Land der Kontraste

I don't know if it's a comment you hear today, but certainly when I used to go out at night as a student back in 1990 Salzburg, Austrians with an attitude would poke fun at Americans like me by telling me that my America was only a couple of hundred years old whereas their country dated back a thousand years.

Ok, it is true that the first written mention of Ostarrîchi or the "Eastern Empire, which is today the German word for Austria (Österreich), was in the year 996. However, it is interesting to note that Austria as a republic has only been around since 1918. This year is being celebrated as the 80th anniversary of Republik Österreich.

Before that, Austria was ruled by a monarchy, a pretty powerful one. For many years, it was actually called Austria-Hungary and contained much more than just those two countries. And that it was called a republic as of 1918 is a bit misleading, too, since Austria had before 1938 some pretty oppressive and suppressive leaders. And from 1938 to 1945, Austria had as its leader possibly the king of oppression and suppression as the Nazi annexation of Austria turned the country from a nation into an outer region of Germany.

So I might argue today that things may have only started looking like a republic after the completion of WII which would shave 27 years off the 80th anniverary.

Schloß Anif

Down Alpenstrasse, just outside of Salzburg in the town of Anif is a palace. It is surrounded by high walls and a tall serpentine hedge, and you can only glimpse at the palace tower in the winter when the leaves have fallen from the trees. Unlike many historical palaces, Schloß Anif is privately owned - someone actually lives there. Once a year, however, the Lions Club Anif hosts Turmblasen (literally meaning tower music, but in actuality seeming to mean music in the dark, especially at Christmas-type events) and the palace gate is opened up to the public.

The castle is an incredible Gothic building set in the middle of a pond with only one bridge leading to it. A band was playing hymns from a candle-lit balcony in the palace, the music floating across the water to us mere mortals on the other side. The path around the pond was lit by flickering candles, and people lined it, drinking hot punch or Gluhwein and listening to the music. If you were there for some big sightseeing trip, there was little for you. But if you were able to just look and listen and absorb the candle light and the ancient palace with the moon shining brightly on the left side and the Untersberg towering in the background on the right, it was all pretty mystical and amazing.

Nikolaustag

Today was Nikolaustag, the day that Austrians honor Sankt Nikolaus (not Nicholas, but Nikolaus with the 'laus' part of the name rhyming with the English word 'mouse'.) Sankt Nikolaus is not to be confused with Santa Claus or the Weihnachtsman (Father Christmas). Sankt Nikolaus was born around 245 A.D. in an area that is now part of Turkey. Later he became the Bishop of Myra and was named the patron saint of children, sailors, students, teachers, and merchants. St. Nikolaus is said to have performed several miracles, and his feast day is celebrated every December 6. In Austria, children leave their shoes or boots outside of the door the night before in hopes that St. Nikolaus will leave some small gifts in them. This is not an equivalent day to Christmas, which has its own host of characters, but is more a warm-up to the gift giving season.

Keeping with tradition, Sankt Nikolaus wears a long red bishop's cloak and tall pointed bishop's hat and carries a staff. At Nikolas' school, der heilige Nikolaus (the holy Nikolaus) dropped by on Thursday morning. When asked what St. Nikolaus did during his visit, Nikolas explained that he spoke. No presents? No songs? No "Ho, ho, ho's" we asked. "He spoke to us," Nikolas repeated firmly. We presume he spoke about holy things.

After finding that Sankt Nikolas had remembered him with a small gift bag, Nikolas was eager to head downtown to see St. Nikolaus again. Rumor had it that he would be making an appearance in the Christmas market, so off we went....along with what seemed like a million tourists and every family in Salzburg that has small children. Even in the height of summer tourism, we have never seen so many people here! But despite the crowds, we saw St. Nikolaus twice: once ice skating and once parting the crowds like Moses parted the Red Sea. Nikolas kept trailing after the walking Nikolaus, who kept shaking his hand and offering him candy. We kept following after both Nikos, since they seemed to be on the fast road through the Christmas market, and finally both stopped long enough for a picture, before going their separate ways.

And yes, that's me playing Nikolaus at an event at Schloß Hellbrunn. The secretary at the school where I used to work wrote to me a couple of weeks ago to ask if I'd play "Nikolaus" at a faculty holiday reception. My job would be to surprise everyone with my Book of Nikolaus," a collection of blurbs on each faculty member. After each blurb, Nikolaus gives each person a bag of goodies. Only four people of the 40 or staff members worked at the school in the early 90s, and they didn't recognize me at first. It went well.

Krampusläufe

Some things just can't be translated from German to English, like the word Krampus. The Krampus is just a Krampus, and so I'll try to help you understand. The Krampus is an evil companion to St. Nikolaus. He punishes the bad while St. Nikolaus rewards the good. The Krampus has animal fur, a devil-like face, and long horns or antlers. He wears wear large cowbells to warn people he is approaching, and he carries a switch or whip. Sometimes the Krampus also pulls along a cart in which he throws naughty children.

Krampusläufe (Krampus parades) are a long standing tradition in Austria. It used to be that there was one big Krampuslauf in Salzburg on St. Nikolaus Day Eve (at least that's what I remember from fifteen years ago), but now the Krampusse have been running in and around Salzburg for the last week. And there's not just one Krampus, there are hundreds of Krampusse. Last Sunday there was a Krampuslauf in Grödig, just outside Salzburg. There were 800 Krampusse that took part in the parade. And you can't imagine that it is like an American 4th of July parade. It is like a real-live horror movie with menacing Krampusse taunting, chasing, and whipping the crowd.

The Krampus tradition stems from pre-Christian times and seems to have become increasingly popular. There are Krampusvereine (Krampus clubs) in Austria, but a Verein isn't just a club that you form with some friends in your garage. A Verein (and there are Vereine on any sort of interest people may have - books, planes, chess, etc.) has an official 'seal of approval' granted by a court to give it permission to function. And to become a Krampus? Well, you have to apply to your city or town to be one and be accepted as a Krampus. Then, and only then, are you allowed to don your sheepskin suit and your handcarved wooden mask complete with real animal horns and participate in Krampusläufe.

Tonight, downtown, there were three Krapusläufe, one after another, shortly after nightfall. Sadly, Jenny stayed home with Nikolas so that we wouldn't scar him for life, while I went downtown with some of my students. There is something fascinatingly horrible about the Krampus, and even as an adult, the sound of the bells sends chills up our spines but lures us at the same time. Even though you know they are just people in costume, Krampusse are big and scary, and particularly like to chase after people with cameras. I risked it all to get these pictures and this movie, and I only have one welt from a whip on my leg from my efforts!


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Erntedankfest und das Wochenende

We had a grand Thanksgiving celebration here, transforming the student lounge of one of the student dorms into a festival hall. It was a daunting task, but the students all pitched in, baking a multitude of desserts and cooking side dishes (the turkey and vegetables were brought), while we transported much of our kitchen (silverware, plates, glasses, washing up supplies, serving bowls) as well as beverages galore and vegetarian stuffing and gravy across the city.When all was said and done, 28 people had a Thanksgiving dinner, with ages from 3 to the 80s, with American students, Austrian and Italian roommates, families, professors, and youth all mixed together. We had both sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie, both made from scratch, the sweet potatoes discovered at Thursday's outdoor farmer's market (you cannot buy sweet potatoes in stores here) and the pumpkin carefully cooked up (you cannot buy canned pumpkin here). There was more turkey than I've ever seen before, not carved into thin slices American style, but cut into big chunks with enormous turkey wings for those who like to eat with their hands. It was a most excellent extravaganza. We all had a good time, and we ate way too much good food. You can take Americans out of America, but you can't take the American out of Americans. Does that make sense?With Professor Roggenbauer in attendance, I couldn't help but think of the Erntedankfest we had 18 years ago. Roggenbauer took us to his hometown of Gmunden where we had a huge feast at a restaurant overlooking the Lake Gmunden. Although the make-up of the group was different (we were 36 students compared to today's nine), there were so many similarities.Homesickness sets in this time of year. The students miss their families very much. Whereas we sang songs back in 1990, this group danced together and played games. Both groups laughed and laughed throughout the night. I'm happy to say that there was a little more of 1990 in the group than just Roggenbauer and me. My old buddy Scott Davidson was there with his Austrian wife, Alex. Scott and lived a short bike ride away from one another all those years ago. Scott told tasteful, but amusing stories of our time in Salzburg, some of which I hadn't thought of in years.It was our plan from August to have two major program trips this semester, one in September when the students first arrive (Innsbruck) and one directly following Thanksgiving. Wien is a great city, one that Jenny and I had visited separately, but during the same season of the year: winter. Wien abounds with Christmas markets and there's one more spectacular than the rest: the one in front of the Rathaus, or city hall. There are more stands than you can shake a hot cup of Glühwein at (you wouldn't want to do that anyway), and there are even rides for the kiddies.We knew that the students, coming off one holiday, would like to experience a bit of the next holiday together. Many a Christmas present was shopped for in our two days there. And we also had time to visit the museum Haus der Musik, the Zoom Kindermuseum, and see the opera "Tosca" at the Wiener Staatsoper. During their free time, the students visited a number of interesting places such as Schloß Belvedere, the Sigmund Freud Museum, and a Gustav Klimt exhibit.


And some students just got lost for the day which is okay, too. There's nothing quite like popping in and out of European street cars and subways and just walking around in a new part of a new city. The moment things start getting old, you dip down into another subway station, ride for a couple of stops and end up in a different looking city.

Something I wanted to say but didn't during my Thanksgiving speech on Thursday (mostly because I like to avoid saying things that choke me up) was that although we were hosting so many Austrians at our Thanksgiving dinner, we were still THEIR guests. We are living in their country, their city, eating main dishes prepared by an Austrian caterer, eating desserts made with Austrians ingredients. Yes, living with people from a different culture can be a challenge, but I wanted to say that my experiences on the whole with Austrian people were mostly very positive, and I'm thankful for that.When I was a student here 18 years ago, I was poor. If it hadn't been for one family, the landlords of a friend of mine, I would've been one hungry kid that year. They constantly were telling me to come to lunch or dinner. My own landlady was also wonderful to me and my two American housemates. During the first Gulf War (1991), she invited us into her a warm living room every night to watch the news. When the war only lasted a month, we thought that that meant the end of the invites. But no, she basically told us to come in anytime after dinner and turn off the TV when we went to bed.I'm thankful for having a family to share Thanksgiving with and an extended family of students and people who have come to care for them. Someday the students will go home to Maine, New Hampshire, and Virginia and remember this Thanksgiving and Wien, I think, fondly.

Austria doesn't know how to make cheap

We've all done it. You buy some mass-produced cake and ice cream because it's less expensive than getting something at the bakery and Jann's Sweetshop. You go home, eat it all, then wonder why you just did that. I mean, it wasn't that good, was it.

What's amazing in Austria, though, is that you can buy store-bought cake, like Guglhupf, and ice cream for not too much money, take it home, and convince yourself with the first bite that you brought home top-shelf desserts! Austria just doesn't know how to do things cheaply.

You see it everywhere you turn. I often comment on doors. I know, you probably don't comment on doors. But in the U.S., we have a lot of hollow doors. I don't know if there's a technical term for it. But they're hollow. Hollow is cheap, both in the quality and in the price. However, it's hard to find a door that isn't made of solid, heavy wood that you know must have cost a lot of money.

That goes for floors and stairs, too. There aren't a whole lot of squeaky floors and stairs here because everything is made of solid wood or rock or tile.

Lastly, food in restaurants is in a different league. Very little is not hand-made on the premises. Maybe a kids meal will have fish sticks or something like that, but everything else is freshly prepared. You'll notice this especially with Schnitzel, or breaded pork or turkey cutlets. Every time one is ordered, you can hear the cook in the kitchen tenderizing it with a hammer.

Bang, bang, bang--yep another Schnitzel was just ordered. I remember taking a Pennington group to a restaurant and they thought all the banging in the kitchen meant it was under construction.

Eines Tages im Jahre 1945

One day in 1945, the Americans started bombing Regensburg, Germany. The train station was the main target, but WWII didn't see much precision bombing. Instead, aggressors would simply try to saturate an area, hoping to hit a target.

Josef Roggenbauer (right) was a 16-year-old Austrian soldier in the German army. Austria had been annexed by Germany in 1938. Desperate for more manpower, Germany drafted in the final years of the war both middle teens as well as old men in both Germany and Austria.

Josef Roggenbauer had no way of knowing that he'd later earn a doctorate in economics and then become a German professor at the University of Maine, and one day, my German professor. On that day, he only knew that the bombs were starting to fall and that he had no interest in sticking around at the train station where he’d been detailed to unload wagons.

He had extended family in Kumpfmühl, a district of Regensburg south of the train station. He stopped loading wagons and started to run. He knew that his family would have headed to a bomb shelter beneath the basement of their apartment house in Kumpfmühl. The whole neighborhood headed to Happelhaus, a book publisher, because a bomb shelter had been built underneath the building to accommodate the neighborhood.

Another Joseph (different spelling!), Joseph Kraus, was the Hausmeister or handy man of Happelhaus. It was his job to make sure that the bomb shelter was ready for use. He’d served in the German army himself but had been discharged in 1942 for medical reasons. When the alarm sounded, he whisked his wife and nine-year-old daughter into the shelter to assure them a spot because he knew that the shelter would fill up quickly.

When Josef Roggenbauer finally arrived, the shelter was indeed packed. The nine-year-old girl was wary of him. In the last bombing raid, a visibly injured German soldier had told her as he closed his eyes not to worry, that he just needed to sleep. He never woke up.

This time, though, there was nothing wrong with this soldier other than being full of fright and wondering probably why a 16-year-old had to worry about fighting wars. The girl kept her distance nonetheless.

The war ended a month later. The day was recalled from time to time by the girl as she became a teenager and then a woman, later a mother. The young soldier too later said that he often remembered the day as perhaps the most harrowing of his life.

Over 40 years later, a German professor and a mother sat at the same table, by birth an Austrian and German respectively, but since the early 1960s both American citizens. Their conversation led to family and their former lives as Europeans. As soon as Regensburg was mentioned, the pieces started to fall into place. They knew the streets, the same people, and the Happelhaus whose Hausmeister whisked his daughter off to the shelter that day.

My mother (left) had no way of knowing, of course, that that young soldier she was wary of would someday figure so heavily in her son’s life, turning him on to the native language of his mother and grandparents, leading him on a year-long adventure to Salzburg in 1990 that would turn into four years and forever change his life.

Josef Roggenbauer retired in 1991 six months after we returned from Salzburg. Today, he and his lovely wife Lore (standing) live in Salzburg on Sinnhubstraße overlooking the Untersberg. He just turned 80 last week. In 2003 as well as 2006, the Pennington students I brought to Salzburg had a chance to meet him. Next Thursday, he’ll be one of 26 of us who’ll celebrate Thanksgiving, and I’m looking forward to introducing him to yet another set of students.

Untersbergblick!

I've written here about mountains before, how much I like them. Did I mention that I had an Untersbergblick at my previous two apartments? "Apartment" is a loose term here--as a student and as a staff member at the boarding school, I inhabited rooms. BUT each room had the "Blick," a view of the Untersberg. I won't go into details. Just know that there's not much like waking up and seeing the Untersberg outside your window.

I was a bit sad that our apartment, although we have a Gaisbergblick (see previous post), had no Untersberg.

Not until autumn fell.

The other day, Jenny looked outside our balcony window and said matter-of-factly, "I can see the Untersberg." Now I didn't believe her. For two months, I'd occasionally lamented (mostly jokingly) the fact that we couldn't see the Untersberg from our apartment, not even a reflection in the huge windows of the insurance building across the major road. So I told her that that wasn't funny.

"I'm serious, I see it!"

So I looked, having quickly prepared myself for some let-down. But there it was, the summit! Yes, just the summit, but it's the Untersberg! A tip of a tree had been blocking our view. But it's leaves are gone leaving thin branches. When it's a clear day, I can even see the cable car and the hut on top of the mountain. The hills are indeed alive, right from our very balcony! Thank you, tree--perhaps you'd like to meet my friend, Mr. Chainsaw?

Ein wichtiger Besuch

Writer George Santayana once said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Since scholars place the quote's publishing date around 1905, it's clear that Santayana didn't have the Holocaust on his mind. However, the quote is nonetheless relevant when speaking about the importance of Holocaust memorials. I visited Dachau many years ago and Santayana's words appeared on a large sign at the end of the exhibit; it may still be there.

In 1990, my resident director took my study abroad group to Mauthausen Concentration Camp. This past Friday, I did the same with my group. Similar to my visit to Sachsenhausen outside Berlin with The Pennington School in 2007, I really felt like there is no lecture, museum, or video that can drive home the lesson as much as a visit to a camp. This takes nothing away from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.

Mauthausen, near Linz, was a forced labor camp built primarily by Dachau prisoners and funded in large part by the pilfered money of German-speaking Jewish citizens. The exhibit areas are done (artifacts, documents, art work), but they have intentionally left the actual holding and treatment areas untouched. Shower rooms, a dissecting table, cells, toilets, refrigeration rooms for bodies, ovens--everything looks like it has sat 60 years. Tiles, floors, and windows are cracked, pipes rusted out. You feel uncomfortable the moment you step in and that's appropriate.
My kids took it all in--they were great! There were two separate Italian school groups visiting, and each group was so different. One was enthralled, taking photos of every corner, of every remnant. The other group was bored, cold, biding their time. I was once again proud of my Pennington group from two years ago because as much as they wanted to have fun on our Berlin/Prague trip, they saw the importance of such a visit from the first mention of the excursion.

I've visited four camps: Dachau, Mauthausen, Theresienstadt (outside Prague), and Sachsenhausen. They're all different but no one is less important than the others. If you ever venture to Europe, devote at least a half-day to such a visit!

Amazing!

No, I'm not talking about the American League pennant race of 1967 or the '69 Mets or even the '08 Phillies.

If you're a fan of the show Lost, you'll know that everything happens for a reason. There was a reason why I needed to go out this afternoon to the post office and apothecary....well, first and foremost, it was because I had to mail a letter and then pick up some medicine.

BUT there was another reason. As I peddled my bike back from the my errands, a white car full of people crossed the small intersection in front of me. I noticed right away from the stop-start-stop motion of the car that they were lost. I also noticed that the front passenger was carrying a HUGE television camera.

The driver pulled down the window and asked a young Austrian man for directions. I recognized right away that the driver spoke American English, so being the helpful American I am, I pulled around the front of the car to see if I could help. The Austrian man was fishing for his English vocabulary. Both the front and rear driver's side windows were down. A young man was driving, what I guess was his wife or girlfriend was behind him.

"How do you get to Schloss Hellbrunn?" the man asked me. He and the woman were frazzled, amazingly desperate! And they were covered in what looked like an amazing amount blood, guts, and pumpkin rot. But it all looked fake. Plus they had tons of make-up on.

I explained that they needed to turn back onto the major road they had just left, Alpenstraße, and head straight down until they passed underneath and underpass. Then they should take the very next right which would lead them down a wooded country lane.

By the time I had finished my first sentence, out of the car from the front and back passenger seats raced the camera man and the boom (sound) man, and they were both on me. I was good. Amazingly enough, I didn't look into the camera! I put a foot on my peddle to push off and ride away when the boom man caught my eye. He shook his head quickly as if to say, "Don't race off!"

The camera man turned off his camera and the boom man, an American, explained to the Austrian and me that we had to sign a release or this footage couldn't be used.

While we signed the paperwork, the woman in the backseat swore. They were in an amazing rush! The boom man turned to her and said, "Look, I told you. If you ask people questions, we have to do this. If you don't like it, don't ask for help."

"What kind of show is this?" I asked.
"A travel show," he replied.
"What channel?" I asked.
"I'm not sure," he said. Amazing, if that were true!
"What's the show called?" I asked.
Then he (sort of) came clean. He said, "I can only tell you that it's a pretty popular one!"

Off into the car they went. I wave and they raced off.

So this was some sort of race! Amazing, I thought, that I was caught in the middle of it.

I swore myself to secrecy--this was big stuff--I couldn't tell people about this! In two minutes I was home and spilling my guts to Jenny. Then one of my students came over 15 minutes later to pick up some soup, and I was telling her before she even sat down.

After my student left, Jenny suggested we head to Hellbrunn (only 5 minutes from our apartment) to see what we could see. There's a huge playground there and we promised Nikolas he could play there a bit (he said 40 minutes, and we said about 10--hey, it was getting dark!).

When we got to Hellbrunn, I noticed not one, but three cars that looked like the one I'd seen earlier. They each had numbers in the back window. The highest number I saw was 11.

When we tried to enter the castle grounds, we were immediately forced to make a U-Turn by a staff member. "Das Schloss ist zu wegen Dreharbeit." Closed due to filming...hmmm.

Just then, another white car pulled into the parking lot. A different set of people but with camera and boom men. They held each other's hands and headed right past us through a different door than the main entrance. I wanted to tell them that the path they were taking was a Detour, but I figured it wasn't my place.

In fact, a staff member came up to us a short time later and asked us in German if we'd said anything to the couple. "Nein," we answered. Dang, can't we be friendly?

Jenny decided to take Nikolas down that path to see where the couple was headed. I waited in case more white cars appeared in the parking lot. None did, and soon Jenny was back to tell me that she's seen "things." Well, I wanted to see things, too, so off I went along the path. The pathway was heavily wooded so it was even darker. Up ahead I could see huge lights, the kind you see on film sets. But there was a Roadblock between lights and me: a gate and a staff member. I spoke to the staff member for a moment. I asked him if they were filming an advertisement (playing dumb I was) and he spilled his guts. And while he spilled, I looked through the gate and saw "things."

Fast Forward to me catching up with Jenny and Nikolas in the park. We saw bobbing through the trees what looked like a TV camera light. Two women were running together. One was hobbling. The other said, "I'm going ahead a bit," and the other countered with, "OK, go ahead." Off into the park they went, clueless as the day was long.

Satisfied with the afternoon's excitement, we headed home and made a Pit Stop at Rossbräu, a local restaurant. No one recognized me from TV and I didn't tell anyone who I was.

Halloween

Halloween came and went successfully. After asking parents at Nikolas's school if their children were taking part in Halloween festivities, and finding out that they weren't, we were worried that Halloween would be a non-event.

But thanks to Frau Chase's sewing abilities (Bat Boy costume), my program's kids and their generocity, and Frau Chase's pumpkin soup, Nikolas had a great day.

We visited the kids in the dorm where most of them live. They each had candy for Nikolas, and some even dressed up as well. Then everyone came back to our place for pumpkin carving, pumpkin soup, cupcake baking, and even a little movie watching.

Nikolas tried and liked gum for the first time!

Kaffeesahne

Coffee milk--it's more than just half & half! Visiting family recently wondered what went into Kaffeesahne because it has this slight mocca coloring to it. It threw me back to a time when I wondered the same thing myself. I was at Oma's in Regensburg so I asked her.

She told me matter-of-factly that they threw everything in to make it a bit thicker. I wanted to know what kinds of things. She shrugged and said, "Things like ground-up coffee, tea, bread--."

Bread?! When I told her that I found it hard to believe that they'd put bread into coffee milk, she took it a step further. During the Wars, she explained (conversations often turned to the Wars), they used to put anything into Kaffee or Ersatzkaffee (coffee substitute) to make it somewhat drinkable and perhaps even a bit nutritious. Among other things, they threw in old minced up lettuce. Rather than throw anything out, even if it was brown, they'd hide it in hot drinks.

So when my family asked about it, I turned to a bottle of Kaffeesahne fully expecting there to be no ingredients. We're used to seeing ingredients and calorie counts--they don't do that here. (It's also hard to find an index in a book, too) But sure enough there it was on the side. A translation: finely milled coffee, tea, baked products, salads, and sauces (a new one for me)! I bet if they marketed it as an energy drink, they'd rake in the €€€!

Plastik

We're been here two months and we're settled for the most part. That might sound like a long time to get settled, but we were reminded that there's much more to LIVING in a country than there is to just visiting. One difference has to do with the amount of plastic you need to carry around when you live in a place.I'm not talking about credit cards, but instead I.D. cards of different sorts.

Well, the first one is sort of like a credit card--the bank card (blue one below). It's a "Bankomatcard." Yes, they say "card" now in most cases instead of "Karte" like they used to (again, see future blog on what English is doing to German). Austrians use Bankomatcards a LOT, more than they use credit cards. And that's, of course, a good thing. They're spending their own money instead of some bank's.

The second card is actually one that I didn't get here in Austria, but instead 22 years ago on a fine August afternoon. It was the first day of orientation at the University of Maine--it's my University I.D. card. I figured since I'm working for UMaine this year, I might as well bring something that makes it look like I'm affiliated with them. I'm sure you'll agree that I haven't changed a bit...

The red card is our VorteilsCard. It actually took two months to come although we had a provisional paper ticket to use in the meantime. It gets us half price train tickets within Austria if we travel as a family. If we travel to a border country (Austria borders on EIGHT countries!), there's a 25% discount. There's also a Card for single travelers.

The photo I.D. in the second group of cards below is my Aufenthaltstitel, or more commonly, a visa. My status under which I'm in Austria according to the card is "Sonderfälle Unselbstständiger Erwerbstätigkeit" or special cases of non-independent business activities... No, I'm not a spy. In other words, I'm not working for an Austrian company, but I'm not working independently either.


The second card is, in good German, our CarSharing card. Before we leased our car, we thought we would do car-sharing which is very popular in Europe. It's like renting a car but you belong to a company that allows you to call at a moment's notice, reserve a car from some parking lot in the city (if one's available), and then you used the CarSharing card to UNLOCK the car! If you're not authorized, the car doesn't unlock as you swipe it across the sticker on the windshield. The rates are about €2 per hour and then €0.48 per kilometer. It sounds very cheap, and it isn't bad, but it is true that kilometers add up very quickly. We used this once before we got the Citroën. A trip to IKEA cost about €35 ($48).

The third card is a must-never-lose card if there ever was one. It's a Jahreskarte for the Salzburg buses: a year's card. I can use buses without paying each time for a calendar year. It is übertragbar" which means that Jenny can use it if I'm not traveling with her. But if it gets lost, there's no free replacement!

The e-card (again CARD, not Karte) now takes the place of the Krankenschein (or doctor's form). It used to be that you'd take a Krankenschein to the doctor if you needed to see one, or a dentist or an eye doctor, and he or she would rubber stamp it and send it to the Regional/National Health Organisation (or Gebietskrankenkasse). Now they swipe your card and get paid. National health works here once again after an overhaul in the 1990s. For €23.42 a month (now just short of $30) Jenny, Nikolas, and I are covered for health, dental, eye, and medications. Unbelievable. In order to get that rate, Jenny had to register as a student at the Universität, but the total cost of that was €379 or about $520 for the semester (see future blog about college costs!) (see "Salzburger Schnipsel" to read about Jenny's life as a student) The second card is, as it says, and IKEA Family Card ("Family" instead of the German "Familie"--awful!). With this card, we get some things cheaper, but perhaps the nicest perk (pardon the pun which will become clear in a second) is that we each get a free cup of coffee in the IKEA restaurant. Cool, huh?!

Finally, we have a run-of-the-mill library card. It's quite impressive, though, you consider the number of libraries it includes. The Universität Salzburg is an old European school with no one campus you can point to and say, "That's the university." It's all over the city. It could be the huge Nawi (College of Natural Sciences) or a branch of the Theological Seminary (one department has three room). You could be anywhere in the city and walk by a door that has this emblem. Anyway, every department has their own library and then there's the Main Library in the Old City. This one card allows me to check books out of all of them.

Finally, I give you a side-by-side of my two I.D., the one I used in 1990-1991 when I was a student in this program and my visa which I use as my main I.D. this year. See...not a hair's difference....

Gesellschaft mit keinen Sorgen um Haftung

GmbH. You see these letters at the end of a lot of company names. It's much like our "Inc." or the British "Ltd." It basically means that the company is a legal entity, much like a person. It can make a profit or lose its shirt, much like a person. And if you want to sue the company, you're only suing the entity, not the people who work for the company.

In German, it means Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung, or organisation with limited liabilty. Liability is an interesting concept because it seems that in the U.S., we're scared to death of it. In Austria and Germany, it doesn't seem to be that big of a deal.

You see it for sure on the playground. There are structures here that just wouldn't be allowed to exist in the U.S. because of the fear of injury. In these pictures, you see Nikolas just enjoying himself, yes, pushing the limits at times which can make any parent nervous, but it seems like he's able to judge for himself how far he can go and still feel safe. I think in the U.S. we take this decision-making out of kids' hands because we're too worried about what might happen.

So it seems that playgrounds could be called GmkSuH or organisations with no worries about liability.

Nikolas taking B.P. for the BoSox

In an attempt to help get Boston's bats rolling, Nikolas took batting practice all the way over here in Salzburg, hoping to send good vibes to such hitters as Big Papi, Jason Varitek, and Jacoby Ellsbury, all of whom had no hits in the LCS versus Tampa Bay.

It seems to have to have helped as the Sox came back from a 7-run deficit to beat Tampa Bay with walk-off J.D. Drew hit to right. Nikolas pulls most of what he hits, and it was exactly that kind of hit that won it for the Sox.

Gaisbergspitze

We can see one mountain from our apartment. No, it's not the Untersberg which I'd seen from both of my previous Salzburg homes. However, the Gaisberg ain't too shabby.

This past weekend, it was so sunny and clear that we had to head up to the Gaisberg. Many people bike up the mountain, many take the bus, and many drive up which is what we did.


Nikolas was surprised to see snow, our first sight of it this winter. It was good packing snow so we had to have several snowball fights. There's a Skihütte at the top which serves soup, roast pork and dumplings, different kinds of Wurst, and french fries. So there we sat with others in the sun which was just warm enough to take a bite out of the chilly air. There was even snow at the end of our table!

After lunch, more snow balls. Then we walked to the city-side of the mountain for clear views of Salzburg, the Untersberg and Hoher Stauffen. As an added bonus, we got to watch several paragliders hurl themselves off the mountain! It's scary to watch but so cool at the same time. We could even see our apartment building from up there, too.

There's something about mountains that amaze me. There's something about them that just makes me not want to look away. Obviously, I'm not alone. In Innsbruck, we visited the Alpenvereinmuseum which chronicled the history of climbing the Alps. Fascinating stuff.

Die Zeitumstellung

Weird. I got up yesterday at 7 a.m. wondering how my Red Sox had done in Game 1 of the Division Series. I got a cup of coffee and sat down at the computer to take a look at mlb.com expecting to see a final score. Instead, I found that the game was still being played! They're playing the Angels in California so they're, I guess nine hours behind us.

So there I sat watching Jon Papelbon striking out Chone Figgins to end the game while drinking my breakfast coffee. Weird!

A hoibi kriag i' !

Yes, this is German or at least a kind of German. It’s Bavarian/Austrian dialect for: “Eine halbe Mass Bier, bitte” or a half-liter of beer, the standard serving measure in a restaurant.

Courses are taught on it, books have been written about it, north Germans make fun of it, but one thing’s for sure: there is a dialect of German called Bairisch-österreichisch that stretches from around mid-Bavaria well into central, southern, and western Austria that was once just considered the way that people from this area spoke.

If the Bible had been translated into Bairisch-österreichish instead of Martin Luther’s dialect, the former might have become the official or standard dialect of German. It has it’s own grammar, pronunciation, and word order.

Although there is correlation between level of education and propensity to speak this dialect, you can still find well-educated people in a café who are slinging Bairisch-österreichisch back and forth. There are levels of dialect. Referred to as Soziolekt, there is a level of dialect spoken with like speakers that conveys a comfortability. Friends will often fall into dialect rather than speak standard German. But typically when meeting people for the first time in a professional or even social situation, people try to maintain a standard language without trying to disguise themselves as northern Germans.

For the most part, when Americans speak German to Austrians, the natives will usually try to keep their language in a standard form so that Americans can follow along. Otherwise, deciphering Bairisch-österreichisch can be a frustrating experience.

“Luckily,” my family from Regensburg all spoke and speak today Bairisch. Regensburg and Salzburg dialects aren’t carbon copies of one another, but they’re close enough to make understanding Salzburgers easier.

Still, there are, just like with American and British English (truck=lorry), differences in terminology. A Kartoffel (potato) is an Erdapfel in Austria. Hausschuhe (slippers) are Pantoffeln. Hefe (yeast) is Germ. Kasse (check-out counter) is Kassa.

There are major differences in pronunciation between standard German and Bairisch-österreichisch. Here’s a list of words and phrases and their differences with standard German on the left and Bairisch-österreichisch on the right:

Stein (stone): schtine vs. schto-ah
gut (good): goot vs. guat
fahren (to travel): fah-ren vs. foo-ahn
Salzburg: Salts-boorg vs. Soyts-buag
Regensburg: Ray-gens-boorg vs. Rayng-schpuag

As the name suggests, the Bairisch-österreichisch dialect crosses borders. Bavaria, the southeastern most German state, and Upper Austria and Salzburg District have, over the centuries, belonged to one another so that the people come from one major language stem.

So the next time you’re speaking to a dialect speaker and you don’t follow what they’re saying, just say, “Eee vah-schtay dee nate!”

Depending on how well you speak dialect, they may say back to you in standard German: Ich verstehe dich nicht!

In both cases, they mean, “I don’t understand you!"

Das Recycling

Those who know me know I like to recycle. I started recycling in our dorm (Becher) some years ago—paper, plastic, glass, cans, cartons. Every two weeks, it goes out to the curb for collecting.

Luckily, Austria loves to recycle. They used to call it "Wiederverwertung" but "Recycling" must be more German... Papier and Plastik were very easy to spot. We finally found the neighborhood glass collection center. Since there is a deposit on most bottles (like in Maine), most people return their bottles to the store. But there is the occasional jar of Marmalade or bottle of Kaffeesahne. (Cans are still a mystery. It seems they give up on aluminum for whatever reason.)

Most interesting is Biomüll (“compostable” garbage). Into one bin in the kitchen goes every leftover piece of food, every grape stem, toast crusts that Nikolas doesn’t eat, random peas that fell on the floor, two-day old Semmeln (check a future post on Semmeln!). They even sell bio-degradable baggies to collect the stuff.

When I take out garbage (there’s never that much because the food garbage is in the bio-baggy!), the Biomüll goes into a separate bin. No, the bin doesn’t smell good, but I don’t spend a lot of time inspecting the contents. Our building landscaper also puts cut grass and tree clippings into the container, so it’s not just food. Our neighbors have yelled at him for doing this actually because he’s taking away space for our Biomüll. But I guess he figures it’s not really garbage. It certainly shouldn’t go into paper recycling even though, I know, paper comes from trees.

It really has helped us take into consideration our food waste. I think having lived at boarding schools the past 13 of 16 years has made us a bit careless in the area of food waste. So now, when Nikolas leaves a bite of banana cake on his plate, I eat it up. It just seems like I’m more aware that it’s food because it’s going somewhere different. Will this mean I’ll gain more weight? I don’t know. If we have a meal together someday, beware if you leave any random bits of food on your plate.