Trinkgeld--Tipping in Germany and Austria

Tipping is a cultural thing that can either get you into trouble or make you a waiter's best friend forever.

Austrian/German waitstaff loves to see Americans come into their restaurants, especially those who haven't read up on their tipping etiquette. Whereas tipping between 15-20% in the States is standard, a 20% tip in Austria might get you a tap on the back or a handshake here.

Each state is different, but generally wait staff can expect to be paid about $3 an hour whereas standard minimum wage is in most cases in the 6-dollar-range. One can only hope that a waiter/waitress makes more than that. As I tell my economics students, $10 an hour is about $20,000 per year.

In Germany and Austria, wait staff earn about 15% of what their customers order. A meal out can typically cost €30-35, so a person earns about between €4.50 and €5.25 from our meal. When you pay, you typically round up to the next euro or the one after that. If the meal costs €30.25, you may hand over €32. Yes, that's not even 6% but people here consider that a good tip. Afterall, "Trinkgeld" means "drinking money," enough to buy themselves a drink later.

Granted, this doesn't sound like a lot of money. At most a person is earning €7 from our meal. In Salzburg, though, wait staff are happy because they're busy. Restaurants are often packed out and if you're responsible for 8-12 tables, you're bringing in €50-85 an hour during meal times.

Waterless urinals--is it enough that they save water?

Urinals are an odd topic maybe at first glance, but water conservation isn't. Ever since I was a kid, European bathrooms have been interesting to me. It was the early 80s when I saw the laser beam flush system that has made its way slowly to the States. Now waterless toilets are slowly overtaking the old-fashioned kind.

There's no water which is what a waterless toilet shouldn't have. In the drain sits a cartridge with a lighter-than-water sealant that keeps the oder in the pipes. The cartridge needs to be changed periodically and, yes, the urinal itself needs to be cleaned daily, but it's estimated that a waterless toilet can conserve between 15,000 and 45,000 gallons of water per year! That's as many as 670 bathtubs full of water!

To talk to people who've thought about installing them, though, you get a different picture. It seems that the cartridges and sealant are not cheap. Also, if they're not changed soon enough, sealant can leak and the odors are released--not pleasant. The sealant is supposed to be bio-degradable, but who knows? The plastic cartridge is supposed to be recyclable but where do you put it? It's not like you can chuck it into the soda bottle bin.

Time will tell if the U.S. opens its arms to the waterless urinals!

Heilige Drei Könige / The 12th Day of Christmas

Ever wonder why we sing about 12 days of Christmas when, as a kid, we only ever had one day of Christmas to open presents on? Well, in Austria there's no need to wonder because the 12th day of Christmas is a holiday.

The Christmastide (-tide coming from the German word "Zeit" or "time") stretches from Christmas day to the night of January 5/6 and signals the time when the "kings" or astrologers or magi or wise men came to visit the baby Jesus. It seems that popular culture has the wise men showing up minutes after the baby Jesus was born, but according to the story, it took the men (whether it was two or three or four, experts don't seem to know) 12 days to get to Bethlehem.

In German, the men are referred to as Könige or kings, but the term "king" was loosely used by the Romans in those times to denote any man of knowledge. Since the men used the position of a star in order to find Jesus, they were most likely astrologers, so the term "wise men" seems more fitting.

Scholars have argued about the number of wise men--in fact, there are some pieces of art in Europe that depict four wise men in the manger scene. The number three, though, appears in a lot of tales as a good number. There's the German saying, "Alle guten Dinge sind drei" or "All good things come in threes." So the wise men brought three gifts (gold befitting a king, frankincense befitting a priest, and myrrh befitting a healer or, in German, a "Heiler" which is related to the word "Heiland" or "savior"). Although the wise men probably all came from Middle East, there was a belief that they represented the three continents that people were aware of (Europe, Asia, Africa).

In Salzburg State and southern Bavaria, a largely Catholic area, it's common especially among the farmers to welcome the three kings to one's door. Many times, children come dressed in priestly outfits, sing a song, and then offer to write in chalk on people's entrances the first letter of what is thought to be their names (Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar) along with the year (see photo). This is left there throughout the year until the chalk wears off!

England is old

In case you're interested in visiting somewhere old, England is it. Especially in Yorkshire. Not only is it beautiful country, but the architecture has been preserved so that you're not reminded that there's a modern world out there. I never asked a native to verify this, but there must be some building code in Yorkshire that forbids the building of homes with anything but brown stone or maybe brick. It's a nice look.

The churches are interesting; many interior walls are lined with placards explaining the history of the church. A couple had a listing of the church's pastors dating back to the 1100s!

When Jenny and I lived in England in the mid- to late-1990s, we made a trip to the Yorkshire dales as well as to York. I remember we were really impressed back then as well. The South has great cities, there's no doubt about it: Oxford, Bath, Winchester, and, oh, London's nice, too. BUT there are also many large towns and cities that are not nice, too built up with too much traffic to be able to enjoy them. We left England from Leeds/Bradford airport to fly to Prague, which is for the most part a return flight for Czechs who've traveled to England. At first, I thought to myself, "Why would Czechs bother to fly into an area SO far north of London?" But I get it now.

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.