Inspiration, Round 3

It's become something of a tradition for me to express my thoughts about my imminent departure in the form of a song lyric I can't get out of my head. This summer is no exception, as I've been haunted by the first lines of a song from, of all things, Pocahontas--the most American of Disney movies. It comes to me as I flip through GRE vocabulary flash cards, as my feet pound the track of my former high school on a run, as I slowly but surely fill my suitcases with clothes, books, and other items I can't bear to leave behind:

What I love most about rivers is
You can't step in the same river twice
The water's always changing, always flowing

I wanted to return to Austria partly because I feel comfortable there. I know that train tickets are much cheaper when you have a VORTEILScard (although it has always been unclear to me why it couldn't just be called a Vorteilskarte), that you have to move it in the grocery store checkout line if you don't want the customers behind you flashing you increasingly dirty looks, that almost anything can be found somewhere along Mariahilferstraße, and that THERE IS NO FUCKING U5 (seriously, oida, what the fuck?).

But you can't step in the same river twice. Austria will have changed in the thirteen months since I've been there, and more importantly, I've changed as well. A lot of times I feel like I'm in a relationship with Austria. Well, we've been on hiatus for over a year now, and now I've decided to try to rekindle things. But there's no way of knowing whether sparks will fly this time as they have in the past. I've met plenty of expats in Austria who absolutely hate the place, and I don't want to become one of them. I have loved Austria, and I want to believe I will love it again. But a part of me--the part of me that doesn't even believe in love--wonders whether that's even possible.

What I Did During My Summer Vacation

The Harvard Office of International Programs wanted me to write a final grant report detailing what I learned during my summer abroad. (They seem less interested in more concrete things, such as receipts to prove I actually went to Austria.) I've posted it in all its thanks-for-the-money glory after the jump.

Verabschiedung

Wie fühle ich mich bezüglich meiner Heimreise? Letztes Mal habe ich immer „gemischte Gefühle“ gesagt, obwohl die ehrliche Antwort war, dass ich einen Panikanfall gekriegt habe, jedes Mal ich daran gedacht habe. Diesmal habe ich mich nicht so gefühlt. Vielleicht geht es darum, dass ich das erste Mal unsicher war, ob ich ja mal im Leben zurückkommen würde. Und ich habe es nach knapp 4 Monaten geschafft, was mir gezeigt hat, dass ich ja zu jeder Zeit in Österreich wohnen könnte, wenn das mir mal am wichtigsten wäre. Und deswegen habe ich diesmal keine Panik gehabt. Ich habe einen Absicht in Amerika: Mein Studium fertig zu machen, damit ich als qualifizierte Arbeitskraft nach Österreich kommen dürfte. Ich habe einen Plan und eine Auswahl; ich bin nicht für immer gegen meinen Willen in Amerika exiliert. Und daher fühlte ich mich lockerer.

Dachte ich.

Prater in Pictures

On Monday, the student assistants at my work took what is quickly becoming an annual trip to Prater, an amusement park in Wien, to celebrate the end of the semester. We rode the amusement park rides -- which were pretty comparable to Kennywood, with the exception of a distinct lack of large roller coasters -- and then ate dinner at Schweizerhaus, a restaurant in Prater known for its Stelze.

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.