Aside from the fact that you hear German on the street and most everything else is in German, you can sometimes forget that you're somewhere other than home.An average reading of the The Salzburger Nachrichten, the city's major newspaper, reminds me that we're not in the U.S. (not the fact that this, too, is in German!). Here's a sample of "different" things from this week:
* a job ad for a handyman who will live in the apartment complex he'll take care of asks that the man (women need not apply) be of Christian upbringing. This is short for Don't be Turkish (Muslim) or Bosnian (Muslim) or Christian-god-forbid from some Middle Eastern country (Muslim).
* most job ads ask for a photo to be included with the résumé. This is short for Don't apply if you look like a foreigner (Muslim) or are Christian-god-forbid unattractive.
* A Salzburg brothel is having its license revoked because two of its 12 prostitutes were not officially registered. That means the number of legal brothels in Salzburg is down to 14.
* a 15-year-old Salzburg girl was fined € 80 ($110) for underage drinking (she had a can of beer in her hand). She cried bitterly because she was about to turn 16 in a couple of days, which is the legal public drinking age.
* Salzburg police ushered Mexican tourists off a plane arriving from Frankfurt this past weekend and banged them into quarantine until it was determined that they didn't have swine flu.
Welcome to Austria!
