If you have perchance been following my peregrinations for a while, you might remember that when I returned to the UK in December, I started off my blog post with phrases you only ever hear on an airplane, and specifically the foreboding phrase ‘hours of darkness’. I therefore thought it rather fitting to start this final entry with another of those phrases, heard just before we began our descent into London Stansted Airport on Friday evening: “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are going to have to divert this plane.”
Aside from thinking that this would make for thrilling content for this ultimate post, I was highly concerned that there had been a security threat. Was Belarus hijacking another Ryanair flight? Were we going to have to force an emergency landing somewhere? Or was I in fact going to have to return to Flughafen Wien-Schwechat and call the friend who had so kindly dropped me off a few hours before? (Not much concern at that thought, I must admit). But if I was hoping for another continental getaway, I would be sorely disappointed. The final stop on my 21st Century Grand Tour? London Gatwick Airport.
Seems like my wish to extend my Year Abroad had been granted - be careful what you wish for!
And so it was that I watched the final sunset of my Year Abroad not from some balcony in Provence, or even from the banks of the Donau, but looking out from a plane grounded in Gatwick because – I still don’t quite understand this myself – the runway in Stansted had a bit of a meltdown. That’s right – not congested, damaged, or even threatened, but slightly melted. Mum insisted that the Cadbury’s bar she’d bought from WHSmith while waiting for hours (racking up a parking charge more expensive than my flight) was indeed very soft, so we’ll have to trust her reliable scientific experiment on this one. By the time I’d eventually loaded my suitcases and five “one small bag”[s] into the car (is a Sachertorte a handbag?), a section of the motorway had closed for night-time roadworks (as a friend quite rightly asked, had that melted too?!). It was therefore with an enormous sense of relief that I finally swung open my bedroom door and crashed into bed, over ten hours since leaving behind my room in Währinger Gürtel.
I had made it through my Year Abroad in one piece - just about.
I think the fact that it has taken me four days to get round to writing this, despite being quarantined at home with little else to do, indicates the recovery time of such a journey, and indeed of the last few weeks in Austria. Ever since the lockdown restrictions were lifted, I felt as if I was desperately trying to cram every minute I had left with everything I had hoped to do in a whole year, ranging from day-trips from Vienna, more monasteries (back to Kremsmünster, and then to the UNESCO-listed Stift Melk - some snaps below!), to early morning swims and spending time with all the friends who made this year of living in a foreign country under various stages of lockdown not just bearable, but thoroughly good fun.
A particular highlight of the past month, and indeed dare I say the whole Year Abroad, was certainly the wedding of two dear friends in Opole – a beautiful little Polish town which felt like it should belong in a fairy-tale. Yet because this was the Year Abroad 2020/21, in which nothing ever goes quite right, the train tracks between Břeclav and Hodonín, two small Czech towns on the route from Vienna to Katowice, had of course been destroyed by a freak tornado (!) a few days before my journey. This resulted in a rather eventful ride through ravaged countryside in a coach full of elderly Polish and Czech ladies, with a bus driver who was more interested in pointing out destroyed landmarks in the apocalyptic landscape than bringing us to our destination. Any travel stresses, and there were plenty – two UK guests having flown via Corfu (!) – were however quickly forgotten as families and friends reunited for the first time in months, danced, laughed, and ate Pierogi well into the early hours. Every second sentence of the host seemed to begin with “there is a Polish tradition…”, which was terribly exciting for those of us who had no idea what to expect next, and only ended up confirming what my friends had told me when I said I was off to a Polish wedding: the Poles know how to throw a good party. Having also spent the past year in Vienna, the couple are regular readers of this blog (probably to check what I’m writing about them), so I’d just like to say a huge dziękuję to the Almdudes and wish them all the very best for their married life. May it be filled with much happiness and Pierogi Ruskie.
Last blog post surely deserves a photo bonanza... Mozna Castle, Opole town centre... and the friend hosting me had two adorable cats who found their way everywhere (and who made me sneeeze)!
The Polish wedding really did feel like the start of the Happy End of the Vienna story. It was the last event on my calendar, and what with being around many Brits and reuniting with a couple of Cambridge friends, it did start to provide the sense of transition and closure I needed. I have realised over the years that closure is very important to me. My brother has not let me forget the time I cried at the end of a birthday as a child, bemoaning the fact that it hadn’t “come to a purposeful close”, and one of the most difficult things about last year was the abrupt end to my Cambridge life, which I knew would never quite go back to how it was before.
Leaving Vienna was thus made much easier by having the time and space to wrap up my life there – to visit the final museums on my list, to go for as many more swims and brunches possible, and to mark the end of my stay with a British themed tea party, at which myself and a friend who grew up in London (and was equally stuck here over Christmas – a true bonding experience), introduced the others to the delights of a rousing rendition of Jerusalem, scones and Pimm’s. The weather even cooperated with the theme – after a week of glorious sunshine, of course it had to rain and force us to move the garden party into a friend’s living room. Patriotism was therefore running pretty high as a bunch of us headed off to watch the Euro Final together that evening. All I can say is that I’m just as sorry as you are that I came home and football didn’t.
Last morning swim-with-Sarah-spot - overlooking the UN Headquarters, by Donaustadtbrücke.
I did have notes for this valedictory post, but much like the infamous Stadtwanderweg to Rodaun, I have led you all far off track. But before I finish off, I thought I should probably cover the two main questions I’d hoped to have answered by this point, namely what I’m doing next, and what happens to this blog. I’m genuinely surprised this blog has made it to the end of the Year Abroad – I envisioned it being abandoned months ago – and hope that it’s given you some amusing content along the way. It certainly has been a rollercoaster of a year, and I hope that these updates have provided a much better insight into it than any squares on my Instagram feed would have done. When I first started this off it was essentially for my Gran, family and friends back in the UK, but over the course of the year the Viennese contingent have also discovered it. As my life in Cambridge is equally as fascinating for them as my Viennese life is for the UK friends, I’ve been asked whether I’ll continue these next year. The answer to that is undecided – I’ll try for an update every now and then but can’t guarantee any running commentaries on my choice of meal deal or various essay crises.
It will probably take a little while to readjust back into the intense Cambridge lifestyle, but I’m looking forward to returning to Christ’s at the end of September for my final year of Modern and Medieval Languages. I’m looking forward to reuniting with my friends, who have been scattered everywhere from Singapore to Sant Antoni this year, catching up over lunch at Aromi or Savino’s, muddling our way through supervisions and sessions in the library together. I’m looking forward to getting back on that muddy lacrosse pitch and post-training team breakfasts. I’m excited to dive back into life at Fisher House and work with a wonderful team of students to continue to ensure that the Chaplaincy is a welcoming home for Catholic students at Cambridge. It will be a very different world to that of the Kaffeehäuser, dips in the Donau, and weekly hikes, but one that I’m sure will be filled with equal amounts of challenges, adventures, and laughter.
Finally made it to the terminus of the U2: Seestadt. Shout-out to Bea who looked after me so well this year - I'll be back for some more chicken adobea (and to collect the rest of my stuff...) I promise!
Until then I’ll be around London, which is hardly a boring place to be – the quote ‘When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’ (Samuel Johnson) springs to mind – and I’ve got plenty to be cracking on with. There’s that dreaded Year Abroad Project which needs finishing off, plenty of books to be read for next term, and a dissertation topic to be found (do let me know if you see one looking a bit lost). I might get round to filling in this blog with stories that didn’t make the press at the time, and I’d like to brush up on my French and Dutch – all too often neglected for a slice of Apfelstrudel. And as those of you who have heard me talk about it for the past year will know all too well, there’s a family wedding coming up very soon indeed – and hopefully there’ll be no freak tornados this time round!
All that’s left now is to wish you all the very best for the summer months and the coming academic year – I know many of you are embarking on exciting new degrees, jobs, and missions - and to thank you for getting to the end of both this blog post and to the end of my Year Abroad with me. Thank you to my friends and family at home who have put up with hours of FaceTime, Instagram stories, and sporadic postcards and have rooted me on from afar. Thank you for taking the time to read my updates and live this experience vicariously, it’s been very much appreciated.
Und vielen herzlichen Dank an alle meine Freunde in Wien und insbesondere an meine legendären, richtig coolen Mitbewohnerinnen: die Währingirls. Es war einfach herrlich.
Alles Liebe,
Anna
Währingirls 2020-2021
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