In the spirit of Barbara Walters' Most Fascinating People of the Year list, we've decided to compile a list of the Ten Most Fascinating Aspects of Life in Austria. And of course, our previous experiences absolutely color our list in a shade all its own. If an Austrian compiled this list, it would be different because his/her experiences and perceptions would be different . We cannot separate ourselves from ourselves so this is a biased list. And that, future students, is schema theory in action!
Barbara presents her list as a countdown, but since we don't have time to write ten mini-essays and then rank them, we're going to do this as a five-part series. So, in no particular order, here are the first two reasons!
1. "Asking
Culture" vs. "Telling Culture"
During Ben's job orientation, he was warned that Austria is
an "asking culture," not a "telling culture."
In the United States, we have a "telling
culture." We're told what we can
and cannot do, and people offer information freely to us. Think about college orientation. Older, wiser students guided us around
campus, pointing out all of the buildings, suggesting where to have the best
chicken finger sub, listing all of the services that the college offers: athletics,
health center, library, bus system, school store, etc. For four years I worked at my college's
counseling services office, and I remember students coming in toward the
beginning of the year and explaining to me that they wanted to schedule
appointments because they heard about counseling services during orientation
and wanted to give it a try. That's
another example of our telling culture; surely it was none of my business why
people wanted to make appointments, but some felt the need to tell me anyway. Once we got to our dorms, that was another round
of telling. The RAs (resident
assistants) greeted us as a unified front in the large common room. They told us about themselves, about the
facilities (laundry, bathrooms, pool table, desk with board games available for
sign out, etc.) and assured us that we'd have a great year. They made us feel welcome and confident in
our new place.
Flashback to September: We're fresh-off-the-plane ex-pats. We know we have to go to the city office
building in Salzburg to pick up our residency permits (those things I wrote
about here). We find the directions to
the building online. We enter the
building and...
No receptionist, no metal detectors, and no signs that
mention residency permits. Off to the
left, we hear "waiting room" sounds (quiet murmuring, papers
shuffling, chairs scrapping) so we sit there for a while waiting to see what
happens. Quickly, we realize that the
office is for Austrians seeking visas to travel elsewhere. We leave.
We stand in the hallway, completely directionless. Ben finds someone rifling through papers,
sprinting from one office to another, apparently a worker. He stops her and asks where we need to go for
our residency permits. She points to a
smaller waiting room and we take our turn waiting there. Once admitted, the secretary asks us if we've
had our fingerprints done. Of course we
haven't, because no one told us we need to have fingerprints done to finish the
residency permit process. We have to
come back later in the week because the person in charge of doing fingerprints
is out sick.
We come back on Friday afternoon around 2 PM. The automatic doors don't slide open for
us. The office closes early on Fridays,
but their hours aren't listed on the building.
To make a long story short (too late), we jump through the
hoops, bend over backwards, and receive our permits. Hooray.
When in Austria, be prepared to feel like a pest when you
ask questions to get the necessary information. It needs to be done.
2. Austrian Public Transportation
Before coming here, my family tried to convince me that it would
feel weird to travel by public transportation and that I would miss
driving. Honestly, the only times that
I've missed having a car is after we buy a little too much at the grocery
store. Carrying 9L of mineral water is
taxing on the arms, I'll admit, but our grocery store is a block and half away
and it's really a non-issue. Also, I have Ben.
I have yet to feel limited by taking public
transportation. The buses take you where
you need to go, and they are generally on-time and well-maintained. Unlike living in Upstate New York where I
would have to travel up to 45 minutes to go to a decent mall, in Salzburg the
furthest place I like to go shopping is about a 30-minute bus ride. Everything is nearby and living in a larger
city with places to go and things to see makes me feel connected, even without
a car.
And speaking of cars and driving, I can't drive stick so
that's out. If I could, the traffic here
would result in major anxiety. I don't
like driving with snow on the ground or cleaning off my car, so having someone
else worry about those things are a plus.
And I hate hate hated when something would go wrong with my car. Having three sensor lights lighting up my
dashboard was like having a nice mini-Christmas tree in my car, but they didn't
inspire confidence in how long the car would last. A new little rattling or rumbling was fun; it
usually helped the the non-existent bass pumping from my stereo. Car ownership is difficult and I dream of the
day that Ben and I can buy a new car, and have jobs where we can drop each
other off at work in the morning because they'll be somewhat in the same area. If only...
 | |
| Ben circa December 2010 with icicles on our balcony. |
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| And snow a month later. Loved cleaning that off my car. |
But, I guess I should come to my point. In Austria, you see everyone on the bus: kids
on their way to and from school, teenagers, college students, parents with children,
people in suits, people with dogs, people with huge packages and luggage, the
elderly, and me! The stigma of riding
the bus that exists where I'm from just doesn't exist here. Everyone rides the bus.
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