Breaking Dawn

This weekend I went to Forks.

It was a quick visit, but even through the fog (you know how that Washington weather can be!) I managed to see a lot. KIDDING! I know I had you fooled and jealous (and by you I mean Meggy O'Roark, Ellie Feitl, and Sarah Gianopoulos, of course), but look at those pictures and tell me you don't get excited about the movie New Moon. The second picture is the spitting image of the field where the Cullens play baseball. Have the connections my mind makes between Austria and familiar places progressed to full-on delusions?

While I didn't visit Twilight-central, I did do something else very exciting and probably more beneficial this weekend. I MADE FRIENDS!

As I was standing in line to get my student ID a few weeks ago I met a girl from the Czech Republic named Michaela. She was really friendly and asked me if I wanted to come with her and a group of other international students on a day trip the following Sunday. I was so excited to be making a friend and so flustered by having to do it in German that I didn't actually hear where she said we were going, and by the time I realized this had already enthusiastically (with my signature "my German may be bad but at least I can smile really big at you!" grin plastered across my face) agreed to come along and would have looked even more stupid had I asked for her to repeat where we were going.

It turned out that we were supposed to go to cave nearby (which I'm sure had nothing on Indiana's most popular natural attraction, Marengo Cave- shout out to Mrs. Racster), and I ended up not going because I was exhausted from the previous day's excursion to Carinthia. Luckily, though, Michaela is persistent and super-friendly, and she kept inviting me to do things. Like going hiking on a nearby mountain called the Schöckl yesterday.

We left around 9 AM and hiked all the way up to the Spitze (that's "summit" for all of you Anglophones). The trails here are marked with Austrian flags painted on rocks and trees, which you can see in this picture. I'm sure the view from the top would have been beautiful had it not been so foggy (the word "Nebel" (fog) is forever engraved upon my brain), but I was happy to go out and do something and practiced lots of German. Most of these students are Czech, Slovak, or Slovenian, so while I might end up speaking German with a slavic accent, at least people won't respond to me in English.

It was so cold at the summit that we went to a Gasthaus (which Michaela, Katka, and I are standing outside of in the picture) and had hot chocolate and soup (Gemütlichkeit, anyone?). I had cream of pumpkin soup because Styria is world-renowned for its pumpkin seed oil, which I had never heard of before but actually kind of enjoy. We didn't spend much more time at the top because of the cold and the fact that we could barely see 15 feet in front of us, but the hiking itself was really good exercise. I was exhausted at the end of the day but in a good, I-just-spent-the-day-at-Holiday-World kind of way.

This weekend was also important because my roommate Yasha had a birthday (he's the Latvian violinist that I told every one was Polish...oops). He turned 21 so Laura (Italian roommate) and I baked him a cake. Yasha is on the right, Laura is in the middle, and Zach (from Texas) is sitting next to me. At one point every one was wearing the Sponge Bob birthday hats I bought at the Allerlei 1€ store (roughly translated as "Everything's €1!" it's tied with Interspar- which is as close to Target as you can get and thus where I go when I'm homesick because it reminds me of the US- as my favorite store in Graz). I'm not sure why Zach and Laura took theirs off, but I doubt that they would have preferred Winnie the Pooh, which was the only other option.

To top off this wunder-weekend, Monday was the Austrian National Holiday (celebrating what neither the Austrians nor I know), and because I have Fridays off anyway it was a 4 day weekend for me. Thus, we'll end this on a high note, with a group shot of my new Slavic friends.

Dance, Monkey, Dance!

Every week seems to carry with it a lesson. This week I learned that shame is a luxury you just don't have in foreign countries.

Example 1) When people ask if they should speak English or German with me, I usually ask that we speak German so I can practice (and validate my degree, but that's another story). We then go on to have a fairly nice, if considerably choppy on my part, conversation in German. This exchange has taken place between me and many, many people, including teachers from both the gymnasium and fashion school, students I've met at the university, and my landlady.

I was proud of myself for asking to speak in German, as most Austrians are VERY eager to practice their English. More than once after people hear my American accent I've become engaged in a battle of wills in which I speak German and am responded to in English for at least a few minutes. At first I took the easy way out and spoke English, but as I assimilate more and more I become more Austrian and therefore more direct and assertive (read: throw my manners out the window) and have been more persistent. If you're keeping track of my daily struggles and have turned this into something not only personal but also patriotic like I have (with every small victory I tell myself I'm making my country proud), this would bring the score up to something like Austria: 483 the US:2 (we first scored when I successfully fought Mrs. "We've Never Done It that Way" to change my schedule).

I was feeling very pleased with myself, empowered even, after convincing a few Austrians to speak English with me. That is, until I made the mistake of looking up "to practice" in an online dictionary. I was really just wondering if the "u" in the German word had umlauts or not, but was confused when the search results didn't return the word "übeln", but rather "üben."

This may not seem like that big of a difference, and it wouldn't have been if the word "übel" didn't mean "evil." While the verb "übeln" doesn't really exist and is basically a word I made up, it would still be understood as the verb form of "übel." Instead of telling people that I want to practice my German, I've been telling them that I want to speak German in order to be evil. AND NO ONE CORRECTED ME! OR EVEN LAUGHED (remember what I said about Austrian humor?)!

Example 2) The other day I was in a class of 13 year olds, who I made the mistake of telling that I spoke a little German. A pre-pubescent boy in the back asked me to say some ridiculously long German word with lots of umlauts and long strings of consonants. At first I had the urge to say no because we were in English class and should speak English. I reconsidered, though and realized that I couldn't expect the students to try to say difficult words in English (or even just the "th" sound) if I weren't willing to do the same and decided to set an example by trying to say this word.

I cleared my throat, mentally prepared, and in my best guttural Austrian accent repeated the word back to the boy, ready to pat myself on the back and thinking I had done a pretty good job.

"Aw, that was sweet," he replied with a sympathetic and amused smile.

What conclusion can we draw from these two examples? That to the Austrians I'm an endless source of entertainment, that's what. I can only imagine that they didn't correct my "evil" mistake because they were either afraid of me, or more likely, they really enjoyed it, just as the 13 year old loved listening to the poor American mangle the German language.

It's almost as if people seek entertainment from me. I'm not sure if this is because they watch too many American movies and TV shows and therefore equate all things American with all things entertaining, or if I'm just inherently amusing, but in this country I'm akin to a dancing bear. This is humbling and a great chance for me to laugh at myself and practice self-correction, as the Austrians don't seem to be willing to help me with either. Austria: 484 the US: 2

Yea Österreich's Right

While I know that there are many differences between the Appalachian Mountains and the Alps, and while I'm very well aware that Tennesse is thousands of miles away from Austria, every once in a while something catches my eye and I can't help but be reminded of Sewanee.

These may seem to be a bit of a stretch, but here are some examples...

The first picture is the view of Cowan from the cross at Sewanee, and the second is a little Austrian farming willage. Sure, the mountains in Tennessee roll more gently, and sure, the picture of Cowan is admittedly bad, but if you're at all familiar with the view in Sewanee just work with me.





While I rarely went on hikes at Sewanee (I was too busy having quiet time [read: napping] or reading German literature [read: Wikipediaing it]), I did walk from Morgan's Steep to the Cross quite a few times, and a few overhangs on the hike up to the Rosaliengrotte in Hemmaberg reminded me of it. While the Austrians were busy sexually harrassing each other with jokes about virgins I was busy taking pictures. Picture 1 is Sewanee, picture 2 is Austria.
Even the most amateur geologist would probably be quick to point out that the two rock formations are completely unrelated, but to me there's something very similar about them.





Maybe it's because it was one of the first places I really enjoyed being outside (the Dust Bowl in our backyard wasn't the best introduction to nature), or maybe it's because it's the place that's most recent and fresh in my memory, but I see elements of Sewanee everywhere. Rest assured, though, that any feelings of homesickness (or Sewanee-sickness) accompanying these moments is quickly cured with a round of emotional eating (this week's session featured a tub of Spar brand "Schoko Becher" ice cream eaten using a cookie as a spoon).

Einführung in die Gemütlichkeit

Yesterday I went on a 13 1/2 hour long excursion to Kärnten (Carinthia) with the teachers from the Akademisches Gymnasium (the college-track high school I'm teaching at). About 3/4 of what we saw was lost on me, due to a combination of tour guides who spoke in light-speed dialect and extreme tiredness on my part, but I did learn a lot about Austria and what it means to be Austrian, which in general seems to be an elusive topic.

The focus of the day seemed to be on Gemütlichkeit, which was a word I didn't really fully understand until today. We don't have a corresponding term in English, but I knew it meant something like "contentedness" or "comfort." Today I discovered the more nuanced aspects of its definition, and because we visited SO MANY places, I'll use them to help unpack the details.

We started at Hemmaberg. Because I can read a clock I know that this place is about an hour and a half from Graz by bus, but I don't know any of the background info that was communicated over the loudspeaker. It was up in the mountains (big surprise) and had a very Heidi feel to it (Gemütlichkeit, Evidence 1: hills that are alive... with the sound of music).

Here we went to a museum. This museum was dedicated to displaying artifacts from the excavation of 5th century churches and other buildings, but I didn't figure that out until we hiked up a large hill to actually see the ruins. The apse of one of the churches is to the upper left. Something was said about there being two churches here because of the early debate between the Roman and Aryan churches (thank you Dr. Huber for equipping me with enough church history to pick up on that even in German), but I don't know any details about that... or anything else that happened yesterday. Here you can see the apse of one of the churches, and the hills in the background (cue Julie Andrews). There was also a small Gothic, white-washed church (the Pilgrimage Church of Saint Hemma) that made for great pictures both inside and out.

I also learned a (very) little bit of folklore today. Here's what I caught from the 10 minute story:
Once upon a time there was a virgin being chased through a forest by a man. She fell down a hole and a holy person caught her. The end.

Today that hole is called the Rosaliengrotte (from context clues I learned that the virgin's name was Rosalie) and houses a small chapel (not visible in the picture). It's said that if a virgin jumps down it she will land unharmed. This was a little too superstitious for me (which is saying a lot, considering that I rub a Madonna and Child medallion during flights and believe in the healing power of my green comfort cardigan), but the Austrian teachers loved it (Gemütlichkeit, Evidence 2: folklore and tradition). The men proceeded to make awkward jokes about pushing the women down the well, and I lamented the fact that Austrian humor is no better than German humor (note: sexual harrassment is not an aspect of Gemütlichkeit).

Austria would probably claim to be the birthplace of Gemütlichkeit, but as I learned today it is probably also the birthplace of kitsch. Even more interestingly, the two terms are NOT mutually exclusive. The house pictured below is the private residence of a man who is apparently committed to collecting the kind of concrete lawn statues you buy on the side of the highway (or in the parking lot of Harp's Pets when they're not selling "real" Omaha steaks), but couldn't decide if he liked Victorian or baroque architecture more. I think I heard that the house is full of Elvis on Velvets, the owner probably wears socks with sandals, and I'm sure there was a mirror ball somewhere in the yard. In short, it was tacky. BUT, it had a gemütlich feel to it (Gemütlichkeit, Evidence 3: the symbiosis of comfort and kitsch). The Gasthaus we ate lunch at was very similar to this, with a roaring fire in a metal and electric fireplace and bathroom sinks made out of whiskey barrels. A more familiar example of this aspect of Gemütlichkeit would be Hummel figurines. They're kitschy, yes, but darn it if they don't add an extra ounce of coziness to the floral-patterned living rooms of grandmothers across the US.

After lunch we had a complete change of pace and visited a private collection of modern Austrian art, housed in the Museum Liaunig (named after the man who owns the art) in Neuhaus, about 30 minutes away. There wasn't much Gemütlichkeit there, and I didn't really get much out of it because 1)modern art is almost always lost on me and 2) at this point I was counting down the hours until I could speak English again, so I won't say much about it, but will post a picture. The building itself was interesting, as it was mostly underground and extended out from a small hill over the road.

All in all it was a good, informative, and interesting day. I learned the meaning of at least one more German word, so I'll file it as a success. If you still don't understand Gemütlichkeit, think of sitting by a fire (whether it be live or recorded on VHS) on a cold winter's day, curled up with your favorite Hummel figurine and a warm cup of Kaffee, gazing at a sweeping Alpine vista in the company of a few of your favorite Austrians. Mirror balls and kitschy houses aside, after a day of experiencing it, I can see why they like it.