The red bars on the Austrian flag don't represent blood.

Yeah, that's the red tape. Because the medical exam and tests I paid $280 for in the U.S. wasn't on the proper form, it has to be completely redone here, at a potential cost of $300. I cannot tell you how absolutely furious I am. This is bureaucratic bullshit designed specifically to keep immigrants out of the country. The U.S. does the same thing, but it's still retarded.

Finding this sort of thing out is really disheartening. It makes it hard to remember all the good things I've learned about Austria in the past couple of days. For example, last night we went to a Heuriger to drink Sturm and hang out. (Heuriger are small cold-food restaurants located on vineyards. They're open select days of the year in order to showcase the vineyard's wine. Sturm is a drink available only in the fall. It's fermented grape juice before it becomes wine. Tastes kind of like apple juice and hits you like a freight train about 30 minutes after you drink it. Excellent.) The Heuriger was adorable, all brick walls and wine paraphernalia, run by a 60-year-old woman and her husband. She siphoned Sturm out of the barrel with a special glass pipe, and was very attentive and happy to see us, even though we were a rather large and noisy group of Americans. Easy to forget sometimes that some Austrians, at least, like Americans.