Regarding rules, Austria strikes me as a country with often Kafkaesque bureaucracies at every level of life, so rules might be important in that way, but otherwise they seem to be bent quite often from what I can see.

Sometimes I wonder whether Austria’s geographical location between Germany, Italy and East Europe has anything to do with it. I usually wonder this while driving, when Austrians seem to combine qualities associated with those areas. (Germany: driving Mercedes fast; Italian disregard for rules and an Eastern European death wish.*)

*Some eastern european countries used to have a high suicide rate. I don’t know whether this is still true.

On the subject of hundred Euro notes: I had two which somehow got caught in the zipper of my wallet, and were each torn into six pieces by the time I got them out. The clerk at the gift shop of the Art History Museum very kindly helped me scotch tape them back together, and then accepted one in payment for some things I was buying. The other one people looked askance at and told me to take to a bank, which I finally did. It was held up to the light, put through all sorts of tests, and ultimately replaced. I though the whole exerience was kinda funny;… (but nobody said they couldn’t change it).

Oh, and if one is to believe the guide books, Austrians are people who follow rules (?)