Inspiration, Round 2

I'm already counting down the days (24 at the moment) until my triumphant return to Europe. Often, as my boots clack against the Harvard Square cobblestones on my way to class, lines from this song -- a half-remembered anthem of my parents' youth -- start running through my head. A fitting epigraph to a period of expectancy:

Well she was an American girl, raised on promises.
She couldn't help thinking that there was a little more to life somewhere else. 

In just a few weeks, I'll again be in pursuit of whatever it is I think I'm missing.

Grüß di ... But how?

Greetings are awkward. First of all, the customs are different in Austria and America: Americans hug, while Austrians do the double-cheek kiss. But that's just the start of the problems. As an American, my normal response would be to hug. But I know that Austrians find it weird to get body-shoved into someone, so I don't wanna do that. The Austrian I'm greeting would normally go for the bussi-bussi, but knows I don't like to put my lips on people unless I'm trying to crawl in bed with them. So neither of us makes the first move, trying not to make the other one uncomfortable. And we just end up feeling unsatisfied, as if we actually don't give a shit about each other, even though that's not true at all.