There's nothing quite like a small town
Something written awhile ago that I forgot to post
February 18th 2024:
I think I’ve been operating on stereotypes for much of my existence in Austria. I have been struggling hard to make Austrian friends. Part of me stopped struggling a couple months ago. There is a wisp of friendliness that you’re greeted with before the train door is shut in your face. “Nächste bitte” I can hear in the back of my mind. “There is no place for you in my network” says another. Part of it is adjusting to the life of being an adult: adjusting to not having a space where you can meet familiar faces, adjusting to not being able to call someone at any hour of the day and just chat. Not to mention adjusting to another culture.
In short, the Viennese experience was great because of the space and freedom it afforded me, but the city itself is populated with unfriendly people. This is an open secret. My teachers even acknowledge this. At both schools. Hearing this scared me. And it made part of me want to stop struggling. Vienna was my world. The frowning faces plastered along the streets, the shit stains on the sidewalk. Everything at the beginning of my program had contributed to a sense of loneliness there.
This led to a further sense that it would be hard for me to learn the language. Especially if I couldn’t connect with the people here. I resigned myself to the outer reaches of the social fabric of Vienna. I thought myself doomed to a subterranean existence, watching the others live their lives through the holes in the fabric left over from tears in the fabric.
All that being said, I’ve found people. And I’ve left Vienna during the weekends. I’ve been able to tear myself a bit larger of a hole. It’s not quite Shawshank redemption level, but then again, I don’t have to dig through a wall. There’s certainly been an adjustment. I’ve also lost some sense of grounding.
This weekend, I went to Hartberg. A city in the Austrian state of Styria. The city is populated with around 8,000 inhabitants. Going there, I didn’t know what to expect. Part of me kind of felt like I wouldn’t be doing anything of note there, I was still caught up in the rat race of always trying to make friends, always occupying myself. The quiet and sleepy nature of the town swept me off my feet as I came in. Well maybe that’s too generous. There was something refreshing about this town. My friend Josh was at the train station waiting for me by my train. I hadn’t eaten anything since I left Vienna 3 hours before. The ghosts of hunger had not reached me yet.
Maybe I should go back to my reason for visiting. About 2 months ago, I watched a play with my good friend Theo and another TA he brought along with him, Josh. Josh ended up sleeping at my house due to his hostel being booked incorrectly. He left his purple shirt at my place in November. I told him I would visit him in Hartberg to get the “small town feel”.
About a month ago, josh invited me to a soccer game in Hartberg. Despite being a relatively small city, their soccer team is quite good. They currently sit in 4th place in the Austrian Bundesliga. Right under Red Bull Salzburg, Sturm Graz, and LASK (Linzer-Athletik-Sport-Club).
To be honest I thought he was inviting me to a third division Austrian league game. I would’ve been happy either way, it’s alway fun to watch a soccer game with a friend.
So here I am, coming into Hartberg after a night of staying up too late and waking up too early. When I got there, I had plans to tutor someone over zoom, but it just didn’t work out. I wasn’t able to get WIFI in time to get on Zoom, so I decided to walk around Hartberg.
I felt like a philosopher walking along the streets there. I was ready to jump deep into my thoughts with Josh when I heard a “Hallo” from a passerby. These “Hallo”s did not stop. They came from everyone. As we walked by I felt like a part of the city. Like I was another red blood cell rushing through the veins of this town. I interchange city and town because Hartberg is somewhere in between. It is not quite a town, but not quite a city. It lies between. Much like this weekend for me.
There is something to the small pleasantries in the US. I always joke with my students that people in the US are the best at small talk. I stand by this opinion. We have been conditioned to be good small talkers since we first walked up to the cash register at the grocery store. The average small talker in the US is much more gifted at the gift of gab than the average Viennese. We just have more practice, simple as that.
I miss the small talk. I miss the greetings at the cash register. I miss the superficial pleasantries showered upon me in public spaces. This is said with only a slight ironic tone. I think one of my relationships in the past was built on a mutual dislike of small talk. I guess now, in retrospect, we can see why that relationship didn’t work out. My revealed preference is that I like small talk.
Nevertheless, these little points of acknowledgment loosened the slight amount of separation I felt in Vienna.
