Bush in Vienna

Yep, George Bush just paid a visit to Vienna, Austria along with his wife and C. Rice. It was a pretty big deal. I think the meetings were with Austrian leaders as well as EU leaders - the UN European headquarters is here. Anyhow, it has been 27 years since a US president has visited Austria. I guess that would mean Jimmy Carter was the last one??

Anyhow, I heard about how an entire hotel (one of the nicest in Vienna) was totally taken over by US officials and that 600 secret service agents checked the whole place out for weeks ahead of time. This is all for a 24 hour visit (one night in the hotel). On top of that, there were all kinds of roads closed to traffic and pedestrians. AND, it just so happens that the path which the motorcade took with Bush went by our building twice. They closed the street twice to traffic and pedestrians. Policemen were everywhere - in cars, motorcycles, helicopters (which are rare here), boats along the river, etc. It was an amazing amount of hoopla, especially for such a slow paced country of 8 million people that are much less violent than the US and love to just watch anything. Zooming by our apartment building was about 6 police motorcycles and 2 police trucks. Then some time. Then another group of the same size. Then some more time. Then 10 motorcycles, a few police trucks, some BMWs with sirens and black windows, then some big American cars with sirens and black windows, then 3 limos with American and Austrian flags sandwiched between 5 or 6 Suburbans (which you never see here), followed by more BMWs, Cadillacs (not found in Austria), police cars, ambulances, very American looking huge SUVs, more police motorcycles, Austrian police trucks, Austrian ambulance, huge busses, more police,.... I mean this was just insane. I've never seen so many people peeping out of their windows in my neighborhood (some of them wearing just about nothing because thats normal when it's hot). I wanted to video tape it or take pictures, but I didn't have the best angle out our window and I couldn't get out of my building to see since the roads were closed to pedestrians.

By the way, Bush is in the picutres with the Austrian president Heinz Fischer and the Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel. Enjoy the other pictures. :)