Date: Jan 22, 2007 8:06 PM
Subject: Wiener Wisdom
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So there I was, listening to Bob,
and he’s telling me (thick Scottish accent) “always shag women,
Shaan.” No doi. Then he and the other bar owner, after formally
announcing my coolness and offering me a barman position at their bar
in Vienna, “The Lion Rampant”, suggested that I pick a fight with the
biggest guy in the bar, for yuks…theirs. No sooner do they say this
and the Croatian Professional Water Polo Team walk in the
bar…seriously….two of which were some of the biggest humans I’ve
ever seen…Bob’s eyes get huge, then some Dropkick Murphy’s comes
on the jukebox, and I know I’m totally fucked…”Duuuuu ettttt
Schuuuun” “Doont be unuthur pooof Yaink…” I acquiesce, thanks
largely to the night’s theme…”Lets See If the Poof Yank Can Drink
Scottish Whiskey With Scottish People, harharhar.” I approach the two
huge humans and say to their nipples, “Do you want to fight?” They
laugh. Apparently I wasn’t convincing, and then I find out they dont
speak English, so I try in German, “Ich mochte euch Faus…(now I
realize here that I dont know the word for “fight in German..its
“kampfen”, i learned later) so I say “Ich mochte euch
Faus…fitten….which sounds alot like Fausficken (fistfuck)…quick
recap–literally translated, I just said, in german, to the two large
Croatian humans, something that sounded like “I would like to fistfuck
you.” this apparently worked,…{sidenote..whiskey should
nevereverever be used as a social lubricant} then as they square up,
and one does speak English after all, and says, wide-eyed, “what you
say at us?”
And I say, “Do you want to fight?”….”because that stocky, balding,
redhead behind me wants to fight you.” They seemed confused,
naturally, and approach Bob…and, well, I don’t know what he said
to them, but I do remember that five minutes later the Croatians
bought all of us beer and we were all bouncing around to some awful
pop music.

I bring this up, largely because, well, its a funny story, firstly,
and secondfully, one of the greatest joys of traveling, and living
for that matter, is finding yourself in the middle of a situation such
as this and taking 10 seconds to step back, get into the third person,
and remark, to yourself, “you can’t make this shit up, there is no way
i would have ever thought I’d be here.”

Where is here? Vienna, Austria. For my American friends, Austria is a
small, mountainous country south of Germany, north of Italy, West of
Hungary and Slovakia, East of Switzerland*.

American Glossary

*These are all countries in Europe**.

**Europe is a continent approximately 6000 miles east of America
where they speak European.

I’ve been living in Austria for the last four months. I came here in
love, with a woman, and fell out of it faster than you can say, “Man
soellt nie fur eine Madchen nach ein anderren Land fliegen. Das ist
ganz Wurst.” (One should never go to another country for a girl. This
is totally sausage.)

Boohoo.

The problem with this sort of situation is that love, I’ve found, can
do some wonderful things for you, but for the inexperienced, it makes
you walk around in this rose-colored goo where you’re convinced you
can do impossible things. For example, endure a relationship with a
German.

Now, finding yourself alone, in Austria, when your sole purpose for
being in this place was to be next to her is quite a thing. It makes
you ask the question, “how is it I wound up in Austria, alone?” Ah,
yes, because my sole purpose for being here was for her.

I just figured, I’d teach English for six months or so and see what
comes up. Well, nothing was. Mixed in with my intensive German course
I was going 8am to 8pm everyday, had no time for myself, and had
hardly met anyone, and the few friends I did make, I never had time to
hang out with. Mix that with a young girl inexpereinced in
relationships, a cultural/language-barrier, too much drinking, and its
recipe for a dish that tastes like breakup.

I hit the ground running here, not knowing the language, no job, no
apartment, just a backpack and a girlfriend. After two months, I had
plenty of work, a visa, and a sweet apartment with a rockstar
darkhorse drumandbass dancer, Olaf, but very little “happy.” I
thought, well, I could go back home to get happy, or I could quit my
job, hit up mom and dad for some money, and actually enjoy this
experience, and sort of start from scratch.

Then something magical happened, instead of the rose-colored goo of
love, i was covered in a bright yellow goo*** and started to see
things different.

***There actually was no goo, but I’ve often associated the color
yellow with optimism, even though colloquially, yellow, is associated
with fear, but this is my friggin’ allegory.

And before I knew it I was thinking, this place is great, I live in
Vienna…I’m from Orange County, and here I am flirting with Austrian
chicks, in German, and doing well ;).

And then something really wierd happened, and this will be my last
anecdote, because I’m sure all of you are bored by now, and have jobs
to go back to and stuff.

I told one of my English students my troubles, and put in my two weeks
notice. I also, bought a video camera, for fun, and had mentioned this
to my student, and told him It would be neat to make a video blog of
this experience…he then called up his aunt, who runs a TV show
called “Hello Vienna, Hello Austria”. and basically got me an
on-the-spot audition for a gig as a “lifestyle reporter” reporting on
cultural stuff in Austria…for example, On Friday night, I found
myself on iceskates, for the first time in my life, awkardly “skating”
around the eislaufen (ice run) in the Rathaus Platz (Park in front of
cityhall) being follwed around by an Austrian guy with a camera, also
on ice skates giving me direction, in German, and the director
shouting over the rails, in English, “Shaan, stop saying “awesome” so
much. They don’t know what that means in Poland!”

So they’re going to edit it, and if my smile is bright, and the
sparkle in my eyes is sparkly enough, and they can cut enough of my,
“awesomes” out, I might be a full-time lifestyle reporter…even if I
don’t get the job, I think they’d be happy to have me kick around and
help and get tips on how to work my camcorder.

So there it is, Austria 2.0. Its been a while since I’ve cranked one
of these emails out, but its been a rough few months.

I hope everyone is doing well, and if I start getting famous and
stuff, I promise I wont forget you, although autographs will cost you
5 euro hahahahaha.

Check out some pics here, a special thanks to Lindsay and Simon, most
of these are their pics, I’m always too lazy to bring my camera out,
you dont need to sign in,click on the picture to see the slideshow…
and this one wont send an email to everyone in your address book:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5hfwaq5.4tnzztv9&x=0&y=-cxvues

Oh yeah, here’s me at my 10 year high school reunion…a friend of
mine thought it would be a good idea to follow me and Lindsay around
with a camera and put it on TV, and it is, on Current TV, home to one
of the finest Producers I’ve ever met, well, she’s the only Producer
I’ve ever met, actually no, that’s not true, I did meet the Austrian
producer on Thursday, but she’s eighty, and chainsmokes..anyway,
Allison is fine…and made a hell of a four minute reunion video:

http://www.current.tv/pods/event/PD04902

Auf Wiedersehen

der Shaan