That Other Place Where They Speak German

Daan, a friend of mine from Harvard by way of the Netherlands, is spending the summer in Frankfurt, Germany, working for Deutsche Bank and invited me to visit him during the first weekend in July. My expectations were kind of low -- Frankfurt was rebuilt after WWII to look new, rather than old, meaning that the entire city has a kind of 1950s-drab aesthetic. And when I told people in Vienna that I was going to Frankfurt, they gave me strange looks. (That could have just been the look they give everyone who suggests leaving Austria to go to the land of the Scheiß Piefkes, but I'd like to think Austrians are a bit more discerning in their hatred of Germans.)

But I found a lot to like in Frankfurt and in Hessen, even if the German German did start to grate at my ears after 24 hours.* 

Dreams Do Come True

Tracht -- traditional costumes (think Dirndls, Lederhosen, and the funny hats you wear while yodeling) --- is a huge point of social division in Austria. As my work colleague Marlene explained to me, "You either wear a Dirndl all the time, or you've never worn one."

And there are indeed people who wear Tracht just because they feel like it. My favorite example of this was at Donauinselfest, where I saw a teenager wearing a Slipknot t-shirt and a Lederhose. I just cannot fathom what went through his mind as he ruffled through his closet that morning: "Ok, so I'm going to a concert. I'll wear my heavy metal T-shirt, of course, but what should I wear on the bottom? Oh, right, my Lederhose! Great idea!" But such thoughts occur in the minds of Austrians more commonly than one would think, and I find that simply hilarious.

When I realized that Tracht has not disappeared from everyday life in Austria, it became my secret dream to see someone I knew in the traditional costume. My hopes were not very high: Sometimes a friend of mine from the dorm would come back from a weekend in their village with tagged photos of them on Facebook at some Dorffest in a Dirndl or Lederhose. But someone I knew, in Tracht, in the flesh? As my work colleague Andreas told me, "Wrong Bundesland." Tracht is conservative, traditional, rural -- everything Austrians are trying to avoid when they come to study in the Big City.

Bei ana Grüllarei san olle Leit dabei*

After Christmas, when the Christkindlmärkte packed up their wooden stands and disappeared from the city, I never thought I would find an Austrian activity to rival the Punschstände. But lo and behold, I just needed to wait a few months for the warmer weather, and with it, the beginning of grill season.

What's My Name Again?

In my original study abroad application, I wrote that I hoped experiencing life abroad would help me to better relate to the experiences of immigrants to the United States. And it has.* But I had always assumed I would never know what it was like to be not white in the United States, because white people are generally honored - not ridiculed - in Asian and African countries.

What I Did During Donauinselfest

The line up at the SJ-Bühne, where I spent a good deal of my time

What exactly is Donauinselfest? It's a free three-day music festival on the Donauinsel (as the name suggests, an island in the middle of the Danube) held over the Corpus Christi holiday weekend and one of the major events in town during the year. The Straßenbahn lines run late into the night, the U-Bahn comes more frequently, and it can feel like everyone in the city comes out for the party. Here's what I did:

Why I Broke my Promise

I recently spoke with an American who decided to attend the Uni Wien for his undergraduate studies. We had known each other cursorily last semester, having a few mutual friends and having one class together, and when I saw him again, I asked him how he had been doing. In English. Which surprised him.

Learning German: die Heimat

In a conversation with an Austrian girl at a party recently, she described Minnesota, where she had spent an exchange year during high school, as her "zweite (second) Heimat." And that struck me as strange, because a lot of times I don't feel like I have any Heimat at all.