Reading (For Dummies)

Austria

Just got back from Austria.

F'ing BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY. I didn't bring my camera because, well, I once again question my motives behind photos. And this weekend was about being unplugged. No laptop, no handy, no camera. Just me, my brain, my german dictionary, and some clothes.

I had some grand expectations about going to Ferri's parents' house this weekend. I pictured sitting around a table with some wine, with intelligent people speaking in broken half-english/half-german, sharing views of the world. What I got was a group of intelligent people, sitting around a table, drinking wine, speaking in broken half-english/half-german, sharing views of the world. It was beautiful; perhaps the first time my expectations of a social situation were met completely.

Ferri's father was celebrating his 60th birthday over the weekend in their hometown of Klagenfurt, Carinthia, perhaps the last place in the world untouched by Western rudeness and pollution. Strangers say hello on the streets and mean it; the view out the Leberl's window is full of mountains in the Austrian Alps that gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning. His sister is finishing her PhD in biology, doing stem cell research (which is fairly impossible to do in the US). She is married to a doctor, and has a little baby girl that runs around with a puzzle of a scuba diver screaming "papa!" His mother is from Holland and fluent in French, Dutch, and German, and speaks pretty good English to boot.

The Austrians seem have gotten over the German/English thing a lot better than the Germans. Ferri and I are at the gas station and I go to pay for the gas. "Luft Vier," I say, and the gas attendant says "Which pump? Oh, four. Okay, that'll be 36.34. And here you go, 3.66 is your change," in fine English. They don't mind that my German sucks (in contrast to the Dresden workers/government officials, who seem a little offended [almost French] when I pronounce things wrong). They'd rather just go with what they know. I often wonder if I'm right in making such generalizations about these other countries, but this Austrian description just...fits...from my limited experience there.