ein österreicher, part I

I forgot to write about this for the first journal check! On our first Friday (9. Juli) i decided to take my free time and go to café museum near operngasse, with the secondary intension of having my First Stranger Interraction. Café Museum is well-known for its famous regulars, for example, my boyfriend Egon Schiele.

(keinen Dächerzeichnung, aber, Ich zeichne immer Kaffee gern.)

this was the first time i went to a cafe or eating place alone. i was confused and tried to order at the counter inside, but of course the waiters come and take your order at the tables. i chose a table outside with a good view of some dächer and drew them for my independent study thing. eventually the waiter came around and took my order. i thought i said it okay in german (although i found out later i pronounced the coffee, the "franciskaner" like "francis kanner" and not "franCISkaner", sehr blöd), but the waiter would reply or ask another question in english. i feel very stubborn for sticking to my bad german when i could be more competent in english, especially when he obviously knew that i was better at it. there's a weird balance of being polite and being practical here. i don't want to subject people to awkward situations because of my shortcomings in this culture, but i also REALLY don't want to seem like it's their job to understand my language, since i'm a guest here.

i told this to an austrian boy named Philipp i met in the Irish pub around Schwedenplatz a few days later (unfortunately, i never found him on facebook, so there is another lost connection flapping in the breeze). I was talking to him (in English) about English and German and how I wish I could talk to him in German instead of forcing him to talk to me in English. I think the attitude of what I've seen here of the American tourists is pretty embarrassing. I really think when you go to a foreign country you should at least make an effort, like learning the really basic stuff like "excuse me" and "thank you", because I think just those key polite phrases aren't as polite if you say them in English. I had a friend who went to Spain for a week a few years ago and he didn't know ANY Spanish when he went. His companion was pretty much fluent, but he complained that it was really uncomfortable because there was no English anywhere. Well, no shit, the world shouldn't conform to what makes foreign tourists comfortable.

Of course, the waiters at Café Museum didn't seem upset that I was pretty incompetent at their language. I did try, and they could tell when I didn't understand something and spoke in English, and I didn't speak in English at all to them. I sat outside for a long time, drawing, and a man came up to me and asked (auf Deutsch) to take a picture of me. (i wonder what became of that??? hm) I could decipher that, because he kept gesturing with his camera and I understood a few words. I should have thought to ask "warum?" though.

Then I went over to Karlskirche, just because it was there, and lounged for a little while on the convenient lounging pillows they have out. It's kind of a bizarre building. I've never seen those spiraling columns anywhere before. It does seem very much like the extremely symmetrical, geometric buildings in Vienna, like the Secession building.

(photo from flickr)