Deutsch Im Park / Retirement Party

Tomorrow we're taking a little trip to Carinthia, so this might be the last post for several days.

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Another perfect day, weather-wise. I didn't even bother checking the temperature. We'll call it 75.

About noon I headed out for my last "German In The Park" lesson. But I wanted to sip a beer first at Cafe Weimar, so I got off the subway a few stops earlier and walked over. Found a seat outside and did some reading and writing. And sipping.

Then walked back to the subway, got off at the regular stop, and walked through the Turkish market again. I decided fuck it, I'm buying one of those 10 Euro vests I've been noticing, the kind with all the pockets. But I made a mistake and went to the wrong stall, where the vests were 15 Euro. Well, I had some time. So I figured I'd see how low I could get the guy to go. "Do you have this in large?" "Do you have it in red?" (I'd never wear red but I wanted the guy to have a time investment in the negotiations.) "Let me try it on." "Is this all the pockets it has?" "Are you sure this isn't a woman's vest?"

After all that, the lowest the guy would go was 14 Euro. Hardly a victory for me. I looked at my watch and said in German, "Shit, I'm late for lunch with my wife! I'll come back tomorrow!" No Turk would ever rush off because he's afraid his wife would get mad, so I lost man-points there.

Found the other stall a block further down, tried on a vest (better quality, I thought, as well as being cheaper) and didn't bother haggling with the guy. "Here's your 10 Euro," I said. I trotted down to the next Turkish snack stand and bought a durum, which is kind of like a gyro but wrapped up like a burrito. Gobbled it up and went to my lesson.

I've enjoyed this adventure, meeting the immigrants and learning a little about their lives and culture. The Egyptian woman showed me how to write my name in Arabic, and my Serbian buddy Dragan brought his wife along---she's visiting for two weeks from Serbia. The teachers were patient as usual and at the end of class we all thanked them; one of them handed out a sheet with everyone's name and contact info, so we can keep in touch if we want. Dragan and I already have tentative plans to meet in the park for more practice after B and I get back from Carinthia.

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Many years ago, B's sister was instrumental in founding a trade union and she's been a big player in the union since. But she's had cancer for years and the illness has taken its toll on her energy and health, so she's finally had to take early retirement for health reasons. Tonight they were having a big retirement party for her at the union offices, so after German In The Park I hopped the streetcar, connected with the subway, and then looked around for a few minutes getting my bearings before walking several blocks to the office.

Before I talk about the party, let's review this public transportation thing: I can't emphasize how damned cool good public transportation is. Imagine not having to fuck with your car, because you don't NEED a car---no car payments, no maintenance, no insurance, no driver's license. You just get on a bus, tram, or subway and let someone else do the driving. No traffic to fuck with! It's magical.

In cities, most of us don't get our waters from private wells, have septic tanks, generate our own electricity, or have our own natural gas well. But for some reason we like spending $10,000 or so a year to buy, insure, feed, and maintain a fucking car. Well, while we're at it, why don't we drill our own water wells and buy huge generators for electricity and run them 24-7? What's the difference?

Would you get rid of your car if you had good public transportation? I would. Hell, I'd gladly pay $1000 a year to buy a year-long all-access pass.

So I got to the party. R was already in the process of giving her speech. There were tables all laid out with plates and silverware and glasses (water and wine.) Let me emphasize this yet again: The Austrians do not use paper plates, plastic cutlery, or Styrofoam cups. Never offer a European a glass of wine or a beer in a Styrofoam cup; you'd shock him less if you took a shit in his boot.

B translated the speech for me, whispering in my ear. R thanked everybody and told about the founding of the union. There was a big white dog wandering around and he came up a few times during the speech so I could pet him and scratch his ears. I later found out he belongs to one of the ladies at the union and he's been coming to the office since he was a pup. And though there was a fantastic buffet laid out for everyone, the dog never once tried to get any of the people food.

The speech over, we ate. The food was great, made by some of the ladies of the union. I won't bore you with the details, but those people can cook.

I got into a few interesting discussions with the guys at our table. One guy got his PhD in Amsterdam and, surprisingly, had to write his thesis in English. Another guy was the chief of all the shop stewards for some big bank. He described himself as a banker but he was more a labor-relations guy who worked for the workers. He told me how he went to a manager at the bank to talk to him about some labor issue and the guy started telling him what to do. The guy said: "I don't work for you." The manager started sputtering, unable to believe the fact that a bank employee wasn't answerable to him, but the guy explained: "I work for the people in the union and I answer to them."

"That's great," I told him, thinking about how little clout unions have in the US. "If anyone ever doubts the usefulness of their union, just show them a picture of an American unemployment line, and another picture of some investment banker smoking a big cigar, and ask them if they want that shit for their future," I said.

Our buddy Franz was there. He used to work at the union in Vienna but moved to Carinthia and was back for the party. He moved there last year after falling in love with a woman from a small town there, and now they're getting married in October---his first marriage, her second. She has three boys and they all like Franz, and he and the gal get along well. "Sometimes you have to do certain things later in life," he said...meaning, getting married. "Tell me about it," I said, remembering my two marriages.

So tomorrow we're going to pick Franz up and drive him back to Carinthia, meet his girlfriend and her kids, and stay there for a few days enjoying the wonders of that Austrian state.

Lunch With P. Then, A Castle

We met P, our friend from last night, at the fabulous Cafe Weimar, a funky old coffeehouse / restaurant. Never been there before, but now I think it'll be one of my new favorite joints.

Checked the weather today and learned, via weather.com, that the HIGH in Vienna today is LOWER THAN the OVERNIGHT LOW in OKC. In other words, perfect. Sunny skies with lots of fluffy white clouds, and about 76 F. Nice to sit outside with P and talk about stuff.

It's not about the food you eat or the wine you drink----the food is really just an excuse to get together and have a friendly intellectual adventure; a meeting of the minds. Some time ago my buddy George The Greek told me about a dinner party he attended in Paris one time. Then I forgot his story and accidentally stumbled upon the website of the guy in Paris who's been holding these open dinner parties every Sunday for over 30 years. I told George and he reminded me he'd been there and had a good time...and then I got the idea to do little dinner gatherings in my own home, on a much smaller scale. And they've been more or less successful and fun.

P has an interesting project based in Uganda, helping orphaned street kids there. I'll post about this separately sometime because I'd like you to know about P's work and be thinking of ways we might be able to help these kids. Anyhow, that's what we talked about for the first half of our lunch, then we moved on to other things for the second half.

Sitting on the patio of a 110-year-old coffeehouse, eating lunch and talking with friends. It does not suck.

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B had the idea to visit a castle called Burg Kreuzenstein, about a 25 minute drive from her house, located on a hill outside the village of Leobendorf. It was a great day for a drive, and we got there just at 3 PM for the last guided tour of the place.

Burg Kreuzenstein

From the website: "History: The first mention of certain Dietrich von Grizanestein can be identified in a document dated 1115. In April 1645 a Swedish army under Field-Marshal Thorstenson occupied Kreuzenstein. The Swedish were defeated by the emperor's troops, and this sealed the castle´s fate. It was systematically leveled to the ground; all that remained being an uninhabitable pile of rubble. In 1874, it was Count Johann Nepomuk Wiczek who embarked upon the rebuilding and restoration of the castle . The new castle, which was completed in 33 years, is modeled on similar edifices dating from the time of the emperor Maximilian I (1459 - 1519), the last of the knights."

The Count was a big collector of weapons. We couldn't take pictures inside the castle but we toured a huge room where there were all kinds of pikes, swords, crossbows, and other kinds of stuff----enough to arm 300 men, according to the guide. One of the most interesting weapons was a modification of a shepherd's tool----a kind of a loop made of metal on the end of a long pole. It was originally designed to grab sheep by the neck. The loop had an opening and was expandable so you could slip it around the neck of a mounted knight, and then when you pulled, the loop closed and pulled him off his horse. The guide (who reminded me of Isaac Asimov in appearance) told us the knights really feared this weapon, because untrained people could use it to great effect.

 Part of the inner courtyard of the castle.

This castle is still owned by the descendants of the Count, so some parts of it aren't on the tour, like a private chapel and some other rooms. This Count dude had coal-mining interests in an era when coal was like oil, and he was very rich. He was also at least a little socially conscious, and was instrumental in founding Austria's first ambulance service...he even personally drove an ambulance during WWI.

Back home later, B made an excellent dish---some cooked spinach mixed with egg and cheese, then rolled up into large crepes, which were then put into the oven and baked with a little cheese on top. Tomato salad with basil and just a hint of olive oil, salt, and pepper. White wine to drink.

Again, there was no suck-ification to be detected on my Suck-O-Meter in the experiences of the day.

Socializing

Went to my "Deutsch in Park" lesson yesterday, except it looked like rain, so we had the lessons in a nearby school.

Then, during our break, the school maintenance guy wanted to lock up and go home early, so we had to figure out what to do. We schlepped over to the Hauptbücherei (the main library) a few blocks away and got introduced to this fantastic place. Thousands of CDs, DVDs, and of course books, in several languages including English. Not to mention, the view from the top floor was fantastic.

Took the subway to Simmering and B picked me up in the car, and we drove to Schloss Thürnlhof, a pretty cool restaurant in an old castle. The link will lead you to a slide show of the interior of the place. Evidently there's some kind of Napoleon connection, because there are paintings and statues and even three death masks of the guy. We sat out in the courtyard with our friend Margit and enjoyed a really nice meal, starting with a really fantastic mushroom soup. Don't think of the tasteless white things commonly thought of as "mushrooms" that we often find in American markets---think of delicious wild mushrooms, rich in taste.

Chicken breast wrapped in prosciutto on a bed of noodles, with bits of pear.

Leaving the restaurant, we saw this in an alley.
The graveyard of coin operated rides for children.

Then to the Altes AKH, which used to be a hospital complex but now is part of the University of Vienna. The courtyard part of the complex features a park and some restaurants. We were invited to join our friend P and lots of his friends for his belated birthday celebration.

A nice place to sit outside and enjoy drinks with 25 of your closest friends.

As usual with big gatherings, people break off into smaller groups. We talked with a couple of interesting guys, V and G. Both spoke excellent English.

G and P went to university together, lo these many years ago, and part of that process involved a year of study in America. G ended up in Lawrence, Kansas at the U of K. 

"It was an island of creativity and liberal thinking in a sea of conservatism," he said. 

"Yeah, the contrasts can be kind of stunning," I said, thinking of OU in Norman as compared to, say, the guys at the Nicoma Park feed store. When you gather thousands of people together, with the idea of getting them to learn stuff and think about stuff, you're obviously going to have a different vibe than a population whose main goal is to find a grindstone to shove their noses (and minds) against, people who might think: I've got it all figured out. And if I don't, so what? My thinking is good enough for now, and forever.

But G wasn't criticizing his time in America. He was just pointing out what might be called tribal differences among the natives.

V works from home for a big American pharmaceutical company. He has friends in the states and was encouraged by his company to move to Indianapolis, but he said fuck that. I didn't get to ask him specifically what he didn't like about Indie, but the general idea was that the place was unlivable.

He was born to Austrian parents but raised in Spain and speaks fluent Spanish, along with English and German. He and B were talking about the influence of mass media and how it's shrinking the global village and influencing public perceptions, sometimes for the worse as the "outside world's" opinions can affect the culture of the "target country." He cited bullfighting as an example. Because he was raised in Spain, he sees bullfighting completely differently than most of the "civilized" non-Spanish world. He and B were talking in German about this as I talked to G in English, but later she told me the guy made a decent defense of bullfighting, if not entirely convincing to her.

He doesn't watch television except for viewing the occasional DVD. "After you've been without it awhile, when you happen to see it in a pub or at someone's home, it shocks you how horrible it is," he said. 

"Some of it is pretty decent," I said. "But like with anything else, you have to wade through an ocean of shit to find a pearl. And the ocean's getting bigger while the number of pearls is shrinking."

"I don't mind missing out on the pearls to avoid the tsunami of shit," he said.

V has a 5-year-old daughter and he thinks America is a more child-friendly country than Austria---Americans tolerate children's antics better, I guess he meant.

With elections coming up in Austria, talked turned to politics. V and B differ on taxation in Austria. Both agree the tax rate is high when compared to the US, and both agree that they get a lot from the country for the taxes they pay, but V tends to think he's not quite getting his money's worth---and they're asking for more. For instance, the subways don't run 24-7; they shut down about midnight or 1 AM and start up again at 5 or 6. But now the politicians want to offer 24-7 subway service. An improvement? Yes, but is it worth the extra cost? How many people actually need to use the subway between 1 AM and 6 AM? 

All this is interesting to me because it illustrates that people are more alike than they are different. We might tend to think of Europeans as "liberal" "tax and spenders" when compared to the US, but they have their "conservatives." And we in America have our "liberals."

Ultimately these labels are meaningless. After a while you tend to think of a "decent society" as an interesting concept, something much easier to imagine rather than to actually experience. There are forces at play that "don't care" about the ideal society we might imagine---these forces just kind of operate independently of our desires. Build your house of straw, but the wind might blow. Build it of sticks, and it might catch fire. The best you can do is react, or do what you can in advance to minimize damage.

I just keep thinking about Daniel Quinn's BEYOND CIVILIZATION. Give it a read sometime.