Vienna - Signs of the City

(September 15th) Just a short post to close out the visit to Vienna.  Hopefully I've not left anything out in my previous posts, but we'll see if I suddenly remember something one day down the road. This post is a collection of the signs I came across in Vienna.  I've done the best that I can to provide accurate translations where possible, but some, quite obviously, speak for themselves.  Enjoy.

Don't be a Strabag.

Some background:  back around the turn of the millennium, my good friend Jeff from Gonzaga got a VW Beetle.  Playing on his last name, Strahota, the car was subsequently referred to as the Strabug.  Well, in wandering through Vienna, I came across signs, such as the one above, warning about the nefarious Strabag.  I think this one is pretty self evident.  Clearly, the sign indicates: 'don't be the guy who yells at someone with his hand in your face...' So, don't be a Strabag kiddos.

Hundeverbot.

Now, my German is a little rusty, but from looking at this sign and others like it, I believe the literal translation is: 'Hovering robo-dogs (Hundeverbots) are forbidden.'  Other signs like this are a bit more clear to interpret as the ground under the hovering robo-dog is often omitted, reinforcing the hovering part.  The other images here, especially the middle left, clearly indicates that in case of a storm, panic. This is quite in contrast to the British mentality that I've been immersed in for the last two months of 'Keep Calm and Carry On.'  In fact, I'm quite surprised that I've not come across a sign in England that states that, in case of thermonuclear war, carry on as normal.  I'd imagine, though, that it'd look something like this:

Support your local anarchist.

English.  No translation necessary.  This graffiti was all around the neighborhoods that I ran through.

Defenestration Point

At first, I was expecting to see a slash through these two images.  That would clearly indicate that you should neither jump out the window nor throw trash out the window.  However, neither on these nor other such images was a slash present.  Upon asking the locals that spoke passable English, I learned that this was a defenestration point on the high speed train.  When you really need to get out while the train is in motion, or when someone just is being a pain in the bum (I think I've been in England too long since words like that instantly come to mind) and you need to thrown them off the train, this is the proper point for defenestration.  As a suggestion, the adjacent sign is in place as a reminder that if you had to throw some rabble rouser out, you should consider throwing a bottle at them as well.

I know some of you that speak German out there might disagree with these translations, but, as far as I can tell, I've relayed to you the spirit of the signs.

Time to take the train to Fussen.