huge poll, they always used to get number 1) and people buy the usual sculptures, toys, Lebkuchen (ginger bread type stuff with cheesy messages written on them) and of course drink mulled wine and fruitpunsh. Lots of it (so much so that last year my pee smelled of it). It is tremendously well lit, not too much of a rip off and very romantic - if you have a partner, visit NOW.
Obviously Vienna is famous for its schnitzel (breaded pork/chicken/turkey) and Sachertorte (wonderful chocolate cake) but we also have very good restaurants for any kind of food you want - especially Italian! Otherwise we have Kaiserschmarrn (scrambled pancake with raisins and some sort of jam), Germknödel (hard to describe - a yeast dumpling filled with apricot/plum jam and covered in molten butter and poppysugar powder - best served when you've spent the day skiing or generally frozen in the mountains somewhere), the Semmel (the basic Austrian breadbun that can be filled with anything the Autrian wants at the supermarket - good tip for a cheap light lunch. Just pick what you want from all the meats and cheeses behind the glass), not to mention the other hundreds of kinds of breads the picky Viennese choose from.
Vienna is built on the old Habsburg empire and was therefore a very rich city, which was extravagant in its building projects. You can spend a week just looking at the inside of buildings, exhibitions and such and you won't have seen everything. There is a very strong arts scene, for any kind of art: theatre, opera, modern art, "old art", technology, cinema, classical music... If culture is what you want, you'll definitely be satisfied.
Some people find Vienna to be too much for them, others (like me) fall in love with the city and don'T want to leave.
Schools: I'm not sure since I never went here, but I am at university now. The standard (internationally speaking) is pretty low, we're 150th or so in the world ranking. Part of the problem is that Austria's university system allows for anyone who finished school to study (almost) whatever they want, no matter what mark they had when they finished. Unfortunately, once the Germans got wind of this, they started choosing Vienna as their backup if they couldn't get in to uni in their country. Since Austria is in the EU, it has to treat each citizen equally so they have let accept the German (and swiss) students who've basically already failed into the system. We have very low uni fees (about €750 a year) in comparison to other countries and this attracts even more. All this leads to overfilled lectures, not enough spaces for seminars etc etc, as the uni can't afford to pay for more.
Austria is a proud skiing nation, consistently winning the world cup. It's the only thing we're good at at an international level apart from pingpong, so please don't take that away from us too! Pretty please?
Lastly, the Austrians have got a bit of a reputation, what with our history of being the cause for World Wars (if indirectly the second time, but Hitler was Austrian originally), for aggressivness. Can't say I've seen it here really: Vienna is the safest city I've ever lived in. women have no qualms walking through the city at 5am alone, I've never been mugged (but it does happen) or beaten up or anything. Once had a camera stolen, but that was just stupidity on our part. Then there is the large amount of people who vote for the anti-immigrant far right (about 30%), which is higher than average but now that Jörg Haider is dead this will drop significantly, I think. Most Austrians you will meet are absolutely fine though - just don't forget that Viennese people are very direct in their approach, but not rude. If you take offense at something they say, you must tell them.
I love living in Vienna, the city is fantastic and it's one of the last places in Europe where you can still smoke in bars, and the cigarettes don't cost an arm and a leg. |
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