Today we went to the UN center in Vienna. I believe it’s one of four, the others being in New York, Montreal, and Tokyo. I could be wrong though. I thought one of the really interesting parts of the UN was when they were telling us about the translators. As you can imagine, when important people gather from all corners of the world to discuss the fate of nations, translators are crucial. The six official languages of the UN are English, Spanish, Russian, French, Arabic and Chinese. I think they said translators had to be fluent in at least two or three of them in addition to their mother tongue. They also said the translations in the UN were only about 2-3 seconds behind the conversation, which is amazing if you think about it. Translators are only allowed to work for half an hour at a time because the work is so exhausting. They can get the conversation translated into any language, to accommodate delegates from all over the world. Our guide told us a funny story. One Russian delegate was speaking to an international crowd, and most of them were listening to the translation. The Russian was of course speaking in Russian, and he made a joke that was funny in Russian, but would not translate well to another language. The translator said, “The Russian delegate is trying to make a joke. Please laugh politely.” The audience laughed and the Russian was pleased.
We had a presentation from a representative of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which was formed in the 50s and tries to keep tabs on all of the atomic energy being used around the globe. They can give nations advice regarding the thousands of peaceful uses of atomic energy. Of course they also try to make sure that no nations are converting fissile material is not diverted from peaceful purposes and used to make weapons of mass destruction. They really can’t police the world though. If they’re inspecting a nuclear facility and the local government forbids them to enter a certain building, they can’t enter it, and therefore can’t officially declare that nuclear weapons are being made illegally. So our speaker told me that though there are many suspicions, the only nations that have officially been found to be diverting nuclear material from peaceful purposes to WMD production are South Africa and North Korea, though South Africa dismantled its nuclear weapons program in the 70s, the only nation to have done so. The IAEA considered it a great accomplishment.
We broke for lunch, which we had in the UN cafeteria and which was super cheap. The food was all tax free and also subsidized by the UN, so we all enjoyed the cheapest meals we’d had since arriving. They were good, too. I think I remember a similar situation in the Congressional cafeteria in Washington, D.C. Apparently there’s also a grocery store with ridiculously cheap prices, but only delegates are allowed to shop there, not the interns and not us. The interns, by the way, can be from anywhere but I think were mostly Austrian, since they don’t have to worry about finding housing far from home or anything, which is helpful because the internship is unpaid. The guy I talked to was Austrian but not Viennese, and was doing the internship during his summer break from university.
After lunch was a human trafficking lecture from another UN organization. The speaker was far less charismatic than the IAEA speaker, she simply read the slides word for word. However, I did learn a great deal about human trafficking. It does not simply refer to prostitution, but can involve forced labor, black market organ harvesting, and other things.
After the UN I went home and ate, and then prepared to go find the statue of the founder of the first Viennese coffee house, to whom I owe great happiness. However, outside the apartment I met Kathy, Josh and Stephanie and was persuaded to accompany them to a beer garden in Ottakring. It was very good. Ironically, the large brewery in Ottakring, Ottakringer, which is sold in grocery stores and bars all over Austria, produces terrible, weak, not good beer. That brand is bad. But the small little beer gardens in Ottakring produce wonderful beer. I think our beer garden might have even been owned by the yucky brewery. Anyway good beer and Stephanie ordered this pumpkin seed dip, which was a surprising green color. I naively expected it to be orange. We also only got three pieces of bread for a large amount of tip, so we spread it pretty thickly. It turned out to be cheese-based and poor Stephanie is severely lactose intolerant, so Kathy paid for it and we ate it. The waiter misinterpreted an interaction with Josh, and twice they tried to bring him another beer and he sent it away.
After the beer garden we went to Siebenstern Brewery. It’s within walking distance of the apartment and produces its own good beer, so our group has been there several times. My favorite is the Rauchbier, or smoke beer. I ordered a liter of it.
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