Graz

I took my leave from the lovely Landhaus and tootled down the road to Graz, which is to be my home for the next five weeks. I have never been in the city before, so it was all new to me. The participants, staff and students, of the AIMS program are housed in a very large Studentenheim (student dormitory) which in the winter caters to foreign students at the local university. It's in a nice neighborhood, not too far from the center of the city. I have a single room. It's small, but that's fine with me. The place is in need of a good overhaul, but it will do for the duration of the program. After getting settled and having my internet connection established (there are two computer geeks on call today and tomorrow), I took the car to the rental place to return it. The Skoda had served me well. It has gotten rather warm again. I walked into the center from the rental place. Maybe I was in the worst part of town, but it did not make the best impression. Things are shabby and there is litter about. Dorothy, we ain't in Switzerland anymore. The old city center has some beautiful old buildings, but like nearly every other city center in Europe, it's been turned into a huge shopping mall.
For the past few days the Austrian press has been full of news on the culmination of a huge financial scandal. I saw a program, something along the lines of 'Frontline', on the history of the whole thing (my room in Mils had a tiny TV which received all of two stations). Although I couldn't begin to understand the ins and outs of European high finance, it was a story strikingly similar to the Enron scandal a few years ago in the States: the fat cats at the head of some banking/investment concern fudged the books, lied to their investors and filled their own pockets. Sentencing took place a few days ago. The equivalent of Kenneth Lay was arrested at his villa on the Riviera and spirited back to Vienna. He faces ten years in prison. Just like Lay, he insists that he is innocent and has been made a fall guy. These people are amazing, they just never 'get it': It's always somebody else's fault.
I went out in the evening in search of a place to eat. Just down the street is a modest eatery, Muckenauer Imbiss, with tables outside as well. It was filled with AIMS people. (Why is it one can always spot the Americans?) I ended up sharing a table with a young guy, Yuri, originally from Belarus, who is the concert master of the orchestra here and serves that function with the Charleston S.C. Symphony in the States. A few of his friends, also orchestral musicians (two cellists and a flutist), joined us later. They were all very interesting and it was nice to be hanging out with musicians again. Just like with vocalists, the conversation revolved around gossip of the business, who is doing what, who got what position, etc. Everybody knows everybody. It's a small world.