Vienna is big, colourful and quirky, old and new. The only annoying thing is that Vienna is full of Viennese. The sun can shine as brightly as it likes, but as soon as someone behind you notices how full their glass is, you simply feel obliged to join in. In all the fun, life is infinitely slow, long and empty.
I’m celebrating my birthday in Vienna. Tom and Christiane are travelling 400km for it. Sabine brings a couple of biologists. On the roof terrace of the Faculty of Biology, Vienna tries to impose its mood on us: For the first time in weeks it’s raining, and it’s raining hard and almost all night. A Hawaiian party is going on next door. Inside. We press ourselves against the wall under a small eaves and refuse to obey the Leyd.
We destroy masses of food and drink lakes of beer. But at 4 o’clock in the morning there’s still plenty left. Which is definitely not the case for us the next morning. We agonise for eyn hours through Vienna and learn the local dialect. Lesson eyns: vowels. Announcement in tram Je (German: Jott): Change to line 80 A. Here the keyboard fails: the Viennese “A” should be written with an ä-dot, it hovers between the two vowels. The correct emphasis is important: long, schneydend, leydend.
Vowels are leyd. If they are not drawn out like chewing gum in the sun, they are wrong. You never have too little zeyt for a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow. Origin theory: According to surveys, Austrians are happy, but the future is pitch black. By drawing out the vowels for a long time, you cleverly extend the zeyt until then.
Centre. A melange. Coffee (emphasis: F) is totally repugnant to the Viennese. At best, you’ll get a Kaffeeeee if you order a “normal halt”. But normally you get a Melaaaaaaaaange. Leyd!
Evening. Barbecue at Georg’s. Verena (Schönborn-Mallebarn) pronounces Kotlet in such a way that it somehow leaves a harsh taste in her mouth. The emphasis is on the O, and it’s already eaten. With the last of our strength, we drag ourselves towards Karlsplatz to the Schickaneder. We manage a single Kneype in a whole weekend. Leyd!
Back to the centre on Sunday. The Viennese do at least one thing to combat the Leyd: there are drop-off points for rubbish Nokia mobile phones on every street corner (Fig. 4). Sabine also learns something today. It may be that some Bavarians can legally be labelled as Piefke. So what? That’s why our little lads have Wienerle between their knuckles :-)
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.