Departure from Hostel Postel was less hectic.  My life in order when my belongings aren’t strewn around the room.  Shuttle bus from there to Vienna.  Drained.  It takes me a day to find myself, the google maps whispering in my ear sending me in circles.  I talk into the phone with a British accent pretending there is someone on the line other than a mechanical voice telling me the wrong way to go.  I approach the hotel from the other direction.  I find my way to he plaza and watch the people.  I see people walking by eating ice cream, and I wander, trying to find it.  The street opens up to another plaza circling around.  I’m content, watching the people, licking my strawberry cone, tired.

At the museum, I am wowed by Egon Shiele, Gustav’s protege.  I stand in front of two huge paintings and try to take a picture.  A man reading the story of the artist’s life, stands in my way, oblivious, taking up space in that way that only men can do; he refuses to move although I am practically at his elbow.  He stands, oblivious, alone.  Do you want something he asks.  Just tell me what you want.  It is not difficult, American girl.  Aware all along, pretending.  I want to use my loudest outside voice and say, Fuck you, buddy, I am an ugly American.  Instead, I feel rude for bothering him, slink away.  Pictures of art, snapped with Smart phones are overrated anyway, like postcards of towns, or Las Vegas with its “Paris,” and “Venice,” all make believe, people walking around smoking, searching for something, someone they want to be.

I scour the museum shop looking for interesting art cards.  Another city of contrasts, the old and the new.  New construction, sprawling concrete, people.  Sometimes it’s better to just hide in the fog of I-don’t-know-what-you’re-saying; I’m new and raw and just beginning.

The Aussie lady on the bus in her 60’s who never told me her name although we talked all the way from Cesky Krumlov says to me: “We all have to go through the stages.”  It resonates.