Another Thursday, another castle

Welcome to another Austrian holiday. What for? Who knows. I've asked three Austrians and none had any idea what the day actually celebrated. Regardless, Austrians got the day off while the UN still ran like a well-oiled machine.

I did little to forestall transnational threats today, but I did create a document that outlines everything the UNODC has done to increase the capacity of national criminal justice systems to effectively combat terrorism. Don't let anyone ever tell you that UN is too bureaucratic to get anything done - substantive work is being done. I have the Excel spreadsheet to prove it.

In non-work news, I made a trip to Belvedere, a former Hapsburg summer palace located right in Vienna (see above). Only a month into living here and local attractions are already becoming blasé - like, "Christ. If this castle wasn't in the middle of this damn park, it would be a straight shot to the nearest subway station." The promiscuous sphinxes that littered the Belvedere's gardens really caught me off guard.

And just a few steps from the entrance to Belvedere was Schwarzenberg Square, which houses a monumemt commemorating the Allied victory over the Nazis in World War II. (And did you know that much like in Berlin, the Allied powers divided up Vienna among one another during the immediate post-war period? The Soviet Union thus claimed a part of Vienna.) In the picture below, you'll see a statue of Soviet soldiers with a Russian inscription underneath. If you're not related to me and you're still reading at this point, congratulations.