Coming to a Close

I write this now on a train – traveling back from Switzerland (where I was in Zug and quickly Bern over the weekend) – and if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s distracting myself when there is homework to be done. I brought along my macroeconomics book to read on the train, but I haven’t posted a blog entry in months. I’ll write before I read.

This is the same train ride I took when I arrived in Innsbruck in September 2007. Almost two years ago I flew into Switzerland from the states, stayed with the Waltis (the same family I stayed with this weekend) and then took the train to Austria. This was the beginning of my time here. It was a warm fall evening then with the sun enhancing the color of the green mountains, and today’s view is much the same. This weekend marked my last visit to my Swiss “family” before I move back to the U.S., and it’s just another one of the things I’m doing “one last time.”

Last night at dinner Margrit, the mom of the family, asked me which one thing from my time here has left the biggest impression on me. We were sitting on their balcony, which overlooks Lake Zug; I was sipping coffee even though it was after 9 p.m. and that doesn’t usually serve me well. My answer came pretty quickly. More than anything, this experience in Austria has been a roller coaster ride in understanding people. Not a roller coaster in a high-strung, dramatic sense. More like the roller coaster one sees at carnivals set up temporarily in parking lots: there are distinguishable highs and lows, but never is one scared. And for better or for worse, the end of the ride is always in sight.

When I came to Innsbruck in September 2007, I was determined to immerse myself among Austrians and do my best to live like a local. This goal was largely based on my experience studying abroad for a semester in Vienna during undergrad, which was a very different experience. I had the time of my life during those four months, but like almost all American college students I encounter studying in Europe, I was living the American tourist life and just happened to be on another continent.

So I moved to Innsbruck, somewhat nervous because I wouldn’t have the large Fulbright network that the grantees in Vienna had, but also excited that this forced independence would offer greater long-term rewards. I had planned in advance how I would “force-integrate” myself this time: living with Austrians in a dorm, taking classes at the university with Austrian students as opposed to exchange students, joining the university choir… all of these would move me closer to my goal of knowing what it was like to live like an Austrian. But despite this contact with Austrians, my immersion didn’t lead to natural integration.

The intense, surreal nature of years abroad leads to intense friendships. I was lucky to have several of those. But at the end of the year, almost all of my closest friends were European, but only a few were Austrian. I left Austria for the summer, excited to see my friends in the states, sad knowing that many of my closest friends in Innsbruck wouldn’t be there when I returned for my second year, as their exchange years had finished.

I had a couple close friends who would still be in Innsbruck during my second year – two of whom were my roommates – and we spent most of our time together. So I had some close one-on-one friendships, but I group settings were another story- and those settings are ones that I normally enjoy. I didn’t have the desire to seek out this year’s group of exchange students, knowing that with them, not only would I not speak any German, but goodbyes would begin just as soon as bonds started to form. Instead, I hung out more and more with Austrians and Germans and as a result, I spent a lot of nights this past October and November standing to the side at parties or on the edge of groups at bars. I had succeeded in working my way into the local Innsbruck culture. But despite being “inside,” I often felt like the lone outsider.

At this point my German was good enough to express myself and understand others, but one of the aspects of my personality I enjoy most – my humor – was lost. Humor doesn’t always translate, even if you know how to say what you want in the other language, and in my experience, being the only one in- or outside of a joke can be painfully lonely. Explaining a joke doesn’t help anything. It makes the situation more awkward. At a Halloween party full of Germans, at which I was the only American, I was trying to make conversation with people I didn’t know, and a girl said to me (surely with no real intention if being rude), “You are totally unfunny,” and walked away. What a blow! Not because I was trying to be funny, or because I really cared that much about what this girl thought of me, but because I knew that there was a place (in my case Oregon) where I have friends who do understand my weird jokes, who do think I’m funny (or crazy), and maybe I was naïve to think that I could ever find that sort of understanding in another place, let alone another culture and language.

But like all roller coasters, this one left that gutter and began to climb. I began hanging out more and more with people who I met during my first year at university, but hadn’t spent much time with during my first year. These are now my closest friends here – and they’re mostly Austrian (or German). Sure there are small cultural differences and my humor is still often received by raised eyebrows or rolled eyes, but that’s the way it’s always been with my closest friends – regardless of where. I wasn’t naïve to hope for close friendships in another place; I was naïve to think that it could happen in the scope of one year.

I’ve finally found Austrians (etc.) who are exactly like my friends in the US. It actually wasn’t even that I met them after months and months of being here – some I’ve known since near the beginning – but it takes time to really get to know people. And people say that’s especially extreme in Austria, and Tyrol. It just took time to break into the culture.

What has left the biggest impression on me? I will leave here with a new perspective that there are people everywhere with whom I could relate and enjoy. We’re not so different. But I also have a new perspective on myself, now knowing that what I value most in life is not anything that can be achieved quickly. Close friendships are one of the most important things in the world, and I have to know that those are not quickly found or achieved. I know what makes me happy and I know it takes time.

Our train was just stopped on the tracks for about 15 minutes – there was an explanation over the muffled loudspeaker that I couldn’t understand – and I estimate our delayed arrival in Innsbruck will be in about 45 minutes. Just enough time for a chapter of economics.

The sun has gone behind the mountains anyway. I think the only way I’d be able to stop staring at those mammoths is to get them out of my sight altogether. I’m glad the nighttime is doing that job for me.