There are a couple of phrases that you only ever hear on a plane, such as the worrying “Is there a doctor on board?”, which always makes me question how useful my knowledge of German literature really is, or the announcement from the Lauda Air stewardess on Sunday evening that they would be dimming the cabin lights for take-off and landing as is standard procedure during “hours of darkness”. This precaution is taken to ensure that our eyes have already adjusted to the low light levels in case of an emergency – which apparently is no longer a concern when they abruptly turn the lights back on to sell us scratch cards, overpriced food and drinks, and even solicit charity donations.
Perhaps it was the fact that I was flying home into a land where a mutant strain of Covid-19 seems to be wreaking havoc, and specifically into a city which now finds itself in Tier Four of a system which only had three tiers last week. Or perhaps it was the fact that Austria had announced they would be suspending flights from the UK less than an hour before I boarded my flight, causing people to step out of the check-in queue and make panicked decisions, but I did feel that the phrase “hours of darkness” was particularly apt. It was therefore stashed away in that compartment of my brain which is full of half-finished limericks and second-rate Instagram captions, ready to be used for this final Year Abroad update of 2020.
My last few weeks in Vienna were simply leiwand and now that I’m back in locked-down London and what seems like March all over again, already seem like a distance dream. I’m glad to say that December featured a lot more festivities and adventures than Netflix (exceptions made of course for Love Actually and The Holiday) and was even marginally warmer than it was towards the end of November. When I wasn’t trying to get my head around Literatur- and Politikwissenschaft, I was able to take time to really appreciate and enjoy the Advent season. Even if the Christmas Market stalls were boarded up in scenes reminiscent of the opening sequence of Spirited Away and the cosy Kaffeehäuser remained closed, there were still plenty of new traditions left to be discovered. I was delighted to find out how seriously baking Christmas cookies, or Plätzchen, is taken in Austria (and Germany), to the extent that the supermarkets' flour and baking aisles looked like they did during the first lockdown: empty. With my attempt to replicate our family’s go-to Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookies thwarted by the lack of brown sugar, the classic Vanillekipferl and Zimtsterne stepped in to save the day. There’s even a terribly catchy children’s song about Christmas baking, and my flatmates were shocked to hear we didn’t have an equivalent one in the UK (or at least we didn’t have one yet, I added, thinking it could be a productive use of my time in quarantine).
Manche Leckerei in der Weihnachtsbäckerei!
Like many other continental Europeans, Austrians also celebrate St Nicholas Day on December 6th, and I was touched to find a Milka bishop, clementines and nuts left outside my door in the morning - and slightly embarrassed I hadn’t returned the gesture. In the Netherlands it is customary to write personal poems, or Sinterklaasgedicht, for friends and family. I thus spent a good hour penning my first Dutch poem for Eve (the friend from Amsterdam who I have been trying and failing to see since March) and even recorded it with sound effects, and by the time I finished I sounded just like a GCSE listening exercise. A wonderful post was circulating on Instagram about St Nicolas which I’ve linked here – a poignant reflection on the truth and story behind the fearless martyr who lies behind the saccharine Santa who tumbles down our chimneys every year.
St Nicholas arrives at Währinger Gürtel, December 6th 2020.
One of the many perks of moving to Austria has been the number of Catholic feast days and national holidays, and December brought with it the Feast Day of St Barbara (December 4th) and the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8th). St Barbara was an early Christian martyr and is particularly popular in German speaking-areas as she is the patron saint of miners, as well as of artillerymen and apparently mathematicians too. I remember sending a photo to my eponymous Grandmother of a shrine to St Barbara I had come across deep underground in Thuringia some years ago, which was quite exciting given her relative obscurity elsewhere. The British seem to have, if you’ll pardon the pun, somewhat undermined her, sadly removing her Feast Day from our liturgical calendar. Many German-speaking churches and families continue the tradition of the Barbarazweig – cutting a branch from a flowering tree and waiting for it to blossom on or near Christmas Day, in a nod to the legend which claims that a blooming branch from a cherry blossom tree brought comfort to St Barbara as she awaited her martyrdom.
The feast of the Unbefleckte Empfängnis (definitely not on my A-Level vocabulary list) is also of great significance for Catholics, for reasons a little more complicated than this blog post would do justice to, and I was able to join a small outing to the Marian Grotto in the Viennese Woods near Klosterneuburg, the evening before. Modelled on the Grotto in Lourdes where Mary repeatedly appeared to the young Bernadette Soubirous, this tucked-away Austrian replica was beautiful, and as we sang German Marian songs (Maria Durch ein Dornwald ging, Ave Sei Gegrüßt) together, I felt the same great sense of peace and calm which had overwhelmed me in Lourdes last year.
A terrible photo of the beautiful Lourdesgrotte im Wienerwald
The final Advent tradition I’d like to mention is the Rorate Messe – and not least because I’m still astounded that I was able to wake up at 6.30am for two weeks running. The Rorate Mass is an early morning Mass held during Advent in the honour of Mary. Standing (and shivering) under the imposing vaults of the Votivkirche at 7am in a church full of students clutching tealights while the Chaplain sung the introit ‘Rorate coeli desuper et nubes pluant justum’ (Isaiah 45:8 - Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just) was one of those spine-tinglingly special moments which will stay with me far longer than any of those ECTS university credits I was sent to Vienna to accumulate. As I won’t be able to go to Mass on the 24th here because of the ten-day quarantine for returning travellers (and the ineptitude of this government’s test-to-release system) I tried to make the most of my last few days in Vienna by also attending the Filipino Community’s Simbang Gabi - a daily Mass in the nine days preceding Christmas. Apart from the forty-degree difference in temperature, it very much felt like I could have stepped right into a Church in Manila.
A more unusual view of the Votivkirche - I thought the selection of Christmas trees for sale was preferable to the Samsung advert that adorns the front of the church; John 2:16 - You shall not make my Father's house into a market-place - certainly comes to mind...
As delightful as all the Austrian traditions are, there were also many exasperated moments when I tried and failed to describe pigs-in-blankets (Schweine in den Decken?!) or Christmas puddings to my new friends (explaining that we then douse it in alcohol and set it on fire was really the final straw). A fellow year-abroad student and I even managed to bake some mince pies together to bring the taste of a British Christmas to our student kitchen in Vienna. It was therefore not only with a suitcase full of Torte but also with a very mixed bag of emotions that I arrived home on Sunday. I was grateful to have made it home in one piece after an incredible first few months in the heart of central Europe, but also felt a tinge of sadness at the thought that I wouldn’t be able to spend the usual time with my brother, Gran and friends here in London, and not to mention the remaining uncertainty of when I’ll be able to get back to the Austrian life.
Yet as this formidable rollercoaster of 2020 draws to a close, so too must this overly long blog post, and there are indeed many things I’m thankful for. I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to study abroad and to dive deeper into literature, politics and German-speaking culture. I’m thankful to have met wonderful people in Vienna who have inspired me, encouraged me and made the city feel more like home. I’m thankful for family and friends who have read these updates and followed along this adventure, one slice of cake, incredibly niche reference and shocking pun at a time. And as we draw even closer to Christmas Day, I’m thankful for the coming of Christ into our broken and troubled world; a source of peace, hope and light - even in these hours of darkness.
Wishing you and your families a very blessed Christmas, Fröhliche Weihnachten or Maligayang Pasko, and I’ll see you next year for some more adventures. Bis dann!
Nativity Scene at the Rathaus Park in Vienna, which normally hosts one of the famous Christmas markets.