Dan and Em's Blog

The candy cane is right up there on the list of major iconic Christmas images:  sleigh bells, wreaths, holly, gingerbread, cookies, snow . . . and candy canes.  Peppermint ones, red & white striped.  They go on the tree, they go in stockings, they go in my hot chocolate.

Add those, then, to the list of things that just aren’t the same here:  I’m having a really hard time finding peppermint candy canes.  They like candy canes here, certainly.  They come in a rainbow of colors (sometimes literally) and a variety of flavors:  apple, cinnamon, strawberry.  But, no peppermint.  I’ve been looking all of the Christmas markets.  At first, I thought I must just be missing them — surely, they MUST have peppermint candy canes (and I even know how to say peppermint, so it’s not a translation problem) — but then another friend of mine said she was having trouble finding them.  (Now I know why they don’t have Peppermint Mochas at Starbucks here — peppermint doesn’t seem to be a Christmas thing in Austria.)

I came close today.  I found a candy shop at a market that sold all kinds of candy canes, even lemon and “root beer” (written just like that, in English) flavored.  The did have big, white peppermint candy sticks, but they were all while, straight (no hook end) and about twice the length and width of a candy cane.  Not close enough.  I’m still looking.

We went out to do some more Christmas shopping this morning (the fact that I have yet to send any gifts back home is really starting to concern me, so my goals for this weekend were to get as much shopping done as possible on Saturday and get as many things wrapped and packed to ship on Sunday).  On our way back, we walked past a Starbucks and decided to go in for some warm, caffeinated, holiday goodness.

We stood in line, placed our order and waited.  I absentmindedly started humming along with the “muzak” that was playing . . . and then suddenly realized that I was humming a muzak version of “My Favorite Things” . . . from the Sound of Music . . . while standing in Starbucks . . . in Vienna.

There was something very strange about that.  Hearing a muzaked version of a song from an American musical about Austria while standing in a very American establishment located in the heart of the Austrian capital.

It was very disconcerting.  It was exactly the experience I think I would have if I were having a dream about going Christmas shopping in Vienna, but not something I would actually have expected to experience.  It was weird.  It freaked me out a little.

(I think Dan failed to appreciate why I found this so strange, so maybe it’s just me.)

To my great disappointment, there is no huge Advent calendar at the City Hall (Rathaus) here in Vienna this year.  I don’t know the details, but the company in charge of putting it on apparently embezzled a lot of the money intended for the display . . . or maybe embezzled money for something else and now the city doesn’t want to be involved with them . . . it’s hard to get the details straight in another language.

It’s a bummer.  This is a long-standing tradition, and from everything I’ve heard, really impressive — every day of Advent, one of the huge windows of the Rathaus was decorated, every day something new.  Of all of the Vienna Christmas traditions, this is the one that I was the most looking forward to.  I’ll keep my fingers crossed that it will be back next year.

In the meantime, we’re enjoying the wonderful things that Vienna does still offer at Christmastime — the markets, the beautiful decorations, the general festivity.  It’s a completely different vibe here than at home — the markets are crowded and bustling (sometimes overwhelmingly so) but the emphasis is on socializing and enjoying the market, rather than on the shopping (although plenty of shopping happens, too).

Above all, I’m missing home.  I know we’ll have a wonderful Christmas here (giant Rathaus Advent calendar or not) but it’s a very different feeling to be so far away from so many people that we love so much.

It’s funny the things that give us the holiday spirit.  I’ve been sick for most of the past week, and that’s made me feel really behind in terms of getting ready for Christmas — especially getting my house ready.  I still had my Halloween decorations out — it’s hard to feel like it’s getting to be Christmastime, even with our advent calendars out, while looking at pumpkins.

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