An Austrian from Vienna, in short, would drive a good Prussian resident of Berlin, stark raving; and vice versa. Just one thing. Tipping. I have never seen such a tip-conscious people. Everybody tips everybody. I have a theory that in the old days, the Emperor used to tip the kings and princes under him. They in turn tipped the dukes, barons, counts (and no-accounts) under them. Who in turn tipped the businessmen and shopkeepers. Who in turn tipped the waiters, hotel employees and such. Who in turn tipped everyone with whom they dealt. But whether or not this was the way it was in the old days, that's the way it is today. Perhaps it all works out the same in the end for the Austrians. You tip and get tipped. At the end of the day you're even. But for a foreigner in the country all I can say is keep a big pocketful of change and don't forget such folk as streetcar conductors, the mail man, the shop girl, the service station attendant and the theatre usher. § MONEY. The Austrian shilling is now quite hard. The official rate is 25.44 to the dollar while on the free markets of New York or Switzerland you can get 29.90 at this writing. This advantage is hardly enough to bother with unless you are dealing in rather large amounts. That is, if you decided to buy a fifty thousand dollar home in Austria it would be well worth your while to stop off in Switzerland where you would get an extra 46 grochen for each dollar, or, on $5,000 an extra $92. It is now quite legal to bring unlimited amounts of shillings into the country so no law would be broken by such importation. You are also allowed to bring as much foreign money into the country as you wish, but are only allowed to take 10,000 shillings out of Austria on your departure. One hundred grochen makes one shilling and one shilling is worth just about 60 in American money. Coins come in 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 grochen denominations and 1, 2, 5, and 25 shillings. Paper money starts with a 10 shillings note and there are 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1,000 notes as well.
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