In the middle of November, I wrote a blog post which unfortunately was lost to the depths of the Web when my Internet connection went dead. In it, I remember opining that I would probably first feel totally at home in Austria at my goodbye party, when I would realize that I actually was a valued member of Haus Salzburg for the short time I was there. I'm not quite ready to take my leave yet, but it is true that I both feel totally at home here and finally feel like the Austrians I know see me as someone who belongs here. A few vignettes from the weekend will show you what I mean.
On Friday night, I was mistaken for an Austrian for the first time. I went out to a bar with a mixed group of Americans from my program and some of their Austrian roommates and friends. After about an hour, I said something to Jessica about something in America, and one of the Austrians (who I had just met that evening) turned and said to me, "But you're Austrian, right?" "No, of course not," I said. "Oh," Martin said, "Weird. At the beginning of the night I thought you were American, but then I heard you speak German, and I thought that you had to be Austrian because of your accent." (It's true. I speak in full Austrian dialect after I drink. It even sounds strange to me sometimes, but my sober, American-accented German also sounds strange to me, so you really can't win for losing.) And the same thing happened again later that night, when we met two other students from our dorm at the same bar. I'm actually really feel proud of myself, because I felt myself contributing to the conversation (about whether Austria should reform the Bundesheer into a career army, which is being discussed at the moment), even though it was three in the morning (when my understanding of German normally flies out the window) and even though I didn't know the people that well (which usually makes my shyness kick in).
I didn't really interact with anyone on Saturday, because I was stuck in a one-credit theater workshop with Central College Abroad for eight hours. Being there made me really glad I didn't take more courses with Central College Abroad -- there are only seven of us in the program total, of which five of us are designated "advanced," but in reality our language levels are so different that having class together doesn't really work out. I felt like I was not being held to high enough of a standard linguistically, because I have really gotten used to taking class exclusively with native and fluent German speakers.
But eight hours of class is eight hours of class, and I was definitely feeling drained by Sunday. Part of me wanted to sulk / recharge in my room alone, but I had to visit my the house of the family whose twelve-year-old Florian I tutor in English at 10am. I made him some grammar exercises the way I always have for my brothers: using familiar people, places, things, and jokes to make the topic more relatable and interesting. Flo's a great kid, but he's normally not very motivated to practice English. Yesterday, however, he was on fire, and he told me that I was the best tutor of the three he's had, because the others were always so boring, and I made the hours fun. After studying with him for two hours, I was invited to eat lunch and Apfelstrudel with Flo's family and their neighbors downstairs, where we spent a few hours just talking "among the adults."
Shortly after I arrived back, I heard a knock on my dorm room door. "Hey," said Marco, who lives across the hall from me and loves American food, "I just got up. Do you want to make cheese steaks finally?" It was for Marco that I had carried a glass jar of Cheez Whiz halfway around the world (even though the stuff kind of makes me gag), because Marco is a basketball player and 76ers fan who had told me multiple times that he had always dreamed of eating a Philly cheese steak. And that's what we did. They didn't taste super-authentic, because we used Semmeln instead of hoagie buns (yet another concept that doesn't exist here), and because the steak (even though I told Marco to buy the cheapest stuff) was of a much higher quality than normal, but it was certainly fun to make them and get weird looks from everyone else who passed through the kitchen to cook their own dinners. They also didn't agree with my digestive system, but I think Marco liked them, because he said he wanted to cook cheese steaks for his parents, who got married in Las Vegas and are "super America fans," with the rest of the Cheez Whiz.
After returning to my room and doing a little course reading, I was surprised with another knock on the door of my dorm room. It was Mario, also from my floor, asking if I had time to go over his corrections to the report I had written for one of my classes and he had offered to correct. I was touched by his willingness to help me out, and even more happy to find out that one of his "corrections" was actually wrong, and that I had actually used the right word for the situation. He also said a couple times that he liked my writing style, which was really cool, because I didn't think I had a writing style in German other than "foreigner." I do have an ear for language, though, and it's cool to finally see my German making use of that ear for something other than "which article is correct in this situation." After doing homework, we sat in my dorm for a few more hours, showing each other around our hometowns (Google Earth-style!) and generally shooting the breeze.
I still hate speaking in my classes, because I feel like nobody signed up to hear this halting German speaker trying to say something, and I can sometimes feel my classmates' looks of pity when I have to give a presentation. But in Haus Salzburg, I am reminded that it can't be that extreme. After all, my Austrian floormates seek me out for conversation. I might not speak as eloquently as I can in English / at Harvard, but I'm still a person with worthwhile, interesting, and occasionally funny things to say.
No comments:
Post a Comment