What a week!

Indeed, what a turbulent week it has been – and I don’t just mean because of the elections in the USA.

On Monday evening, Vienna, the city where I live, was hit by a terrorist shooting spree on the eve of our second lockdown. Four innocent people were killed and several more injured, some seriously, before the police shot the gunman dead. Many thought such a thing impossible in cosy Vienna … but I reckon it really was just a question of time before it would happen here too, sadly. And it wasn’t in fact the first time, but previous acts of terrorism in Vienna were a long time ago, decades even. In 1985, Arab terrorists launched an attack at the city’s airport. In 1981 it was even in the same area of the inner city as on Monday, namely when the “Stadttempel” synagogue was targeted by Palestinians armed with machine guns and grenades. Two were killed and 30 wounded back then. And in 1975, the OPEC headquarters in Vienna came under siege by militants who took 60 hostage, killed three and wounded several more. But as I said, that was all way in the past. It does hit you especially when it happens right on your doorstep, as it were. In my case that doorstep was actually about two kilometres away so I was safe, but you know what I mean.

Then on Tuesday the US elections began … and my has that been a stormy ride! As I type this, Biden has won the majority in the electoral college, but the count continues in some states and there will likely be recounts in at least a couple of states, where the result was especially tight. As feared, the fact that it got so tight created unrest and a free-flowing conspiracy theory flood with baseless accusations of fraud, especially at the very top. As even Fox News and leading Republicans have begun turning away from Trump, hopefully he will now stop, or at least not be so successful with, all the lies and allegations. Even though the end result is what most people outside the United States and, at the latest count, over 75 million US voters want – where will this deeply divided country be going now? Trumpism will not just vanish overnight even if the man himself is forced to vacate the White House. I just hope it will not turn uncontrollably violent … I’ve been to the US five times over the course of 30 years and always found it a fabulous country in so many respects, despite the politics. It deserves better.

I kind of indirectly marked Tuesday’s date with a blog post entitled “DT & stars and stripes”; the allusion to the national flag of the USA was intentional. The post’s lead photo, reproduced above, was also intentionally open to over-interpretation … reflective but warped. The post started, however, with the separate elements, i.e. first with stars and then stripes, illustrating both with several photos, e.g. of Soviet red stars, and stripes on D-Day aircraft, before finally actually coming to the US flag in various contexts.

Then on Thursday the second post this week was about the anniversary of the referendum that stopped the use of nuclear power in Austria in 1978, where the construction of a fully functional nuclear power plant at Zwentendorf had just been completed and the first fuel rods were about to be inserted into the reactor. But since this never happened and the plant has not been used as intended all this time, it became the “safest NPP in the world”, because it never saw any radiation. This made it ideal for training purposes, and the plant has also served as a film set. Moreover, you can go on tours of the inside. I went on one seven years ago and took hundreds of photos, of which I selected 21 for the blog post.

Even closer to home, though, I had two health scares this week myself. First I had an examination at a nuclear-medical place here in Vienna, which had long been arranged, but I had to wait for the result to arrive by post (indeed!) for four days. Fortunately the outcome was that it is all fine. Nothing wrong was detected. But the wait was uncomfortable.

And then, on top of all this I developed a very sore throat and a cough on Tuesday/Wednesday, so I felt it was my responsibility to arrange a COVID-19 test. This was done on Wednesday afternoon. Again, I had to wait a few days before the result came through. But when it finally did yesterday, thankfully it, too, was negative.

After that I immediately ventured out – it was the first time since Monday that I left the house – and together with my wife headed into the city centre where we did some shopping. On the way back we walked a route that took us past the area where Monday’s shootings had taken place. We turned a corner and suddenly saw hundreds of people filling Seitenstettengasse, the street where many of the shots were fired. There were coloured markings on the cobbled street left by the police and at the various spots people had laid down hundreds of little red candle lamps, of the sort that it is customary to place on graves here, as well as flowers, wreaths and little notes. Despite the throngs of people it was eerily silent. I have to admit that because seeing this was so unplanned, it really hit me hard. There I was, a supposedly “hardened” dark tourist, trying hard to fight back tears that I felt welling up … And unlike several other people I refrained from getting my smartphone out to take photos … it just felt wrong. As I said, it’s different somehow when it is so close to home – and so current. I needed a moment to compose myself again, before resuming our walk back home.

So, really, what a week – in what was already one of the most momentous (and mostly not in a good way) years in my entire lifetime! Of this already mega-exceptional 2020, early November will be especially remembered …