Auf Wiedersehen Vienn, es war Spass.


Fortunately the weather today was much, much better than predicted and I was able to see a lot. Vienna is a remarkable city with some of the most incredible buildings/architecture that I have seen anywhere. I kept thinking that if these imperial or government buildings are so impressive now, I wonder how they were seen back "in the day"?


When I travel I just like to wander the streets and observe people and the settings, observe how locals go about their daily lives. Maybe it's because I've been a scientist all my life or maybe it's because I'm a photographer, but I observe and take note. Sort of a cultural anthropologist with a street camera.


As my trip winds down, I've made a major observation that span across all cities. In fact, it's something that I noticed and preached about when I was a professor - "smart" phones will cause the decline of civilization as we know it.


As I visited both historical and truly beautiful locations people (admittedly tourists) were enslaved by their phones. Case in point: the photo above show two men riding a horse-drawn carriage to see the sights of Vienna. The photo was taken in front of the Burgtheater (a beautiful building) and the Rathaus (you've seen photos of the Neues Rathouse in Munich from an earlier post - impressive indeed) directly across the street. Now I don't know how much the carriage ride cost but hmmmm, upon inspection the eyes of the two men are glued to the screens of their phones, not the sites.

Another prevalent, and to me funny, "thing" now with cell phones is for girls to go through multiple poses in front of a site as if they are models striking 6-10 poses. Well, I couldn't help but capture one such "model" as she went through her sequence (actually, it took her several "takes" before she was happy with her "memory of the site"). Now don't blame me for taking the photos, she wanted to be a model and I am a professional photographer.


These are not isolated events - I saw this many, many, many, many times throughout this trip. Notice - I said I saw, that is, I used my eyes, not a phone or camera. And no, this is not a rant but rather a PSA suggesting that we all just stop and smell (and see) the roses.


Until next time, be safe, be good and for gosh sakes folks, enjoy life by looking around, not at your phone, time goes by very quickly.