Na Endlich. Skifahren!

Until yesterday, 2011 had been a long, hard winter of bearing questions from my students and co-workers regarding whether I had been skiing, how many times I'd been skiing, how good I was at skiing, and what I thought of Lindsey Vonn - often followed by disappointed, confused, and even disgusted looks after I admit that I have never been skiing in Austria and have no opinion about Ms. Vonn.  Who is she, exactly?

Me, arriving at the train station near Forsteralm.
My proud grimace disguises my overwhelming fear of
falling off the mt.

But all this has changed now that I've officially been skiing in Austria!  And what's more, I lived to blog it.

My friend Sophy and I had been delaying a trip to the very nearby ski mountain Forsteralm for months and we finally made it, with a just few days left in the season.  I had found it difficult to gather the motivation, as I am (or was...) certainly a nervous, anxiety-ridden greenhorn of skier, as those who witnessed my one and only attempt at skiing in the USA last year could attest.  Yet I like to think that I control my fears and not the other way around, so I headed for the slopes.

Although the mountain is not far from Waidhofen, getting there without a car does require scaling a massive hill by foot.  Fortunately we were picked up by a generous Austrian named Fritz, who, like everyone I met in Waidhofen, was somehow related to someone I work with.  Later in the day Fritz treated us to some delicious hazelnut schnapps at the Austall lodge and even offered us door-to-door service home.

As for the actual skiing, I was skittish at first, but after falling once and remembering that it doesn't actually hurt that bad, I started to gain confidence.  Other than that introductory fall at the top of the mountain and a later, regrettable incident on the t-bar lift, I stayed on my feet the whole time.  Toward the end of the day I even got an unironic compliment from a real, live Austrian.

It was a perfect day for skiing, as the weather was warm, the snow still powdery in places, and the slopes virtually free of fearless rocket children - my least favorite winter sport hazard.  We also got lucky and scalped our ski passes at a big discount (my first crime in Austria, shhhh...).  The resort itself is nice and its lodge, like many other unsuspecting corridors in Austria, transforms into a nightclub on the weekends.  Unfortunately I think it's too packed with teenagers for me to ever dare enter.

All in all, it was very successful trip and, unlike my last attempt at skiing, I didn't even bring home any bruises as souvenirs.  In fact, I've been inspired to try out skiing in the Tyrol, where I'm told the season can last as late as May. 

 

No Matter Where You Go, Some People Dress Like Fools...

Schematic Diagram of a
Krocha

Although America may be the place for misguided and foolish youth cultures, a bizarre minority specimen of Austrian teenager is worthy of comment.

They are called die Krocha* and their preferred habitat is the disco.  They are reminiscent in attitude of American "bros," especially because of their lust for clubbing and their taste for Ed Hardy wear (Keine Party ohne Ed Hardy, as they say). 

Three Krocha in their
natural environment

This resemblence to more familiar youth cultures does not extend to other aspects of their attire, many of which are distinctly European or, more accurately, "Eurotrash."  They favor white Adidas sneakers, extremely tight pants, and large key loops for wrapping around their right leg.  They sport finely manicured eyebrows, spray-on tans, and stiffly gelled hair, perhaps as protection from concussions received while dancing.  They also have an insatiable appetite for Palestinian checkered scarves (called Palästinensertuch in German), which they wear as mere accessories, with extreme indifference to potential political meaning.  

They have a language of their own and particularly enjoy the word Oida, which is rougly equivalent to "dude" or "man."  It is sometimes also used without context just to add some flavor to their almost certainly vacuous sentences.  Like popular American TV Chef Emeril Lagasse, they also like to use the word Bam frequently in order to demonstrate their extreme enthusiasm for another's enviable neon-colored baseball cap or impressive dance skills**.  The rest of their vocabulary is a mixture of Viennese (Wienerisch) and various migrant languages.

An urban Austrian phenomenon - I have encountered very few Krocha out here in the countryside and I don't have any as students.  According to German Wikipedia, only 1.7% of 11-29 year olds in Austria identify as Krocha, although I'm not sure how Wikipedia could have gotten this information and I doubt that Krocha is a checkable box in many surveys or censuses.  I've read reports that this style is fading into obscurity (thankfully, according to most accounts), but in my experience they remain common U-Bahn fixtures.  I have rarely seen them in daylight, which they seem to detest despite their remarkable tans.

*I think this word stems originally from the Wienerisch word for the Hochdeutsch hineinkrachen, which means "to encroach."  The word was Austria's second-place Word of the Year 2008, behind Lebensmensch.
**The "krochn" dance style goes best with music from the album krocha traxx vol. 1, available from Universal Music.

Where the Future is Still in the Future

An Austrian friend of mine once joked that if the world came to an end, Austria wouldn't notice for five years.  Although a disco house track inexplicably titled "Barbara Streisand" has somehow become far and away the most popular song in Austria, the world has not yet come to an end.  Nonetheless, I have noticed that Austria is slow to pick up on some of the latest trends, at least when it comes to personal technology.

Austria certainly has an extraordinary standard of living and an advanced energy infrastructure, but when it comes to technology use in everday life, Austrians seem less cutting edge than Americans.  As I tend to be slightly techno-phobic, this is relieving for me at times.

While in America people are enjoying a new iPhone App that allows them to see what's in front of them while they are walking and typing, Austrians are more likely to send letters and almost always pay with cash.  Older Austrians tend not to have internet access and newspapers here are not facing the same budget crises as their American counterparts.  During a lesson on technology and new media, many of my students laughed at me for suggesting that VCRs were obsolete and few responded kindly to my crack at landline telephones.  In a country where most university-track students are still required to learn Latin, perhaps this conservative approach to technology is not surprising.

In Austria, old things work
and old people don't

 
I have also noticed a major divergence with regard to technology in schools.  While American education wonks are gaga for Smart Boards, PowerPoint, and standardized testing, both of my schools still rely on chalk (albeit chalk of many different colors) to hold students' attention.  Austrians teachers still write and grade their tests by hand and many scoff at the idea of Scantron machines.  But sometimes older technologies are the most reliable; as I've discovered, overhead projectors malfunction less frequently than computer labs and their finnicky projectors.  In fact, I've developed an unlikely romance for the overhead projector and I find it's really quite useful for teaching ESL.  Plus, as any student could tell you, there's just something about seeing your teacher's magnified spit froth on the big screen as he vigorously rubs the Vis-a-Vis off a slide with his many-colored thumb.

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And a relevent relevant word of the day is die Zukunft, or "the future."  In German, I sometimes like to add the phrase der Zukunft, or "of the future," to nouns to make them sound more exciting.  For example Architekt der Zukunft - "Architecht of the Future."

Out of Burgenland

I have just returned home from my budget jaunt to the province of Burgenland, where the hills are neglible and the wine flows as freely as tap water at an American casual dining restaurant.

Burgenland - a province known for its Zweigelt grape variety and its proximity to Hungary is perhaps not Austria's most enticing province, but it is nonetheless a crucial cog in my newfound goal of visiting all nine Austrian provinces (although not necessary for my other newfound goal of visiting all eight of Austria's neighboring nations, even Liechtenstein).*

But beyond fulfilling my trivial and arbitrary geographic ambitions, I also had a great time reconnecting with some terrific American friends I made at orientation in Graz back in September and visiting some truly minor tourist attractions.  First and foremost among them was an eerie monument constructed by Nazis in the village of Oberschützen that has since been rededicated as a memorial to the horrors of racism and autocracy.

Approaching the former Nazi monument, finding the weather appropriate

Earlier in our travels, we also found a hideous, concrete dormintory that looked like a Soviet's failed attempt at completing a tangram puzzle without all the pieces.  We used the building as a background to practice making trademark, non-smiling Eastern European facial expressions.


Inconsiderate tractor traffic made for a very representative Burgenland photo

 We then visited a mostly-Hungarian cemetery and did our best to conceal any hint of enjoying the journey.

Perfecting the Eastern European art of not smiling in photos

Yet, at the end of the day, we were all happy to be together.  We enjoyed hot pizza and then a few of us even explored the village nightlife - namely the smoky halls of Discostraße. 

Americans prefer smiling, even while being burned by hot grease

Unfortunately one site that I did not make it to was the nearby village of Klingenbach, where in 1989 the Iron Curtain first ripped and allowed an indirect passage to the West for East Germans.  Another aspiration of mine is to return and snap a photo of myself running across the once-fortified border, hopefully under the surveillance of a confused but harmless border guard. 

Fortunately my somber and rainy return to the weekly grind at school was cushioned by the auspicious arrival of Waidhofen's official town Christmas tree, which, in my absence, appears to have been installed by municipal Christmas fairies in the center of one of our many traffic circles.

And finally, today's German word takes its inspiration from the lowly-populated region where I spent my weekend - das Dorf means "the village."

*So far I have been to four of nine provinces (Vienna, Lower Austria, Styria, and Burgenland) and only one of eight neighbors (Czech Republic).

Attempts at Socializing

Unsuspecting castle becomes target of vicious Austrian club scene

Last weekend in Vienna I was fortunate enough to meet someone my age who comes from my adopted hometown of Waidhofen an der Ybbs.  Like most other Waidhofners (people from Waidhofen) between the ages of 18 and 45, she no longer lives in Waidhofen, but she was generous enough to offer to take me out this Friday and introduce me to other young adults this coming weekend.  For the record, I remain skeptical that there are other young adults in Waidhofen.

At her suggestion we're going to a club night in - naturally - a fourteenth-century castle.

Aside from the terrifying prospect of running into my students, I'm looking forward to the adventure.  Although I've gone out in Vienna and Prague, this will be my first attempt at my new Lieblingsdorf (favorite village).  With any luck the club will bear little resemblence to the most embarrassing place in Providence.

As a real, authentic German document, I've included a description from the club's Facebook page auf Deutsch (for a literal, yet quite comical translation, scroll to the bottom).

Getreu dem Motto „BLACK BEATS & CLUB TUNES“ werden die beiden Star DJ´s G-Dugz & El Amin das Waidhofner Rothschild Schloss mit fetten RnB, Hip Hop, House Beats in Ekstase versetzen.  Die beiden Deejay´s, die in den letzten Jahren unzählige Support Shows für Acts wie Katy Perry, Xzibit, Fatman Scoop oder Shaggy gespielt haben und im Moment unter anderem in der „Passage Wien“ die Plattenteller drehen , werden den CRYSTAL... CLUB regelrecht zum Kochen bringen.
 
"True to the motto "BLACK BEATS & CLUB TUNES," the two Star DJs - G-Dugz and El Amin - will put Waidhofen's Rothschild Castle in ecstasy with their fat R&B, Hip Hop, and House Beatz.  The two DJs, who have played numerous support shows for acts such as Katy Perry, Xzibit, Fatman Scoop, and Shaggy, and currently spin the plates at "Passage Vienna," will literally bring the CLUB to a boil." (a note on the misuse of the word "literally" in English).
 
Well, wish me luck as I head to da Club - or is it der Club...