All the way back when moving to Austria seemed like a far-fetched dream and we were still on the PE with Joe and Banana Bread stage of lockdown, I participated in an online German language course run by the University of Vienna’s Language Centre. Every morning I would roll out of bed, open up my laptop and sit through a few hours of Herr Fischer (a quintessentially Austrian professor with an impressive handlebar moustache) explaining the complexities of German word order. There were also some cultural deviations, one of them being an A-Z of unmissable Austrian highlights. While I greatly enjoyed this session, after three and a half weeks of Vienna, I’ve realised there were some significant omissions, and so to remedy this I'd like to present you with my very own Vienneasy-peasy ABC, of which this is the Erster Teil.
Almdudler – Just before Freshers’ Week I remember my brother – source of all wisdom and obscure knowledge - remarking that I should probably trade my daily mugs of Milo (a chocolate energy drink) and milk for either beer, coffee or tea, or indeed all three, if I was going to have any chance at surviving British student culture. Almdudler is the Austrian solution to this very problem; a delicious soft drink available everywhere which looks just like beer but is in fact herbal lemonade. You can even find it in raspberry, elderflower, and grapefruit flavours, still or sparkling. And it’s not just me being difficult with my drink choice again; my fellow new arrivals in Vienna are equally obsessed, to the extent that we’ve now named ourselves ‘The Almdudes’.
Dinner with Almdudler at the Chaplaincy - the little slips of paper are contact detail forms in case test-and-trace is required, and not those similarly shaped 'I want to be a Christian!' tick box slips you find at certain Carol Services, as I had originally feared...
Bezirksamt – Municipal District Office – Bezirksamt-related experiences have been the main source of stress and paperwork over the past few weeks. Registration upon arrival and a further appointment to register for a long-term stay are compulsory and seem to have required every document I brought with me, plus the ones I didn’t. The Anmeldebescheinigungtermin (don’t you just love a long word?) also required running down to the basement to pay the administrative fee, running back up to the appointment to prove you’ve paid, and then signing another sheet of paper to prove that you’ve paid with your own money (as opposed to someone else’s you might have stolen on the way downstairs?!).
Café Central, Café Français, Café 7Stern – Move out Waterstones, Bould Brothers, and the Locker Café - the Viennese Kaffeehauskultur is what I’m here for! Vienna is filled with numerous cosy coffee and cake spots, perfect for catching up with a friend (of a friend, in my case) between classes. They range from the more traditional haunts with waiters in waistcoasts to the Third-Wave coffee shops, and sell all kinds of tempting treats. Would highly recommend choosing your study-abroad destination based on the coffee and cake possibilities.
Interior of the Café Central, with a life-sized statue of the author and poet Peter Altenberg (1859-1919) -a famous regular at the Café.
Dict.cc - Fellow learners of the German language will know the reassuring orange glow of this online dictionary all too well. Suffice to say it has become my most-visited website, and I always have it open on my laptop during lectures, although admittedly with my screen brightness turned right down, so the student behind me doesn’t see me looking up all the embarrassingly basic words I should probably know by now.
Erasmus – Just a brief entry to note that the European Union’s Student Exchange Programme, commonly referred to as ERASMUS+, actually stands for European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students, and just happens to spell out the name of the great Dutch philosopher and scholar. It's like creating a scheme called Britain's Original Remedy for International emergency Situations which just so happens to spell out Boris... well, you get the idea.
Frucade – As if Almdudler wasn’t enough, Austria also has another delightful mouthful to offer – an Orangenfruchtsaftlimonade called Frucade. I’m still not entirely sure why, but my lacrosse team was insistent on me trying a bottle post-training last week, and I can report back that I did enjoy the sugary artificial orange taste, which brought me right back to childhood holidays in The Philippines spent slurping down Zest-O cartons (a dubious Filipino Capri-Sun equivalent).
Geil – Tackled the ball out of someone’s stick? Geil! Nice shot in the corner of the goal? Geil! Coming back next week even though half the team appears to play for the Austrian National Lacrosse Team?! Equally geil! Geil seems to be one of those terribly overused slang words that keeps on cropping up – although if you want to sound really Viennese and shake things up a bit, you can stick ‘ur’ on the front of it to emphasise just how great something is. Urgeil!
Hauptgebäude – The main building of the University of Vienna is enormous – it feels like a museum, a school, a university campus, and an office block rolled into one. It’s beautiful but ridiculously difficult to navigate, even when class locations are listed alongside the corridor, floor, and staircase they are found on. I keep thinking it would make an excellent Mario-Kart race-track, or indeed a setting for a murder mystery – but more on that in the Zweiter Teil of this ABC.
The Arkadenhof in the Main Building of the Universität Wien.
IKEA – There’s nothing more chaotic than a student group trip to IKEA – that is unless you’re doing it in another language, in an IKEA you've never been to, and in what felt like a very un-Covid-secure setting. I’ve picked up the random assortment of stuff I needed (and hopefully nothing else) and was so troubled by the crammed bus ride there, which is undoubtedly even more crammed on the return journey what with unpronounceable flat-packed furniture and plants, that I walked for about twenty minutes to take the tram back instead.
Jänner – As mentioned previously, there are indeed some linguistic differences here in Austria, the use of Jänner instead of Januar for January being one of them. I first came across this in my favourite place – the Bezirksamt – when I was told at the end of the stressful appointment that I’d probably have to come back in Jänner and do it all again post-Brexit, and probably produce even more documents and definitely more money. Thanks Boris, that's not geil at all.
Katholische Hochschulgemeinde – The KHG is the Fisher House equivalent here in Vienna – a dynamic Chaplaincy serving the spiritual and social needs of the Catholic students in the city. Everyone I’ve met so far has been incredibly friendly and welcoming, though I’m still recovering from the Student Mass on Sunday evening which managed to feature Hillsong music, guitars, eight (male) altar-servers, students dressed in tweed and suits, and Latin liturgy, all in one Mass. (Non-Catholic friends - this is practically unheard of in the UK!)
Area surrounding the main Chaplaincy building - the one with the yellow pillar on the left!
Leiwand – Another essential bit of Viennese lingo. Much like geil, this versatile positive adjective can be sprinkled onto every possible conversation. I’ve just fallen down one of those pesky etymological wormholes I warned you about in my previous blog, and have found out that it originates from leinwand, meaning canvas, ‘which was of high value in Austria in the Middle Ages’, and that there was even a Leinwandbier, and so to use the adjective would be to say that something is as great as the beer. Fascinating stuff, but I think I’ll stick to the Almdudler for now.
Marille – Marille is the Austrian word for apricot, or what is simply called an Aprikose in Germany. The Austrians love their apricots and I’ve found it in all kinds of places lately – the sneakiest being a pot of what I thought looked like Caramel that came with some Churros (that famous Austrian dessert…), but in fact turned out to be a dollop of warm apricot jam. I'll try to sample a Marillenknödel, a doughy warm apricot-filled dumpling, before the next blog and give the verdict then!
Nederlandistik – Rounding off what has turned out to be a longer than expected Erster Teil with a brief mention of the faculty of Nederlandistik which has kindly allowed me to take three hours of Dutch classes a week. I started learning Dutch last year, for reasons I’m still not quite sure of, and decided it might be fun to give it a go over here. I seem to have my work cut out for me but it’s great to be in a small, in-person class with a wacky teacher, who much like my teacher last year, seems to display a fair bit of the Dutch burgerlijke ongehoorzaamheid (roughly translates to civil disobedience) when it comes to following the rules… She also explained to us how the University is trying to cut down the size of the Nederlandistik Faculty by discontinuing the advanced classes, which I all found rather amusing, coming from Cambridge where the Dutch department consists of one Professor and twelve students. Helaas Pindakaas!
Herzlichen Glückwunsch on reading this far, hope you have an urgeil week ahead, and see you very soon for the Vienneasy-peasy ABC: Zweiter Teil.