OK, so, another year passed. I never update this thing. Probably because I don’t really enjoy blogging, I just enjoy
being able to read through it again.
Probably also because it is extremely hard to motivate yourself to do
anything when you have vast amounts of free time. I have notes of funny things from last year, but for now I
just want to do an Austria/America differences blog, since I think that is
normally something I think about a lot and something that is funny for
everyone. It’s also something
I get asked about a lot by teachers/students here, and I often struggle to find
an answer, because my day-to-day life here is not really any different than if
I were living in America. So it
will be nice to have this list of answers to fall back on, because there are
definitely differences, I just forget about them since it’s my second year here
and I am less surprised by it all.
First, some comparisons:
America: The customer service society. Nice waiters (working for tips),
helpful store clerks, the customer is always right, and if you are willing to
pay, things can get done as quickly as you would like. Also if you want to buy
something, you better believe someone will want to sell it to you, most likely
any time, day or night.
Austria: This is just not the case. Viennese waiters are infamous for being
rude, and in most of my experiences they are. They are usually being tipped ten percent max, but they are also
being paid a living wage, unlike in America, so they can’t really complain
about that. Sometimes you go to a
restaurant or café and sit there forever until someone takes your order. Nice part, I guess, is that you can
also lounge around there for as long as you want, even if you have finished,
without being bothered. If
you want to actually pay the bill and leave in a timely manner, though, expect
it to be pretty hard to flag down anyone that works there. On many occasions this has led to me
just going up to the cash register and handing them money (and even that
sometimes takes a while).
Also store hours are so inconvenient! They are regulated by the government,
so even if they wanted to stay open longer, they could not. Typically stores are open until 7pm
Mon-Wed, 8pm Thus-Fri, and 6 pm on Sat.
This includes grocery stores.
NOTHING is open on Sundays.
Ever. With the exception of
two grocery stores, which are open until 9 pm (this is considered late!), and
even then I’ve heard they are only allowed to sell food, meaning all non-food
products (toilet paper, etc) is put away or behind some sort of barrier. Austrian law. Also two grocery stores for the whole city of Vienna! It’s crazy. I’ve heard they are packed, too. Luckily, I have never had to resort to going there on
Sunday, and luckily, I have a flexible work schedule that allows me to shop in
the middle of the day on weekdays.
But seriously, how does everyone else do it?!
America: The idea of a “common courtesy”. You know what is common courtesy,
moving out of the way when someone wants to squeeze past you in an aisle of a store,
or on the escalator in the metro, etc.
People in America are aware of their surroundings and will move for you
without being asked.
Austria: One of
my biggest pet peeves! I swear
people here like deliberately stand in my way and block the aisle, or take up
the whole escalator. Really? I know I have all the time in the world
but I do not want to be spending it on this escalator, so please move! I have stood behind people staring at
them, waiting at them to move and they NEVER notice. I almost always have to ask for them to move; like you
didn’t think I just wanted to stand here in this section of the aisle all day
long, did you? Really?
America: Another
common courtesy thing – when a new register opens at a store, the person in the
front of the line, i.e. the one who has been waiting the longest, gets to go to
that new register. It just makes
sense!
Austria: When a
new register is opened, the person at the back of the line, who probably just
showed up there, goes to that register, and most often gets out of the store
before I have even put my things on the belt. REALLY?! This
really bugs me. Another pet peeve
about behavior here in Austria.
America: The land of free water, free refills, and free
bathrooms.
Austria: Good
luck finding any of those for free.
When you ask for water somewhere you will be handed expensive bottled water,
that is unless you order a coffee in a café, in which case it is customary to
receive a ridiculously small glass of tap water that resembles a thimble. This seems to be a normal glass size in
this country. How the whole place
isn’t severely dehydrated (also considering the amount of beer they drink) is
beyond me. Free refills is not a
concept anyone knows of here. Soda
is also crazy expensive anywhere other than a supermarket, and is usually more
than beer at any café or bar. I
don’t know how they produce that stuff here or what is in it to make it so much
more than it is in America. And
free bathrooms are just one of those European things that is hard to come
by. I refuse to pay for something
that is a basic human right!
America: Coupons/sales
deals galore! One of the things I
love most about America! I always
buy my clothes on sale, find it hard to spend more than 10 dollars on any
article of clothing, and like to have a coupon for every occasion. I’m hardly an extreme couponer – but I
would love to be! Not to mention Groupons,
and many other daily emails I get from email lists or deal finders. Groupon exists in Vienna, but it is
never that good.
Austria – Coupons here are a rare occurrence. They come out a few times a year, and
maximum savings are like 50 cents.
Sorry, but that is not a good deal. I want something that is like 75% off, but here in Austria,
I’ve never really seen anything more than 50% off. Even Christmas candy after January 1st, will sit
there in a bin for like 3 months with it’s 50% off stickers as the pile slowly
dwindles. In America that
stuff would be 90% off at that point (I know, because that is when I buy my
candy supply to take back to Europe for the rest of the year); they’d practically
be paying you to take it out of the store! I know it is silly, yes those candies usually have an
expiration date of a year later, but no one wants Christmas colored candy after
Christmas, so you have to get rid of it somehow!
Now some more general observations about Austria:
·
More religion in daily life, for example,
crosses in public school classrooms, all holidays are catholic, Christian
Christmas traditions are taught in public school, compulsory religion classes
in elementary school. Yes, there
is separation of church and state here, but oddly not in these realms. Also let’s not forget, the way to say
hello here in Austria is “Gruss Gott” or “greetings to God”.
Many students around election time questioned
me about why we cared so much about what religion our candidate was a part of,
when it just would never be spoken of in Austria. I also had a couple of students/teachers comment on Obama’s
use of “God bless America” at the end of all his speeches, saying that they
thought it was his religion seeping into politics. I thought it was really interesting how observant they were,
but also found it really odd that they think we are doing a bad job of keeping
religion out of politics when I look at their school system! I have brought this up to them, and
they react as if they had never even thought about these things as being
religious before. Some elementary school teachers I spoke with do say they ask
the students if it is OK if they teach Christmas in class, because classrooms
here are becoming more diverse now.
To them it is more tradition to teach this way, that is just the way
things have always been done, and with Christmas, for example, there is no way
to teach it in school here that does not touch on religion. Their Christmas traditions are the
religious traditions, unlike in America where we have all these fictional
secular Christmas characters (Santa
Claus, etc) that allow someone to celebrate without even know what the “true”
or traditional meaning is.
Christmas is celebrated very differently here, but more on that later!
·
Students standing when you enter the
classroom. Pretty self-explanatory. This doesn’t happen at university,
though, at least not at mine. But
anything younger than that, they will stand until you tell them to sit. Even for me! It made me feel really important. But also it was just weird.
·
People here say hi/bye a lot. Entering/leaving a store/restaurant, at
the cash register of any store, or even say, walking into a crowded waiting
room at a doctor’s office; you walk into that room of strangers and say hi, and
they will say hi back. It’s so
weird. I mean, nice, I guess. But I think I am just more used to
waving and/or smiling, and also not talking to strangers so much.
·
Apparently it’s OK to ask what race you are to
your face here… uh, what? I had
someone ask me if I was Jewish, because I looked Jewish. And I was like, excuse me? What does
that mean? And he like didn’t
understand my offended tone or why I would even ask him that. His answer: “I mean it in a good way, I
am Jewish”. So that makes it all
right? I thought that was a really
weird exchange, but when I brought it up with my roommate (it was her friend)
she said that was totally normal, and that people asked her where she was from
all the time (even though she has lived in Vienna her whole life, her dad is
Algerian). I told her in America
you just can’t ask someone that stuff (cue Mean Girls quote – “you can’t just
ask someone why they are white!”).
·
Dogs are EVERYWHERE. Much like France, people here love their dogs. They aren’t just on the streets or in
the parks, they are in the malls and stores and restaurants, too. And on the tram and U-Bahn
(metro). Sometimes they are even
off-leash, and still completely well behaved, never coming up to sniff or jump
on you, or bark at another dog. I
don’t get how these city dogs are so well behaved and ride the metro like a
person. I also don’t understand
the need to take your dog to the mall, but whatever. The restaurant thing, of course, still grosses me out.
·
EVERYONE smokes. Yes, you are not mistaken, it is the year 2012, and we are
in a highly developed Western European country. But for some reason Austria seems to have to most lax laws
about smoking of just about any European country I have been to, Eastern Europe
included! Here you can still smoke
in restaurants (some have smoking/non-smoking sections, but we all know how
well that works), bars, clubs.. pretty much everywhere. And I hate it! I feel like if you are a teenager
here and you don’t smoke, you are not cool or something. All my students last year smoked, it
just seems to be a thing you do when you are a kid, and then some quit as an
adult and some continue. It’s just
really weird, like they didn’t get the memo that it kills you or
something. Cigarette vending
machines are a popular way to buy cigarettes, too – they aren’t illegal here
like they are in America, and I can only imagine that it aids underage people
in smoking. I just could not
believe that I could go to a bar in Spain, or Italy, or Bulgaria! and not leave
with a headache, burning eyes, and clothes and hair smelling like an ash tray,
but in Austria, it’s like a given if you go out anywhere.
·
This is no surprise, but there are, just like
everywhere else in Europe, no dryers here. Most people here don’t even know someone who does have
one, and if they do, it’s for like “special occasions”. I don’t understand how/why energy or
whatever costs so much more here, but I do really (years later) still miss my
dryer. I’m sorry, but you will
never enjoy crispy/crunchy towels on your face/body when you get out of a
shower, especially if you know the alternative of a fresh out of the dryer,
plush soft one. Another time I
really miss the dryer is when I need to wash my sheets and hope that they dry
in about 12 hrs so I can sleep on them that night. Yet another scenario, when it rains/snows and you get all
wet/cold, and you want to dry your socks/pants/gloves/whatever. Well you’ll just have to wait for them
to air dry.
We also don’t have a microwave in my apartment. I asked my roommate about it and she
said she has never had one and her parents don’t like them (typical European
response). Most Europeans I have
met think that owning a microwave is like a downward spiral that only leads to
you eating microwave dinners aka unhealthy foods ”like Americans”. I don’t even want it for that, since
there isn’t much food that is microwavable sold here anyway, I just want an easy
way to reheat foods and make popcorn.
Having a microwave is just convenient! But Europeans are way less concerned with that than
Americans are (see: stores hours, and just about everything else).
Now for the Christmas differences. Last year I did a lot of Christmas lessons, so I got the
whole Austrian Christmas story from my students. They have a bunch of catholic traditions like an advent
wreath, an advent calendar, the Christmas markets don’t open until advent time,
St, Nicolas day, and Krampus day, just to name a few. Basically the whole month is like a big celebration.
St. Nicolas Day is on the 6th, and he is the
figure most like our Santa Claus, I guess, except he looks sort of like the
pope, due to his big hat. He walks
around with a big cane and his donkey from house to house and leaves small
gifts in children’s shoes. The
next day, Krampus, a horned devil-like figure with a huge tongue, comes around
and whips (no joke) the bad children with sticks.
Christmas here is celebrated on the 24th. Santa Claus is not a character in their
story, though most people know him due to movies/pop culture. Here, the presents are brought by the
Christkind, which is a baby angel (Jesus?) who flies through the window and leaves the gifts. You don’t see him because you have to
leave the room (this happens during the day), and you know you can go back in
when you hear a bell ring. How a
flying baby angel can hold all that, we’ll never know! They also write letters to it (?) just
like American kids to do Santa, but they leave the letters on a windowsill for
the angel to pick up. They also
decorate their Christmas trees (always real, here, most didn’t even know
artificial trees existed) with REAL candles with REAL fire. Can anybody say fire hazard?!
This year I played Christmas taboo with a class and the
first card said “Mrs. Claus” on it.
They had a hard time explaining this one and getting people to guess the
correct answer, because no one in the class even knew that Santa was married!
This ended up being a lot longer than expected.. guess I
should be blogging more often!
