Jeff and I heard Gregorian chants performed at
Stephansdom, a beautiful 800-year-old church.
Woke up at 4:00 a.m. this morning (10:00 a.m. Vienna time). I'm going to try hard not to nap today in an attempt to get over my jet lag as soon as possible.
So much to tell, and ViaVoice makes it a challenge, so instead of one long trip report, I'm going to post shorter highlights over the next few weeks. One highlight, for example, was the language. As most of you know, I've been trying to learn German over the past few months in preparation for the trip.
Vienna underground.
I am happy to report that it paid off. :-) Don't get me wrong; I wasn't close to being able to have a regular conversation with anyone in German. I've also found a number of differences between what I learned from my German travel phrase book and what people actually used in Vienna. I never heard a single person say "Guten Tag", for example. Instead, there was a lot of "Grüfl Gott" and "Servus," and instead of "Guten morgen" I heard "Morgen" more often.
My first attempt at using the language was humbling... I ordered by reading an item off the menu, and later found out that I had just asked for a Brauwasser himbeer "with optional raspberry." :-) The waiter responded in English, asking me if I wanted a small or large. This happened several times when I interacted with restaurant or store staff, especially at the beginning of my trip, when I would say something in German and the other person would answer in English. A few times, however, I did managed to carry off a short phrase or question with enough confidence (or perhaps it was because I purposely stopped speaking so clearly and began slurring my words together a bit) that the store clerk would respond in German. Sometimes this was good, sometimes not so good since it meant I had to actually understand the response. :-D
Sign on each table at breakfast in our hotel restaurant.
Knowing even little of the language, however, definitely helped. I could look through the text beside an item in a museum, for example, and usually at least get a general sense of what the paragraph was about. People seemed to appreciate that I was at least attempting to communicate in their language, as spastic as my attempts might be. I could usually get across my meaning with a combination of broken German, English and frantic hand gesticulations.
More importantly, it helped chip away a little bit of the invisible wall, letting me experience more of Vienna than I would have otherwise. It also helped give me the courage to start up conversations with people I had never met before at the wedding, make some new friends. It took a little bit to get over the inevitable "dear lord, I know my German is feeble, they're all going to laugh at me" paranoia, but the resulting experience was so much more satisfying.
Chocolate-covered bananas.
In fact, I've decided to keep studying German and try to become fluent enough to be able to have a simple conversation with someone in the language. I can see how much more quickly one can learn language if living in the country; I learned more German in my one week in Vienna than I have in a month studying on my own at home. Still, I plan to keep plugging away at those noun and verb declensions, listening to language CDs, corresponding with German-speaking friends.
More on my Vienna trip soon. :-)
Tuesday, December 16, 2003 at 12:12AM 
