A long-winded explanation

There are no pictures in this posting. You will understand once you start reading. This rather long wind-up is required to understand how and why I am spending two weeks in Austria. If you’d rather just wait for the pictures, it won’t be long. Thanks for staying with me!

When I first started planning my sabbatical a year ago, I knew that I wanted to spend a certain amount of time in a German –speaking country to refresh my German skills. Ideally, I was looking for some sort of structured program that was conducted in the German language. As I did my research, I discovered that most ‘academic’ programs required me to commit to a semester, or the better part of one. That was more time than I wished to devote to this effort. I then began researching programs related to wine in Austria, another one of my interests. To my delight, I discovered that there was such a thing as the Austrian Wine Academy, which did indeed offer a wide variety of courses on wine in general, but also specifically Austrian wines. You can read about it here: https://www.weinakademie.at/english.php  Most courses were offered in two basic formats: evening courses that met once a week for several weeks running; or, concentrated weekend programs. I began communicating with them by e-mail. In the end, we agreed that most suitable program for me was the “Österrichisches Weintutorium”, or Austrian Wine Tutorial. That was a full three-day program giving one both an overview of the Austrian wine industry and a certain amount of guided tastings. There was even a test at the end. If one passed, one received a certificate to that effect. This sounded like the course for me.

It took a while before they published their fall 2018 calendar, but, when they did, I was happy to see that the program was going to be offered twice in November. That would be ideal, since I could simply stay in Europe following my time in Italy. I settled on the course being offered from Nov.9-11. It was my nephew, Sean, however, who pointed out to me the 90-day rule in effect in the countries of the Schengen accord. (If you are interested or are having trouble falling asleep, you can read about the Schengen accord here: https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/schengen-agreement/ The rule states that citizens of non-member states may only remain within the borders of the union without a visa for 90 days before they have to leave. OK, I thought, I’ll just get a visa. Not as simple as I thought; and, ultimately not a viable option for someone without a bank account. By this time, I had already purchased my ticket to Europe, so I sat down and did the math (actually, I had my assistant do it. She is much more adept than I am). When she handed me the results, my heart sank. My 90^th day would be Nov.10! Right in the middle of the wine course. Of all the bum luck! All was not lost, though. If I left the Schengen zone for a few days, the clock would stop. It would then re-start when I re-entered. The most likely candidate for this was Great Britain, since they are not part of the Schengen agreement. I toyed with that idea for a while, but there were other things to consider. The most crucial was voting in the mid-term election and secondly getting my prescriptions re-filled. So, in the end, that’s what I decided to do. I would return to the US for a week and fly back to Europe for the course. Hence, my departure from Dublin to Newark on October 28.

Two things happened that turned these well thought-out plans on their head. As the tour I was with in Scandinavia was about to head to Norway, our tour guide pointed out the importance of having our passports ready. She pointed out that Norway, was not a member of the EU, but was a signatory of the Schengen agreement. She went on to explain that not all the parties to the Schengen agreement were members of the EU, e.g. Switzerland; and, that not all the members of the EU were part of it either, e.g. Ireland. “Wait, what? Did she just say that Ireland was not part of the Schengen agreement? If that’s true, then my time in Ireland (3 weeks+) does not count towards the 90 days.” When I verified that fact, I realized that I could have stayed in Europe through the time of the course. “Oh, well” I thought, “too late now.” While I did not have concrete travel plans, I had not applied for an absentee ballot and I was not about to forfeit my right to vote. Anyway, there were other good reasons to go home for that week. The other shoe dropped while I was in Italy. I received an e-mail from the staffer at the Austrian Wine Academy saying that they were not getting the kind of registrations they needed to run the course the weekend of Nov. 9 and it might get cancelled. Could I come the weekend of Nov. 2? “No” I answered,” I already have my flights back to the US booked.” A week later, I received the definitive word that the course had been cancelled. Now what to do? I had flights, I had hotel reservations and I had even rented an apartment in Vienna for the week following the course, whose cancellation date was October 29! Ugh!

After considering my options before I left Italy, I e-mailed my travel agent to see whether the airlines might play nice and cut me some slack. That got me nowhere. I really didn't want to travel again right away. So, I considered paring down my stay to one week, but, even changing my flight would cost me $350 in penalties. In the end, I decided to just make the best of it and go to Austria for the two weeks. What will follow in the next few days is about that.