Lauren Brassaw

It’s harvest season, and if you’re looking for a change from the same old Heurigen of Vienna, you might venture out into one of the oldest and longest lasting, wine treasures of central Europe, just a short drive to the east. It’s a treasure called the Kráľová, or King-region, of Slovakia.

The origins of the First World War are often explained by a few cameos of emerging crises. It was after those shattering two shots piercing the Gräf & Stift Bois de Boulogne touring car in which Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were riding at the time of their assassination that brought about the disintegration of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and threw the great European empires into a frenzy of self-destruction.

But this history lesson, according to some, doesn’t encompass the structural problems that could have been at fault in the lead-up to the conflict. Improved institutional management and better military control, for example, could have played an important role in curbing the rise of radical nationalism and seemingly inevitable armed conflict.

After a five months vacancy, financier and businessman William Eacho was nominated on Jun. 25 as the new U.S. ambassador to Austria.

A graduate of Harvard, Eacho (55) has no previous diplomatic experience, but as with many other current and past diplomatic appointments to the so-called “safe countries” of the EU and former British commonwealth, he represents a choice in the U.S. tradition of citizen government. He has also long been active in Democratic politics and is reported to have contributed more than $500,000 to the Obama campaign, consistent with at least nine of the other 14 that landed ambassadorships.

Since the inauguration in January, President Barack Obama has appointed fourteen new U.S. ambassadors, each of which was a large campaign contributor.

Got the travel bug, but no dough? Smitten with wanderlust without the wherewithal? Consider CouchSurfing, a remarkable recent development in Bargain Bohemianism: a chance to avoid all those high-cost resorts or hostel nightmares and stay with the locals, where you get a bed, a few insider tips, a little culture mapping and a bit of companionship –and all free of charge.

So think of this article as a kind of Hitchhiker’s Guide to Hospitality – an introduction to bed-crashing your way around the world, to dabbling in inter-cultural exchange, and at best, to coming away having made some new friends abroad.

Looking different, sounding different and coming from somewhere else often make you suspect in Vienna, according to a damning new report by the human rights watchdog Amnesty International (A.I.) released Apr. 9.

“Institutional racism is permeating the Austrian police force and other parts of the country’s criminal justice system,” the report said. The organization is calling for urgent action to ensure equality in police and judicial entities to all people, despite their ethnic origin or skin color.

Anti-Semitism appears to be gaining ground again in Europe threatening to undermine fundamental European values, according to a recent report by a European Union agency.

Based on data collected between 2001 and 2008, the report, published in February by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (EUFRA) in Vienna, noted “new characteristics,” that combine traditional stereotypes with new types of perpetrators and manners of dissemination.