Vienna, September 19th —

As it was last time we were here, Vienna — unlike so many other European cities — still manages to maintain its European character, at least in its more affluent districts (I should note that we have not moved around the city much this trip, and have only been inside the Ring and in our daughter’s neighborhood in a quiet section in the Third District, near the Hundertwasser House.) There is a growing sense of entropy, and more graffiti and little signs of decay each year, but it is still… well, still Vienna. Disorder has never been well-tolerated here, and it still isn’t. The place remains distinctly and proudly Austrian.

Tomorrow we are off to Prague for two nights. As with the other former Iron Curtain nations, Czechia is not going gently into that good night. We’ve never been to Prague before, so I can’t compare it to how it was, but I expect it, like Vienna, to be a distinct, and heartening, contrast to places like Paris, London, or Amsterdam.

One thing I can say: it’s been a blessing to be distracted from the news. I understand that the Norks keep launching missiles, that Mr. Trump made a speech at the U.N., that Hillary Clinton still won’t go away, and that there have been further eruptions of barbarism in St. Louis and elsewhere (oh, and this), but that’s really about all I know. I can’t really see how I’m any the worse off for my inattention.