It is a question that I am often asked: "What do you do in Vienna?" The question, when filtered for context, seems to be more accurately rendered as "Did you go to the Stadt Opera? Visit the Belevedere? Visit the Hofburg? See the Lipizzaners?"
My answer is usually disappointing, particularly to my Mater Familias. I am in the neverland of not being a tourist in Wien and yet not being a full-time resident either. I do not spend my days in museums marveling at the work of Egon Schiele or Gustav Klimt, both of whom are worthy of my paltry marvel. No. What my days actually consist of is learning about day-to-day living in my new Stadt.
It is the mundane that occupies my time, and yet as everything is new and often surprising, it becomes not mundane. Grocery shopping, for example, is a new experience. Being a good Haus Mann, shopping is something I count as one of my tasks. It would seem a simple thing, but just how does one get a shopping cart out of the locked cart holder? Ah, by inserting a token in the little slot on the handle of the cart, that is how. Good to know, but bewildering the first time, unless the smiling Roma man is at the cart dispenser hoping for a spare euro as a reward for handing one a free cart.
Another trick to grocery shopping, besides that everything is labelled in Deutsche, is the produce section. If one wishes to avoid eye-rolling at the checkout island (Kasse), one must not only weigh the produce on the scales nearby, but also print out a label with the weight and price. This is all well and good except it involves the use of the label making machine which is, by the way, also in Deutsche. It will behoove a new shopper to have a grasp of the difference between an Apfel and a clove of Knoblauch. This avoids a lot of scurrying between the infernal label machine and the bins of produce. And the aforementioned eye-rolling.
My days are filled with small victories and smaller defeats. I head out into my new world armed with a few new useful words of Deutsche. Doing my best to use complete sentences, I order treats at the bakery only to be defeated by a question that has no meaning to my over-worked brain. The unfathomed question, once illustrated with with a small wave of a paper sack means "Would you like a bag for your backed goods, you poor illiterate?" It is very fortunate that I do not mind looking like an Idiot.
So it goes. I am becoming an adept at the transit system, I am learning to connect the dots between this familiar neighborhood and that familiar neighborhood, and there is the possibility that I will one day be able to make a phone call to someone who is not on my small speed dial list. Yet, when my day is full of myriad adventures into the mundane, it is a very full day indeed.
My answer is usually disappointing, particularly to my Mater Familias. I am in the neverland of not being a tourist in Wien and yet not being a full-time resident either. I do not spend my days in museums marveling at the work of Egon Schiele or Gustav Klimt, both of whom are worthy of my paltry marvel. No. What my days actually consist of is learning about day-to-day living in my new Stadt.
It is the mundane that occupies my time, and yet as everything is new and often surprising, it becomes not mundane. Grocery shopping, for example, is a new experience. Being a good Haus Mann, shopping is something I count as one of my tasks. It would seem a simple thing, but just how does one get a shopping cart out of the locked cart holder? Ah, by inserting a token in the little slot on the handle of the cart, that is how. Good to know, but bewildering the first time, unless the smiling Roma man is at the cart dispenser hoping for a spare euro as a reward for handing one a free cart.
Another trick to grocery shopping, besides that everything is labelled in Deutsche, is the produce section. If one wishes to avoid eye-rolling at the checkout island (Kasse), one must not only weigh the produce on the scales nearby, but also print out a label with the weight and price. This is all well and good except it involves the use of the label making machine which is, by the way, also in Deutsche. It will behoove a new shopper to have a grasp of the difference between an Apfel and a clove of Knoblauch. This avoids a lot of scurrying between the infernal label machine and the bins of produce. And the aforementioned eye-rolling.
My days are filled with small victories and smaller defeats. I head out into my new world armed with a few new useful words of Deutsche. Doing my best to use complete sentences, I order treats at the bakery only to be defeated by a question that has no meaning to my over-worked brain. The unfathomed question, once illustrated with with a small wave of a paper sack means "Would you like a bag for your backed goods, you poor illiterate?" It is very fortunate that I do not mind looking like an Idiot.
So it goes. I am becoming an adept at the transit system, I am learning to connect the dots between this familiar neighborhood and that familiar neighborhood, and there is the possibility that I will one day be able to make a phone call to someone who is not on my small speed dial list. Yet, when my day is full of myriad adventures into the mundane, it is a very full day indeed.
Reminds me of all the american tourists standing inside the train waiting to get off, Unaware that they needed to roll down the window, reach outside to the handle and.. open the door. Personally when i came to the US, I kept walking to the driver side door of cars - which was usually met with a puzzled look followed by - oh do you want to drive? - especially inappropriate when alcohol was involved :-)
ReplyDeleteYour experience with walking to the "wrong" side of the car is perfect. I love the automatic things that we do or don't do based on where we grew up.
ReplyDelete