Ever wondered why cracking the code of Austrian friendship seems as challenging as understanding quantum physics? Well, you're not alone. Join the edelwisecrackers as they delve into the peculiarities of forming connections in the land of Alps and Schnitzel. We promise to reveal why Austria's 'friends quota' might leave you feeling like an outsider and share the secret sauce to navigating this complex social landscape.
Don't miss our tips on the art of Austrian social etiquette, from navigating the tricky waters of splitting bills to understanding the cultural nuance of a restaurant owner's dry humor. If you've ever been caught off guard by the blunt honesty of an Austrian waiter, this episode will not only make sense of it but also arm you with the strategies to win them over – hint: it might involve a drink or two.
Whether it's the workplace or the Wiener café, we've got you covered with insights that go beyond the guidebook. Tune in, laugh a little, and equip yourself with the know-how to transform your Austrian encounters from frosty to friendly.
Ever wondered why cracking the code of Austrian friendship seems as challenging as understanding quantum physics? Well, you're not alone. Join the edelwisecrackers as they delve into the peculiarities of forming connections in the land of Alps and Schnitzel. We promise to reveal why Austria's 'friends quota' might leave you feeling like an outsider and share the secret sauce to navigating this complex social landscape.
Don't miss our tips on the art of Austrian social etiquette, from navigating the tricky waters of splitting bills to understanding the cultural nuance of a restaurant owner's dry humor. If you've ever been caught off guard by the blunt honesty of an Austrian waiter, this episode will not only make sense of it but also arm you with the strategies to win them over – hint: it might involve a drink or two.
Whether it's the workplace or the Wiener café, we've got you covered with insights that go beyond the guidebook. Tune in, laugh a little, and equip yourself with the know-how to transform your Austrian encounters from frosty to friendly.
Hey, good to know and welcome to our third episode of this podcast. We are the Edelweiss crackers. I'm Michael, I'm Edelweiss.
Speaker 2:Lucas Edelweiss, lucas Wow. Okay, now we've added in the title, that's cool, we're going to talk about that at it. Oh, edelweiss.
Speaker 1:Cracker, lucas. Yeah, and so, as you know, we're here to talk about our experiences living here in Austria Me as an American here for a few years and Lucas as a local wiener, thank you. And yeah, last time we talked a little bit about this ranking. That had been the survey that had been posted. That had been talking about. Austria's ranking is 52 out of 53 covered countries. It comes to friendliness. When it comes to friendliness specifically, and we talked a little bit about the why's and all that.
Speaker 2:Yes, one of the experiences that we haven't talked about yet is the idea that many expats say they can't find friends in Austria, like they can't make any new friends, local friends, yeah, and I also thought okay, why is that? Why is that now? And here's another simple answer to this the reason why foreigners, expats, immigrants they can't make friends easily in Austria is because the people here already have friends.
Speaker 1:Austrians can only have a set amount of friends.
Speaker 2:It's just like you know, friends quota.
Speaker 2:Don't write the elevator unless you're 12 years old and there's a maximum number of friends you can have. Yeah, I mean that makes sense, even on social media, you know, can only have not more than 25 friends. But really it's probably also part of the mindset, like we talked about last time. Of course, one thing is the people you know you feel safe around. The foreigner will always be a stranger We'll always have some idea of.
Speaker 2:Okay, maybe there's something that I don't want, like a certain sense of danger, although I have to say there are many, many Austrians that are very open minded and very like the interest in finding something new that's non-Austrian. So he's like, hey, yeah, are you from Indonesia? Like, how nice, Tell me more about it. Like, what's it like being in Indonesia? Or living in South Africa? Yeah, you name it. And Austrians really like to travel a lot and find out more about that. So it's not that they're really close off, but just the nature of society is. I mean, when you're a kid, you go to school, you have your friends at school and one way or the other, you because you don't move a lot generally speaking, you stick to those friends and you might only add other friends that you meet at the workplace as long as a couple of your other friends moved away and you have a room in your quota, Exactly.
Speaker 2:So if you do that, you have like 10 friends from school. You have, I don't know, seven friends from one workplace and five friends from university, the college days.
Speaker 1:Couple friends from the Faray and the German Bar and the Faray yeah.
Speaker 2:The Faray is also like a closed off club and so I mean you're up to 20, 30, 40 friends, I don't know, and you cannot maintain. It's hard to manage that yeah.
Speaker 2:Also and here's another twist to it that of course you don't get if you're not part of that circle. But the mentality is, if you're a friend, an Austrian friend, you're a friend for a lifetime. Yeah, and you don't give up those friendships and, generally speaking, like you might even fight, like because you're very honest, you might say, like what do you think and what how? Like how you disapprove of something or someone, but in the end you don't go around looking for new friends, but you stick. So that's very a general thing. Of course it's not true for every single friendship and every single encounter or relationship in history of Austria. But here's another reason, because if you're not interested in finding new friends, why should you be friendly to strangers? That's fair.
Speaker 1:You might go over your quota if you're too friendly. Yeah, you can't manage that.
Speaker 2:So your neighbors shouting into your screen or to you for like misbehavior, whatever kind of misbehavior is, she probably has enough people, or even just five people, who knows and she's not looking for new friends. Yeah, so she doesn't need to make you feel comfortable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. I mean it certainly certainly is a challenge. It seems to like really develop good friendships with people when you move to a new place. I mean, I think that the expat community let's even look at our situation here at the school right with people, there's always new staff coming in and, like with any other job, you end up creating a friendship with at least one or two of your colleagues. Right, you add that to your friend group or whatever. But when people are arriving by themselves, essentially without any of their friend group, most expats end up, yeah, they have no friends. It's kind of sad. That's why it becomes so obvious that maybe making friends is a difficult thing for expats, because if you are working in an Austrian company, then even your work colleagues, it might be harder to really develop a deep relationship with them because they already have enough friends.
Speaker 2:And they cannot relate really to your situation because they've never been in that situation.
Speaker 1:Right, there's not always a lot of shared experiences to kind of connect on. You see that you're in here at the school or where the teachers will just kind of create a new friend group, but with other expats and you see those groups on Facebook and on Instagram of expats living in Vienna and they do meetups and they try to get people to be together and make new friends and it's not often that there's a lot of local flavor to that. There's not a lot of groups, not a lot of expats that have really close Austrian friends. I'm happy to help be counted as a friend amongst certain Austrians. You have all people, of course, yes, of course. But some of that too is because of the nature of my work. I play on a team, I coach a team.
Speaker 2:Well, you play in American sports that usually only draw like Austrians were open, more open minded, being drawn to that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Well, we have a very clear shared interest, right. The sport itself is the thing that we can kind of build a friendship on, and that group of people spend so much time together that the core of their friend group is already there on the field. So you kind of, instead of like getting included in one person's friend group that then you get introduced to, maybe you're introduced to all members of the friend group at the same time, and so you have a core group of friends.
Speaker 1:That's nice, but even friendship at our age is different. Right, then what friendship is when you're growing up? And obviously I have some ideas of what friendship looks like in the States with my friend group back home that I miss very much. But then what does what does friendship look like for a group of Austrians? What does that look like? I mean, how are you like people go out? Do they hang out at their house, like, do they just talk on the phone all the time? What does that look like?
Speaker 2:Well, I wish I knew. So all my friends are gone because I'm only friends with the nationals. But I mean, there's some truth that I've consciously tried to dedicate parts of my life like my hours in a week, you know, like day to day business dedicate my life to establishing connections with internationals.
Speaker 1:That's probably one of the most Austrian thing you've ever. You schedule out time to connect with.
Speaker 2:And your time is almost up. Yeah, we're running out of time. It's not like that would be the Germans. Ok, they make it this stuff. And Chico Fox is like sorry to offend you, like as Austrians we're way more laid back yeah really.
Speaker 2:But, like I said before, austrian friendships, the stereotype would be your friends for life. And also, you talk about things in a very serious manner, because when I talk to Austrians sometimes I'm like, because I'm so used to hanging up with internationals Like whoa, you're going really deep with that. I mean, they talk about. They talk about their diseases. They've talked about their love problems, sexual problems or I don't know what, and we can be quite frank and we're open about that which in other cultures would be almost offending. Yeah, right To be talking about that, even amongst close friends. Yes, and let me give you another perspective of me as an Austrian.
Speaker 2:I've visited the States a couple of times, been to the UK and have interacted with Australians before, for example, but I don't have, I haven't been there, but what I've seen with, like all those English speaking countries is really, in many ways there's like a sense of people are super nice. I mean, if you, if you go to a store, they're very polite or nice and friendly. But to me as an Austrian, they come across as very superficial as well, because I mean that friendliness is just part of their culture and it works for them and you know like you know what it means, if a person says something and it sounds really polite to you, because, like in Austria for example, if you go to some place in England and you do something that's not great, like could be offending, a British person might say something that sounds almost nice.
Speaker 1:They'll apologize to you.
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry that you messed up with me. And like here in Vienna you would say, like what are you doing? Like are you crazy? Like move on. So in a sense, of course, the British would understand their code as well. As in Vienna, if someone like is really harsh with you, unfriendly with you, like what's the deal? Like I'm on my way anyway, like leave me alone, and it's like, yeah, just don't bother me. Don't bother me.
Speaker 1:Like I'd be interested, like what some of the other, like what the top kind, like what the easiest country it is to make friends in, because, like real friendships take time to build. Anyways, it must be the US of A, it must be, we must be the easiest friends, and I don't know about that. But but even just the depth of friendship takes time and so it's yeah, if you're in a new place for two or three years, you might not yet have the ease of making friends, just because you have been there that long and so nobody knows you and you know you haven't had the time to have those deep conversations, you haven't started a podcast or anything to talk about things Like real friends do.
Speaker 2:I mean, your country has provided the world with a whole TV show called Friends.
Speaker 1:That's right, you must be the expert on this. You set the standard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, something like that. So do you have an experience with friends or Austrian friends mingling with the Austrians? Can you tell us anything about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I mingled with some Austrians. Yeah, I would say that I count some of my closest friends here in Vienna. I've moved around so much that my friendship clumps are kind of strange anyway. So I always find even lifelong friends that I don't see as often as I'd like. But even just the nature and the willingness of hanging out or the willingness to hang out and going out with friends and groups of friends to a restaurant or something, yeah, but even the greetings of you know, when friends come into a restaurant or something, just that ends up feeling a little bit different. Like I don't know if with friends group, friend groups in the States, if we ever did as much of like going out for meals together and I'll go into a place and meeting somewhere. I don't know if that's something about the lack of public transportation. I might have something to do with it. I mean mostly be like smaller gatherings at somebody's house or something or where you get couples to go Living room hanging out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just kind of, and obviously we've had some of that here too, but it seems more often it's like trying to gather a bigger table's worth of people to figure out and go someplace. That's in the willingness to go deeper in conversation is quite obviously more of a strength over here. That there's like that wanting to move past kind of the surface level hey how are you? Type thing and like really actually knowing how you are right and people are willing to share that it's. I mean, it's. It is refreshing at times. It's sometimes kind of a shock when, like you know, we're going deeper into a like a more serious conversation or an or asking for advice about something that like from somebody that maybe you didn't feel that you knew, that well right, like, if you're yeah so yeah, let's talk about the war.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah, let's talk about your president. No, that's not.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that happens in other countries as well, but with Austria's, like. Whenever they like to have the chance to talk to a representative of the country, let's say, you meet a, like you meet a French person, then they will. They will tell that French person what's wrong with their politics, like in France. Or meet American, or like they would say what's wrong with America and how to how to fix everything. So I don't know if politics is something that they love talking about.
Speaker 1:Everybody seems to have that as the thing. That kind of can be an easy conversation, right Like you. Just get. Get into that real quick with new bees, new people.
Speaker 2:When you talk about restaurants, I mean have you had experiences with waiters?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, that is another one of those things that are the, you know, the articles about visiting Vienna or moving to Vienna is that watch out for this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, watch out for the waiters. And have had, obviously, multiple occasions when you know, because in the States, when you go out to restaurant, our waiters and waitresses aren't paid very well and so, like, they depend on good tips and so they act accordingly. Right, yeah, they are doing everything that they can do to make sure that your experience is great, because you know that might mean an extra 10, 20 bucks on top of the bill. But then, as a result too, like the way our meals out, like, you have your meal, you finish eating, you pay your bill and you're out of there. Right, like, there's not a lot of sitting around and the waiters are going to like try to get you to leave your table so that they can bring in a new table and turn it over quick. And, you know, try to get more tips and for some reason, austrians think it's good to pay your wait staff a livable wage. Weird, weird, weird why that would be a value.
Speaker 2:I mean, the government is forcing them to yeah. Well, hey, whatever it takes, I guess.
Speaker 1:And so like it doesn't really matter. If you like, the waiter is there to get you your food and get you your drink and if you're not ready to order your drink, then he's questioning why you're even there, because you haven't even thought through that much. Yeah, so the the experiences of going to a cafe and like not necessarily knowing what you want, and then the waiter kind of being frustrated because he walked all the way to your table Right and you weren't ready. So actually just two days ago went out with a group of baseball players. We were saying goodbye to one of our import players and so we walked into. We had made a reservation, as every as you should, as good people.
Speaker 2:As good people do, citizens do.
Speaker 1:Well, that plays into the story too. So we made a reservation for 11 people. But it was one of those things where it was like we put it out in the group chat, hey, we're all going to be there. You know, if you can go, let us know so we can have an idea. But you know, just show up, you know, sometime between seven and 10 or whatever, and we'll be there.
Speaker 1:So we walked in, we walked into this restaurant that had been suggested by the club vice presidents are like, okay, we'll go to this place. And it was a Monday night, so not a really like busy night from our perspective. Right, there were a few tables outside that were, that were filled, but inside there was nobody sitting in, and this was seven o'clock. So we figured that, you know, it's a, it's late enough and you know, even if people are coming in, that's about the time they're coming in or whatever. And so we. So, when we walked in, you know, I was with another American ball player, and so he just said to the waitress like hey, there's a chance that we might have more than 11. And the waitress looked at us with absolute disgust and she's like well, you can't have. You made a reservation for 11. We're going to be very busy tonight. There's no way that that we can have more.
Speaker 2:Monday night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we're looking at like every table is empty, literally every table is inside.
Speaker 1:They're like oh, okay, well, hopefully you know they'll be coming and going, so we'll be okay with with our 11. She's like yes, you must be. If you needed, if you needed more places, you should have made a bigger reservation. Okay, cool, well, it turns out so. So this, this restaurant, has really good schnitzel, we were told. So it's, but it was a Moravian restaurant, like a Czech restaurant owned by Czechs, operated by Czechs, but and but their schnitzel was was really good, and some of their other dishes were good.
Speaker 1:And so when some of the other players came in, they're like oh, why are we here at? This is a Moravian restaurant. Like, why are we here? You should have had a proper Austrian dinner. Like, man, one of your Austrian suggested it. Like what are we supposed to do?
Speaker 1:But so then the waitress came over to us and she's like well, we're going to get very busy. We have another big party coming, so if you want your food quick, you need to order right now. And there was like five of us there. We're like well, we kind of want to wait. She's like well, if you wait five minutes, you're going to have to wait an hour. I'm like all right, well, we'll just order.
Speaker 1:So we ordered, and then one of our other coaches from one of the lower division teams comes in and he's Czech. So then he starts talking to the waitress in Czech and everything changed. It went from being grumpy, grumpy, grumpy and she's like oh OK, oh, it's fine, if you have more people, we'll just get some more chairs. We're not that busy tonight. We're like Pavel, you saved the night because you could speak Czech here in Vienna. But I feel like we've had those types of experiences too at some of our favorite restaurants, where either you get the waiter that we've annoyed over time and every time we walk in he rolls his eyes, or, once you become a regular someplace and people recognize you. I think that goes to the stranger and friendship thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you kind of become almost like a member of that extended friendship group.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Because at that point, as far as she was concerned, we were just a couple of American tourists who just wandered into their restaurant and we were being annoying, asking for more chairs. But then once somebody was there who could speak her language, it really helped. And so then, even at times when we go to the same place a few times over the course of some months, then suddenly you become recognizes a regular and you at least you get welcomed into that. I guess a tip for any of our expats who are going to be going to places make yourself a regular somewhere.
Speaker 2:Take somebody who's been the first time you go there. Be a regular. Be a regular.
Speaker 1:Not irregular.
Speaker 2:But be regular and or speak either Czech or Slovak or Hungarian or Slovenian or Serbian or Croatian, because those are the people who run a lot of things here, even at the supermarkets you see them sometimes when people are talking that language. Sure, and you kind of get special deals, because speaking German only is not enough sometimes. But are you familiar with the term Stammtisch, stammtisch, stammtisch, stammtisch? I actually have to look that up. If that's Stammtisch something to do with a table, yes, with a table. I'm just looking for a good translation here. One translation is Cracker Barrel, so Edelweiss, cracker Barrel or Regulars table, that's maybe more accurate.
Speaker 1:A regular table.
Speaker 2:So for a group of regulars you can in some really, really traditional restaurants, yeah, and maybe I don't see them as much in Vienna anymore. It's probably more in the smaller towns around. So Stamm means stem or trunk, or almost even the root or the core of the guests, the ones that sit at this very table. And it actually has even it says Stammtisch on that table, so you can't just go and sit down there.
Speaker 1:It's set aside for that person.
Speaker 2:It's set aside for those people who have been explicitly invited to sit with the people. So basically, the owner or the main waiter is the boss of the Stammtisch and he might have one or two people sit down there and then a third or fourth comes and then they start this community and so they go there, maybe even almost every night or something, just for a drink perhaps, talk to each other, and they're just this closed off group of people who sit at the Stammtisch and you can't join them unless you're invited, unless you're part of that group.
Speaker 1:One of my, my friends, his dad, I think, has a stamtis and this should draw it like the 19th or something and we got to like he called in to make a reservation for for a group of us to go and we got to sit at them, but he had to make the reservation in his dad's name and we had to say that we were guests of his dad, otherwise they wouldn't allow you. Yeah, that was a pretty special situation. Yeah, it'd be interesting to go back to that survey right of like of asking people what their is, what their impression is over time. Right, like are the 42% of responders that said that it was hard to make friends or it was unfriendly or whatever. Had they been in this country maybe for only one or two years, they hadn't had a chance like kind of break through that stranger, that stranger divide and become friends. If you ask people who have been here longer, then maybe they have a much different perspective as to, like truly, how friendly Austrians are, because I mean, I know we joke about the unfriendliness of.
Speaker 1:Austria, because I think that's just low hanging fruits sometimes, but to like really sit back and say, well, actually, some of my closest friends and people who truly care about our well being are from this country. So like it can't. It can't be that they are that unfriendly. I would hope.
Speaker 2:You have to understand the culture more. Yeah, and that's one of the reasons why we're even having this party. We're doing people a service. We're doing people a service and hopefully maybe we'll change Vienna this way.
Speaker 1:Well, at least I don't know if we'll change Vienna as much as maybe we'll change the perception we're coming to.
Speaker 1:Vienna, right, I mean we do have. We do live a life that we interact with people who are moving to Vienna, and so being able to go out, go out with people and help them, kind of process even what their interactions are, you know, in their first two years. If they're agreeing with the survey and saying, yeah, I don't have any Austrian friends, like, well, maybe you should just go and maybe you're the problem. Yeah, maybe you are the problem.
Speaker 1:Well sometimes I'd be the issue right, the problem is that you don't know how to interact and how to get into those, those circles and those groups and, like I said, but it can be tough because they're not looking for new members, anyway, one of the one of the the unique things about going out with friends here at least you not unique, as much as it's different than it would be for us going out with a group of friends in the States is settling up your bill at the end of the night your tab, if you will, because a lot of times you know, if you're going out with a big group of people at a restaurant in America, you would tell the server at a time and she would put you on different tabs and so, like on her little board, she knows exactly what you ordered and at the very end you get your very owner seat and you just pay it.
Speaker 1:Smart, very smart. Or you know, people just say I will divide it or whatever, but it's done all at once. Or people throw in their own, their money or even their card and then they'll pay it that way. But here in, here in Austria, when we all go out, like at the very end, you just tell the waiter what you ordered and then you pay for that and the waiter just divided up, they take it off the bill or whatever, and, like at some places where you go and it's just a paper order, like if they just been writing down. It's probably very, very few places anymore, but I know in my yeah, fewer and fewer.
Speaker 2:Earlier on in my time here it would just be a piece of obviously.
Speaker 1:but even in my time here earlier on, you know, the guy would just cross off what he had written down on the paper and then at the end well, part of the funny thing is, at the end if you're the last person and not everything has been paid off of the tab, then you're the lucky one then yeah, like how many times have we gone to Steven Stern and the guy's like, oh well, I still have two beers and a schnitzel left on here and somebody forgot I mean usually it comes down to drinks, right Like somebody forgot that they had three drinks instead of two.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so you always hate to be that last guy. He's like oh yeah, I guess I'll pay it and whatever.
Speaker 2:Well, I had a I don't know had nine beers.
Speaker 1:I thought it was 18.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I haven't come to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I haven't come to that so far. I'm upset. But at this meal on Monday and again, I don't know if it's because I was out with more Oscars, I don't know. I don't know what the deal was, but I was one of the last people to pay, like a dummy, I waited, yeah rookie mistake, I don't know what I was thinking. I went up towards the end, but it worked out in my favor because when I got up to the waitress and was ready to tell her what I had ordered.
Speaker 1:The things I had ordered weren't there anymore. All that was left. All that was left. And I wasn't even the last person. There was one person behind me, so second to last person going up there, and all that was left was like a water and a couple of the schnitzels, but not the ones that I had ordered. Right, so I was like the XL one and I would order regular one.
Speaker 1:Shocking. But like there were no beers left on her tab and she's like, well, you can just pay for this mineral water and this Hoonigschnitzel, because I knew, like the guy that was coming after me, he had ordered the XL schnitzel, but so then he only paid for like a schnitzel. So somebody earlier on I don't know if one of the guys had decided to pay for a couple extra beers or something, but it was quite a unique experience for me it was the opposite, it was the opposite.
Speaker 1:I ended up paying less than I was expecting, because, I mean, good guys ahead of me I guess had either. But she seemed like the way she was frustrated about it because, like some of the younger guys, I think, had forgotten what they had ordered and so they had just like started pointing to schnitzels, yeah. So she overcharged them. I don't know. Well, I don't know if that's because I was with a lot of Austrian guys and they know how the system works, but even then it got messed up. So, but I rather like paying for things like that, because then you just like you're able to, just as long as you remember what you had, it's easy to take care of your they added up and you don't have to do any math or anything.
Speaker 2:My, my, how the restaurant tables have turned. But that is a I mean in fact also something that may happen a lot with Austrians. When they're like having a good time with you in the restaurants, they say like oh no, I'll take you, at least I'll take your beer. Like, yeah, I won't pay you for this little bit, but whatever, I can spend.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's easy to move from one like one tap to the other.
Speaker 1:It's not like, but usually somebody would say like hey, I'm going to get one of your beers. Like I don't know if a couple of guys like just decided that they were going to buy my beers and it, but they didn't tell me. Well, I guess they were. They didn't want the credit.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's not the question of what's going on with Austin's, but you should be going out more with people with memory loss.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, that's the problem. Too many of our friends have memory loss and they can't remember that they ordered certain things. Because we have had some occasions where we have ended up with somebody's whole meal. We're not going to throw him under the bus publicly.
Speaker 2:No, that's what we mentioned, but we've seen a lot already. But when that bill comes, it's pay time. Sometimes we end up having to pay the extra bill. Well, do you want to hear another restaurant story?
Speaker 1:I think I've got some time left for a restaurant story Cool.
Speaker 2:Because this happened to me just yesterday, okay, and it comes back to the whole full circle, comes back to the whole friendliness thing with Austrians. So I was being a good Austrian, I was ordering Schnitzel pickup. So, okay, around my neighborhood there's a very good place called Schnitzelwirt, by the way, and it's very famous, very famous place, traditional, like at least second generation, third generation, I don't know, and there are huge Schnitzels there, okay. So I thought, yeah, like last night was the night to spoil our family again. So I went there and said I called in advance and said, hey, I want to pick up such and such and there. Yeah, we'll be right in 10 minutes. And so he came there and the waiter was all yeah, it's super hot, and he just had a beer for himself, it's like he was just he was waiting on one table. Then he was going back to the entrance and the bar is right next to there and it's pretty tight there as well. So I paid for the thing and I was just waiting there.
Speaker 2:And one other thing is in restaurants is, when the waiter passes by you, you should be saying sorry, okay, not them, for like, yeah, it's fair, you have to get out of the way for the waiter. That's kind of the unreachable. But the funny thing is then later on the lady who owns the place comes in. She was just out there with other customers sitting at, probably like something like the Stamptish yeah. And she comes in and she looks at me. She's standing there like are you already like getting served? And I told her yes, yes, the other waiter is already taking care of my order. And I told her like, and I already paid for it. And then she looked at me and she's like well, if that's the case, you're not longer interesting to me. And then she walked, so she's got no time for you.
Speaker 1:She got the time of me.
Speaker 2:No, no, and I had to laugh and she giggled and she went out like again. But I was thinking I don't know if anyone in the States could say that to a customer.
Speaker 1:No, and keep their job.
Speaker 2:Keep their job. Yeah, because she was like okay, like I don't care who you are, I kind of what to do, like I don't care if you got your schnitzel yet, but if you gave me the money you're done, you're done for me, you're done.
Speaker 2:So whatever, but that was of course. That was, in a way, I could have taken it as super offensive. Of course, yeah, because I'm the paying customer and I get treated, because, of course, when we spoke in German in Viennese, of course I got the kind of the way she said. It was just obvious, which was being just very sarcastic, very just ironic about her thing.
Speaker 2:But in this place it's also really popular with tourists. So there's, I don't know, there's always an American, there's always a Japanese there, there's always like you find all kinds of people there and I'm not sure if they get that joke when they talk to them like that. No, but this is yeah, and this is, I think, one of the things why I also come across as unfriendly, because they say something and they mean it really from the bottom of the heart, like really dearly, lovingly, yeah, but of course the way they say it is kind of can be very sarcastic or dry humor, and then you write them off and say this country has to go to the bottom of the ranking or at least second to last.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the friendliness dynamic is more about the person receiving the mood as opposed to how it's being given. It's not genuinely unfriendly, but like if we're expecting a greeting every time or, in your case, like I don't know what somebody would have expected like for her to sit and talk more and thank you so much for your business, or whatever.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah, I was just glad that it wasn't told off because I was standing in the way, yeah you're in the way.
Speaker 1:Get out of here.
Speaker 2:Like why are you standing here? That was actually a good experience for me already.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she was. Those are the nicest things you could have said to you. Yeah, Stay there.
Speaker 2:Just another day restaurant, although we have to say we have to remember that there are people who really are evil-minded and mean-spirited at times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't just yeah, you can't just like. In the same way that you can't just say that everybody here is like service is horrible here because people are unfriendly or they told me I had to order right now. Yeah, there are genuine jerks out there that are. They're genuine racists. Yeah, exactly, they won't serve you.
Speaker 2:But I've also heard the story where a waiter has been a real jerk to some tourists at the restaurant and they were like, okay, because usually the customers give 10% tip in Austria and they didn't give any tip. And he was crumpy, like he's like okay, it takes the plate, it comes back with a bill. He's like here's the bill, and then they pay and it takes the money and it comes back and he's like hey, wait a minute, you forgot the tip. He actually complained to the customers. Yeah, he gave a tip for his really, really nasty service.
Speaker 1:I mean, I guess that is one thing, that the tip shouldn't just be expected. Expected, yeah. Well, hopefully we'll be able to have another group of guys going out so we can have more stories to share about our experiences at restaurants, we'll find a life hack.
Speaker 2:Okay, how about that? If you're in a restaurant in Austria and or Vienna especially, you feel the waiter is grumpy and you don't get the service you want. Even though you are very polite and nice to the waiter, the waiter is not nice to you. There's one life hack that might sometimes work. Often works If you order the waiter a beer or a schnapps, just a small drink, until like have a drink or like put it on a tap, you might see, maybe, the mood of the waiter changing and you might see some of the friendlier faces and nature of the Austrian soul. If you attempt that, try it out, Come for a visit we're going to have to.
Speaker 1:So if you're out there and you're experiencing life in Vienna for maybe the first time, or you just always feel like you're not being taken care of, then listen to Lucas here and buy your waiter a schnapps, right.
Speaker 2:And when you leave, one thing you shouldn't say as a farewell greeting never say goodbye.