Back Again

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I'm back in the computer place and am going to first excuse myself is I sound a little annoyed at the moment. There's a man sitting right behind me talking through a webcam and SCREAMING in Slovene. The owner, a nice little Indian woman, doesn't really know what to do 'cause you can't even hear yourself think he's screaming so loud. I might just turn around and deck him, haven't quite decided yet.

Anywho, since we last spoke, I went on a little adventure, in an attempt to find a place that might sell an adapter. Like I said, since it's Sonntag, just about everything is closed. I did have to get some questions answered, though, for homework, and was also looking for a bakery, as I needed to find what something called a Sessel was (we were told it was food). I found a place in the Hauptplatz that was sort of like a cart, except not really, bigger than that. A nice little old Frau was working, so I politely stepped forward and said, "Könnte ich ihnen bitte einige Fragen stellen?" Could I please ask you some question? She said of course, and I asked her, "Haben Sie dann keine Sessel?" Oops. Instead of asking if she had any SEMMEL, I instead asked her if she had any chairs. Nice. She got a good laugh out of it once we figured out why she wasn't quite understand me when I was talking about chairs, you know, that thing you eat, something from a bakery. She was very nice, though, and answered more of the questions than I'd bargained. Can't complain about that!

I think I'll also take some time now to talk about some of the quirks of die österreichische Kultur. Austrians are very very very proud of their culture, heritage, language, etc. They are very very very distraught that they are often believed to be the same as Germans, and for in that respect, they also hate their language, which is why they've created so many terms and phrases totally their own, as well as have changed entire the pronunication of words. For instance, in Hochdeutsch, High German, the standard kind taught in every school in German-speaking countries, one would say, "Was möchten wir jetzt tun?" for What'd we like to do now? Instead, the Austrians say, "Woas moh ma?" What would we like? I have no idea how "ma" in Austrian came out of "wir" in German (both mean "we"), but so it goes. There are lots of little quirks like that, and they'd all take too long to explain, and there are so many more I have yet to encounter.

Another thing that makes me laugh is that whenever the topic of German or "those Germans" comes up, Austrians always point up, like they're pointing towards Germany on a map. It's pretty entertaining to see.

Austrian Hochschulestudenten (high school students) are very odd. The college kids all seem to dress more or less like Americans, just a little more dressy than us, but for the high school ones, it's a whole new playing field. They try to be as weird as they possibly can, wearing all kinds of wild clothes, lots of piercings, crazy haircuts. It's pretty ridiculous to see. It's also fashionable to have music on your cell phone and walk down the street it groups of 2-3 and blast the music as you go. When it's English music (which it typically is), it's usually awful. I asked an Austrian girl, Enna, about it, who is a college student in Graz, and she said Austrians prefer to listen to music in English since they don't understand it. They don't like knowing the meaning behind the words and having to think about things. Plus, they don't think German is very pretty in songs. Instead, they'd rather listen to music in English and not worry about it.

Austrians are also very proud of their diversity, but also very nervous about it. In case you didn't know, Austria is the second most diverse country in the world. I know, it came as a shock to me, too. Here I was thinking about the blonde haired, blue-eyed Fraulein from the Alps came down yodeling and holding pitchers of beer, while the men played their instruments and danced in their Lederhosen. A bit of a letdown, eh? Instead, there are people here from all over Eastern Europe especially (see the location of Graz on a map), as well as from Africa and Asia (India). Of course, like in all German-speaking countries, the damn Turks are everywhere, and absolutely nobody likes them. They like to think they're these "badboys" and are really tough and whatnot, and instead just come off as idiots.

Hm, well, I don't know what else there is to explain still. Hmm hmm hmm. Ah yes, my address!

Matthew Greene
Fröbelgasse 34 / 12
Graz 8020
Austria (Österreich)

That should be the right way to write it. As well, I apparently wrote my phone number the wrong way for international calls. I'm not sure how, you'll have to ask Dad, unless you can figure it out yourself, though I don't recommend calling me on it, as it will be pretty expensive for you. Apparently there are too many zeros. I can't remember my number off the top of my head, but I know at least that the Austrian country code is +43.

Well, that's about it for now. I register as an official student in the University tomorrow! I guess for the next few hours I'm gonna go spend some time reading New Moon, since I finished Twilight last night.

Bis spät!


p.s. I remembered one last thing! Absolutely nobody in Austria knows The Sound of Music. Nobody. That is, unless they've gone to one of the English-speaking countries. Pretty amazing, but the truth all the same.

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