Schnitz & Giggles

[S1E7] Cows & Beef: Vienna vs. Austria

• edelwisecrackers • Season 1 • Episode 7

Share episode

Send us a text

Vienna, a city of over 2 million souls, is more than just Austria's capital; it's a cultural behemoth that both overshadows and enriches the nation. This episode peels back the layers of Vienna's metropolitan allure, discussing how it manages to draw Austria's brightest to its vibrant core, often leaving a bittersweet void in their provincial origins.

As we banter about the socioeconomic shifts from center to suburb (or exurb?), we can't help but explore the colloquial term "Wasserkopf" and its implications on Vienna's rapport with the rest of the country.

Can Mr. Giggles recall all 9 states of Austria?
Can Dr. Schnitzel tell a goat from a cow?

Whether you want to know which car you should pick for your next Austria road trip or how long you have to wait to surf on a wave here, who else could provide answers for questions like that other than the one and only edelwisecrackers?

Support the show

Mr. Giggles:

a guten hallo and welcome to the schnitz and giggles podcast with me, michael and me lucas guten hallo, yeah, guten hallo. So, lukey, how are you today? I'm fine. Mikey, how are you?

Dr. Schnitzel:

beautiful sunshiny day. Yes, it's great. Yeah, you can almost hear it on the podcast yeah, I'm sure our listeners can hear the sunshine.

Mr. Giggles:

Sunshine is really special. It special, it's loud In.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Vienna.

Mr. Giggles:

Yeah.

Dr. Schnitzel:

So here we are in Vienna, here we are in Vienna.

Mr. Giggles:

All right, great podcast. Well, bye-bye everybody, we'll see you later.

Dr. Schnitzel:

I think we should try this again. Yeah, so what do you got for me today, lukas? Well, speaking of Vienna, now that we're talking about it, I thought a major thing for people outside of Austria need to know about Austria and Vienna and the differences between Austria and Vienna, because, as we all know, vienna is a city in Austria. What about the rest of it? This is my opening question to you. Okay, what do you know of the rest of it of Austria? That's not Vienna? Have you ever traveled somewhere or, like you know, know how it's kind of structured? What do you know?

Mr. Giggles:

Yeah, I have traveled throughout Austria. I know that it gets right. When you leave Vienna, it starts getting hilly and mountainy pretty quickly. I know that there are different states.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Do you know how many states?

Mr. Giggles:

there are how many? Oh a number, I don't know.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Maybe if I Should I give you like a, let's say A number like four options, eight, six. We're pretty close. Eight was closer than six.

Mr. Giggles:

Eight was closer than six Ten, nine, nine, nine, yes, yeah, yeah, nine. Yeah, nine nine, yeah, nine, yes, okay, nine states, all right. I suppose if I would have tried to list them off, I would have gotten close.

Dr. Schnitzel:

I don't know if I would have gotten the nine, yeah, well, the one special thing about it is that vienna, it's the only state that's also city, or the only city that's also state new york, new york, new york, that's how you all the others like. Vienna is its own capital city of like of the states of austria very confusing and a capital city of the country as well. Yeah, it has the double tags on it, like yes, but do you know any names of those states?

Mr. Giggles:

Yeah, sure, I think I would have gotten closer to the number nine if I would have actually stopped to think about it and name them off. So, Vienna, vienna, wien, wien. Sehr gut, uh, niederösterreich, uh lower austria, yeah, lower austria.

Dr. Schnitzel:

And if there's lower austria there's upper austria, exactly okay tyrol syria where was mozart born?

Mr. Giggles:

salzburg is salzburg, mm-hmm. Vorarlberg, yeah, pretty good, is that one? Yeah, vorarlberg, yeah, vorarlberg. Where was Mozart born?

Dr. Schnitzel:

Salzburg Is Salzburg Salzburg is one. Yeah, so that's also a Well okay, Salzburg is a city. Yeah, but the state surrounding the city of Salzburg is also called Salzburg.

Mr. Giggles:

All right.

Dr. Schnitzel:

So we have to distinguish between Salzburg city and Salzburg, just like with Vienna?

Mr. Giggles:

well, no, no, because in Vienna the like the city limits and the state limits are identical. So Salzburg is more because it has the city limits plus plus then the surrounding area would be also called Salzburg.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Okay, it's not a special case, we're at seven yeah, so we're missing two more uh Carinthia yeah. Canton and it's very funny that you don't know the last one. You probably know the last one, but you ignored it because it's the least uh how should I say popular state in austria. For some people it's very close to vienna, though I, I cannot, I cannot bring it up.

Mr. Giggles:

It's one that you're gonna say it.

Dr. Schnitzel:

I'm gonna immediately be like yeah, it's, it's at the border to hungary, yeah, like it's right next to Niederösterreich and Styria. Steiermark, oh, steiermark. Well, steiermark is Styria, steiermark is Styria. You named that, I named it. I mean you got eight out of nine which is pretty good.

Mr. Giggles:

That's pretty awesome. That's pretty.

Dr. Schnitzel:

The one you're missing is Burgenland, burgenland.

Mr. Giggles:

Yeah.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Okay. So interesting situation with Burgenland, with the rest of Austria, is that a lot of Austrians say who needs them. It's kind of a strange historical perspective because it's also the youngest province, the youngest state of Austria. It was just added after World War I Because of its southern border location, or well, eastern border location.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Well, one one part is, I mean, there's always been, there have been german speakers living there. Was used to be part of hungary though, yeah, but german speaking hungarians. In a sense, it was kind of like this overlap situation and in a way, we, austria, got the burgenlands because they took one part of terroir and gave it to the italians, and so that was sort of the deal. After World War I they split up some countries and distributed parts.

Mr. Giggles:

And the border demarcations after World War. I have such, yeah, long-term, long-term, maybe not so much in this part of the world. I mean there are, but I mean that was part of World War II, part of Germany's issue.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Yes, the world, I mean there are, but I mean that was part of world war ii part of germany's issue.

Mr. Giggles:

Yes, much of the middle eastern wars are because of the borders.

Dr. Schnitzel:

again and again, thanks a lot. World war one yeah, the conflict is not resolved, even after more than 100 years. More than 100 years, yeah. But I mean, I personally like the burgenland a lot, so I'm not one of those who say like part of the country. It's actually it's quite different from the rest of Austria, let's put it this way. It's very flat, it's kind of very warm, usually, like in the summertime, it's kind of very nice and it has one of the larger lakes there.

Mr. Giggles:

It's the closest big lake to Vienna, so lots of viennese go there for pleasure, for swimming, surfing, whatever they want to do. They're not surfing there. Well, not surfing as in.

Dr. Schnitzel:

They're not surfing, that's don't don't even they're stand-up paddle boarding. Is that what they're doing? Well, they have a board and then they have this little sail. Okay they're windsurfing, the windsurfing yeah, yeah sorry, I wasn't, I wasn't precisely they're not waiting for that jerk surfer bro. I'm like not waiting for first off hold on.

Mr. Giggles:

I mean they'll be waiting a while, like first off. If they're going surfing there, then I will be visiting soon, but no, no yeah, but it's like just a one hour drive there. Yeah, so, aside from from having a, a target lake, what would be a geographical indicator flat, is there anything happening there? People don't like it.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Well, it's because of the people. It also has historical reasons that in the Burgenland, since it was just attached to Austria later on, it doesn't have that kind of same kind of history and also not in the same educational way.

Mr. Giggles:

Yeah, I don't want to make our Burgenlandian listeners upset here.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Historically there have been more like blue-collar type of workers living there, and they would often work in Vienna. But their education level wasn't that high, so lots of times the people in Vienna would make fun of them because they didn't get it right away. So Vienna, especially in the surrounding area, came up with a lot of Burgenländer jokes it's like redneck jokes and so that's why they always kind of look down on the Burgenländer. But I mean, that was at least more than 50 years ago when there was still this gap. But by now Burgenländer has caught on and it's a very thriving area actually and you couldn't say they have less education or like they're than the rest of austria. But in a way, in a way of course, their reputation is. It's hard to get rid of that, sure. So some people make fun of them, although one of the greatest and the best wine comes from burgenland as well. All right, keep that in mind. There's lots of spas there because they're like there's some hot fountains. They have lots of spas there because there's some hot fountains.

Mr. Giggles:

They have lots of spas. What's a major town in Bergenland?

Dr. Schnitzel:

Well, the capital city would be Eisenstadt.

Mr. Giggles:

Okay, yeah.

Dr. Schnitzel:

And maybe Eisenstadt, but it's so. It's very, very small but really nice, I mean, and if you want to go biking, for example, since it's so flat, it's very popular. You can even go around the lake. The interesting thing is that that's part of the lake is actually in hungary, so part of the lake belongs to hungary. Part of the lake becomes it belongs to austria. Is this uh lake noiselessly?

Mr. Giggles:

noiselessly yeah not the other big lake. That's all in hungary no, not balaton.

Dr. Schnitzel:

No, that's right. Well, speaking of visiting other places like that, yeah, I don't know if you ever had this experience, but imagine you say like, or someone like we're talking about expats here again like current expats current expats living in vienna.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Living in vienna. They move here but have a different passport, different nationality. But one day they feel like, hey, let's go skiing or let's go to burgenland for some great uh, lake experience, windsurfing, wine, and windsurfing, wine and windsurfing yeah, the bigi. And they might rent a car, or they even have a car in Vienna and they go to that place. You might go to Salzburg, you might go to Steiermark or Puglansk, wherever, and when you get out of the car you meet some locals and maybe you haven't talked yet, so they don't maybe know that you're not even from around.

Mr. Giggles:

You look that you're not even from around you. Look like an Austrian to them.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Okay, it's possible that you might get treated a little bit, a little bit worse than others. These other states have beef with Vienna, huh, and it would be because of your license plate? Yeah, of course, because you have a Viennese car. I have that big W on my, the big W on your car, that's beginning of my life, just rolled up. Well, as soon as you tell them you're like you're not, you're from Americaica, you're like, yeah, you know, of course, ah, tourist, and you might have other, uh, other prejudices about other ideas about who you are, but at least it's not going to mistake you for the viennese any any longer.

Dr. Schnitzel:

So what I'm trying to say here there's a special relationship going on between vienna and the rest of austria that maybe you should be aware of when you live here, and it's just fascinating because it goes both ways. That's the funny thing about it. So when a person outside of vienna notices, okay, you're just visiting from vienna, they might make fun of you. And if someone from other provinces or states in austria moves or just visits vienna, yeah, you also get made fun of because of that. It was your driving, yeah, the driving part is like oh yeah, this is why they're driving this badly.

Mr. Giggles:

They're from vienna.

Dr. Schnitzel:

They don't know how to drive the mountain roads it's funny when you come to visit any place, like so you go to tyrol, for example, and they're like, yeah, I'm from vienna, might get a little quiet first of all, and then they might ask you so do you know that milk doesn't grow in cartons, and stuff like that. Those kind of questions, city slickers, city slickers yeah, like they've never seen a cow in real life. It can be really amusing, but sometimes there's really some beef or some misunderstandings at least with them.

Mr. Giggles:

Have you had serious of note, an experience that was traumatizing for you? You get out of the car somewhere, not really traumatizing.

Dr. Schnitzel:

But I mean, sometimes I would hear in passing, or like you're just, I don't know, you're just a gas station and you feel the car, and then someone might say, oh, there's another, another vena. I've never been attacked, uh, like like in your face, that's good. I would be pretty surprised for being this well, yeah, not impossible, I suppose, if at all. I've seen it the other way around that people, viennese people, have been very confrontational, yeah, towards others. The one thing you have to consider is vienna is so different from the rest of austria? Yeah, first of all, it's the only real larger city we have. It was actually, it was october 2023, not too long ago that we surpassed the 2 million mark.

Mr. Giggles:

2 million people living in Vienna, and what's the total population of Austria?

Dr. Schnitzel:

It's around 9 million, 9 million. Okay, so you have 9 million, and two of those 2 million are living in Vienna. Plus, there's a lot of people living in the outskirts, in the exurbs.

Mr. Giggles:

Suburbs, exurbs.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Sure is it. Look it up. I'll look that up. Later, Maybe a different podcast. I have to create a Wikipedia article quickly.

Mr. Giggles:

I'm going to look it up now.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Look it up now, yeah before you have a chance While you talk. Yeah, well, let me just keep on talking, you don't have to listen. Yeah, normal.

Mr. Giggles:

Just X herbs. Oh, it's a prosperous area beyond the city suburbs.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Exactly. So. A lot of rich people live just outside of Vienna, yeah, but they work in Vienna, and maybe they were born in Vienna, but they just moved out when they had a financial situation, yeah, so that's what a lot of people do they buy a house but are still part of the greater Vienna community, so to speak, or area In Niederösterreich, which surrounds Vienna. You only have 1.7 million, although Niederösterreich is the largest of those states by space, by space or by land, so, yeah, by land space, so that's the largest and it only has 1.7 million. Vienna is the smallest one because it's just a city, yeah, but it has 2 million people living there, so it's really the density, of course, is completely Of course yeah, Big city living, and the Burgenland, for example, only has 300,000 people.

Dr. Schnitzel:

So you could say, I don't know, a quarter of the population lives in and around Vienna and the rest is just the rest of Austria. Proportions are just very strange.

Mr. Giggles:

Is this something beyond just the? Because I feel like, if you spoke to people who live in capital cities or big cities, there's this kind of tension between the non-city livers and the other places, Like in America we have the flyover states. You know these states that people normally fly over Is that where you don't stay, you don't stay.

Mr. Giggles:

They have certain opinions about people from certain states and obviously people in you know like, especially like being from California. We've experienced, you know, driving through the country with our California license plates and getting oh, you're from California, you're not staying, are you?

Dr. Schnitzel:

You know?

Mr. Giggles:

these types of things from california. You're not staying, are you? You know these types of these types of things. Is there something specific or unique about austrian, maybe history or culture that would, that would speak to this or is it just another expression of country folk versus city folk yes, there's something special, although of course, what you're saying is absolutely right.

Dr. Schnitzel:

That's these things the countryside people and the city people. I think any country would have the same kind of issues with you know, we don't like the big city people. We don't like those country people. Yes, although, like I said, it's completely unnatural that a country would have such a large city. That's not really a big country. And of course, here again, we have the historical development. For example, graz is the second largest city in Austria and only has like 600,000, I think 300,000. It's actually half of it 300,000, I think it's approaching that number.

Mr. Giggles:

So the next largest city is really not a large city, so you have 2 million, and the next step, second place, is 300,000.

Dr. Schnitzel:

And Salzburg has only like 160,000 or something. So those are the other Austrian cities kind of call them cities even are just no match to the size of Vienna. And the reason behind that is also, of course, the historical that Vienna used to be the capital city of a great empire. A big part of Europe was governed by people residing in Vienna and to this day, actually, vienna is the second largest German-speaking city in the world. So only Berlin is larger than Vienna and to this day, actually, vienna is the second largest German-speaking city in the world. So only Berlin is larger than Vienna. So all the other big cities, so to speak, like Hamburg or München, like you talk about Stuttgart, they are, as a matter of fact, frankfurt. They're smaller.

Mr. Giggles:

Still smaller than Vienna.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Hamburg is really big because it has a really huge suburbs and exurbs. No, no, port port, yeah, like I was thinking of harvard, okay, yeah, port harbor, yeah, and this basically makes up half of the size of the whole city. So, size-wise, hamburg is a little larger, but population is still smaller than vienna. But vienna, coming back to vienna, it used to be this huge capital city that's competing with paris and berlin, sure, and then most of it got cut off and was left with just those German-speaking states that used to be part of the monarchy and were left with Vienna after World War I. So I don't know if you are familiar with the term Wasserkopf, waterhead, waterhead, literally. Yes, it's actually. It sounds funny, but it's actually a really bad disease. The actual word for it in English english, I think is hydrocephaly.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Okay, I think I sure it's a pretty bad disease where water really is kind of stored up in your like in the brain the fluids, okay, and your head gets really big because of that.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Oh so it's really, yeah, really bad. But the term wasterkopf is used as also like in a symbolic way of saying if some something is out of proportion, like your head is way too big for your body, yeah, so the people started calling vienna the wasserkopf of austria, because it's just way, way oversized and we don't need as that larger of a city to govern this fairly small country. Yeah, but if you live in vienna, if you or just visit vienna, you'll see it's very imperial, like the. It's almost like the monarchy is still, it's still going on, right. So the viennese, they live in a way in a city that sort of pretends to be, uh, the city of the emperor, right, when there's no emperor and the people living outside of vienna, like in the rest of us, is like we don't need that, we don't need all these things. But of course it's part of the history.

Mr. Giggles:

You can't just ignore it or eliminate it yeah, because there was a very, very like intentional plan in like the 1880s to make vienna rival paris, exactly, and other cities.

Dr. Schnitzel:

But they wanted to make it big yeah I mean even the.

Mr. Giggles:

The guy who designed the ringstrasse is the same guy who who designed, redesigned the streets of paris. It's an ap history question for you.

Mr. Giggles:

Wow, hausmann was his name. Hausmann, yeah, I don't know if he was an austrian guy or a or a german guy. Well, it doesn't sound very french, at least no, exactly. Well, that's I know he's not french, but that's why the ringstrasse will, will kind of give you the same kind of the same feeling or vibes as being on the champ de l'é, because it's, you know, the wide boulevard with the, with the trees along the side, and so that, with all that building happening like at that same time, like all those buildings along the Ringstrasse are like 1880s, 1890s right, they were all being built at the same time, but it was all very, very specific to bring Vienna out of like the dark ages, I guess into the imperial age, I think it started in the 1850s, 1860s, yeah, okay, and it took them very long to complete those.

Mr. Giggles:

There's a lot of buildings. There's a lot of buildings, a lot of big buildings.

Dr. Schnitzel:

that even now. Yeah, yeah, that was a. That is another fascinating story.

Mr. Giggles:

So that attitude then kind of at the genetics of viennese people is that there's a bit of a chip on their shoulder in a way of like hey, yeah, we are, we should rival.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Yeah, paris, yes, we're, we're not just a, a small country capital, we're a yeah, the capital of an empire so the point is we still have that city that can compete with paris in certain and like talking about living standards and the quality of life here. It exceeds even Paris and London. It exceeds everybody, right. But we do not have the country to back us up. That's the problem. There's no big country, right, say like, okay, we are so large and we can do so much. It's only the city itself that's still up there, still up there. And because of all these historical reasons, vienna is so important to the whole country that in the end, if you want to make it in austria, you have to go to vienna, right, I mean, there's a lot, of a lot of young people who come to university in vienna, who are from other places.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Yes, I mean and so many, many people who are say there's the people living in Austria. I mean the best of the village they would leave and go and study in Vienna. Of course there's universities in Graz and in Innsbruck and in Salzburg and so on.

Mr. Giggles:

But those aren't for the best, those are for the Sorry to any of our listeners who are in university in Graz or something.

Dr. Schnitzel:

No, I mean, I would even say like the quality I would say like in all the universities in Austria would be very high. Actually, innsbruck is very famous. It's very popular for medicine students, for example. All right, but if you want to study something very specific, some things you will only find in Vienna, yeah, and so if the best of the village leave, you know, and so all the great thinkers, the high achievers of your town, they move out and they study there. The great thinkers, the high achievers of your town, they move out and they study there. And then they find a job there, of course, because if you want to have a specific job, you won't find it around the corner in your little town, right, most of the time. So they stay there. And so they dislike Vienna even more because it takes their best people and it stole away the good kids.

Dr. Schnitzel:

It stole away the good kids. And they're stuck with the chuckleheads and it doesn't give them back. Yes, and then the children grew up there and they grew up as these privileged brats. Yeah, and when they come to visit in the countryside they're like all super Viennese and they can't really connect with the roots of where they're coming from. They don't know how to milk a cow. They don't know how to milk a cow. Oh my gosh, Can't even tell a goat from a cow.

Mr. Giggles:

Such a shame.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Can't tell a goat from a cow. I'm sure it has happened and I hope not. That's a weird dog. That's a dog. That's a goat. That's a cow.

Mr. Giggles:

That's the biggest dog I've ever seen.

Dr. Schnitzel:

But here's another funny thing about the situation If people move away from the states, from those provinces, into Vienna, they themselves have been observed by other Viennese people that those people start making fun of all the Austrians not living in Vienna as well. Okay, yeah, because for them it is of course the home place, is the home place. But also sometimes they just want to show, okay, like I made it, so I'm a city dweller now, like I'm a metropolitan now I'm not this village idiot or something. And so this is really funny when they actually start talking badly about probably not their own people, like if they're from Tyrol they might not talk about that Tyrol, but they might talk about the guy from Salzburg, like it's like, ooh, he's just like a country bum, like a redneck or something like that, you know.

Dr. Schnitzel:

But a lot of austrians have said when they first came to vienna it was too much for them. They said this city is just too big for me. I don't know if you've ever been to innsbruck, I have. Innsbruck is just in a valley surrounded by mountains, and there's not enough space, so the city couldn't be any bigger, right, so it's fairly small, although it's the capital city of tyrol. Yeah, and so I've heard a Tyrolean say Innsbruck was already too big for me, like he's lived in Tyrol, I don't know some small town, when he went to Innsbruck.

Dr. Schnitzel:

That was already. That was overwhelming, that was overwhelming. And then he went to Vienna and it's like you know, it's stressful. There's so many cars, so much noise. I mean Also something you will hardly see even in the other fairly bigger cities in Austria you will hardly see beggars or homeless people. So the amount of I mean you don't see a lot in Vienna either, compared to maybe other international standards, but still they're still around. Some just show up in very prominent places where the tourists dwell and homeless dwell, where there's more infrastructure to support their.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Yeah, where there's more infrastructure there, or drug addicts, something that you're not used to when you just grew up in a small town, yeah, and so they're like, okay, vienna is so filthy, vienna is so bad, how can you even live there? How can people live there? It's stinking, the cars are smelling. Yes, I don't know if you knew that education program by the austrian government ministry of education that kind of supports and organizes trips to vienna for students, really, and actually vice versa.

Dr. Schnitzel:

there's um something we call schul land woche, yeah, so that would be like a school week, yeah, you spend in the countryside for viennese kids, yeah. And then there's a thing called stadwoche, which is a city week, so people from out there, from salzburg or kärnten, they might book a week in Vienna, like the teachers and the students. They come here and they live in a hostel, youth hostel, and then there's actually some program they can choose from culture.

Mr. Giggles:

You go to a museum or you go to theater, opera, like it's really focused beyond, just like, hey, we're going to a new place Just because it's outside the city. They're like we're going and we have a curriculum that we're going to work on. In a way, they have to learn about this place, so we're not as the goal is we get to learn, we get to know our capital city.

Dr. Schnitzel:

That's kind of the educational goal there. So what does Vienna have to offer? They would be riding the subway for the first time in their life, maybe, or something like that as well. Or being on an escalator, yeah, first time in their lives. So they might visit the parliament. Yeah, the whole government, you know the president, they all reside here in vienna so they might be visiting those places. And so some, some, for some I don't know 15, 16 year olds, students that might be the first thing they would ever find out about.

Mr. Giggles:

So for our um, our expats or visitors to vienna. Do we have any advice for them? If they're coming I mean they're tourists, so they're going to be don't rent a car from vienna like rent a car from somewhere else that might help.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Yes, take the train. Yes, I mean if you're, if you're renting a car or you might just visit if you go skiing and so. So I mean, just make it on the tourist another viennese from the beginning, yeah, then you might get some better treatment. But just maybe. One more note on driving a car. Also, that's something that both sides make fun of, because the viennese they are being made fun of because you know they just don't drive down the mountain in maximum speed. They're kind of more careful usually, right, but when a mountain person takes their car to vienna, they also train very carefully. They will just be like the Viennese car drivers will be annoyed with them. Of course there's so many things to look out for, like there's so many street signs and so many speed bumps and so many and the tram the bus Trams and bike riders yes, bikes pedestrians so much going on.

Dr. Schnitzel:

It's like many people have said it before, with wherever they live. People have said this about Vienna Okay, we like vienna, we just don't like the viennese. Yeah, and so the same thing might be said about the other side. There's one chant at football games that the viennese clubs would love to chant when they're playing another club from the provinces, and they would often like yell in the face. They would yell, which translates as we are your capital city, you farmers, thanks. So that's kind of what they're just trying to remind their life. Even if you win this game, yeah, like you're still just the farmers, just the farmers, no matter what you do the farmers are like you can't eat without us that's.

Dr. Schnitzel:

That's a good point as well. Yes, and maybe okay. Maybe one thing that's unique to vienna compared to other conflicts between, like big city versus countryside, is the Viennese dialect often carries a very arrogant tone along with it. Really, if spoken, correctly.

Mr. Giggles:

Yeah, if spoken correctly.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Then says a true Viennese yes, it sounds like, if you ever listen to Farko, for example, like we talked about music the other day, farko actually was very, very at getting this, this kind of tone, across. So imagine you're getting out of the car and you're like out there in the ski area and then you're the viennese and you're like, oh, and they talk like this yeah, that does sound a little stuck up yeah, so like, yeah, so bring me my schnitzel, but right away, yeah, and so this is how they they would talk, and also they're not really interested in learning anything from the locals.

Dr. Schnitzel:

It's just like I'm from Vienna and I'm well-educated. What can I even learn from you? What do you have to offer? On the twist side, when Viennese use their dialect in a different way, they might sound very primitive as well. So imagine the guy in the tank top and the beer bottle. That might imagine the guy in the tank top and the beer bottle.

Mr. Giggles:

Yeah, that might sound not too pleasing.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Yeah, I've run into a couple of a couple of these guys on the on the streets here and there, but there is this kind of what they say. This, the viennese, that actually is the shun brun accent, shun brun being the palace of the emperor, so people living closely by the shun brun area would have spoken in this like more sophisticated manner, with your nose high up, yeah, and that's kind of the chimbrun way of talking, but that doesn't really sound good to the non-viennese ears, yeah, and therefore we might not be welcomed all the time in the rest of austria.

Mr. Giggles:

Yeah, it is crazy how how accents can give us away so quickly. Obviously I have that experience quite regularly getting getting exposed as an american anytime I'm trying to speak in any language other than English and then when I do speak in English, it gives it away a little bit. Yeah, well, good. So if you come to Austria, just understand there are some complexities to the culture, to the way people interact, and that the Austrian identity can be held differently from one end of the country to the other.

Dr. Schnitzel:

Yes, and maybe you might not feel so bad about yourself Now if you say like oh, I really wish I could sound like a local. Sometimes it's better not to sound like a local, and that might be your advantage from time to time to say like hey, I'm just a tourist.

Mr. Giggles:

Yeah, I'm not from around here, I'm from around here. There's pros and cons to everything. Yeah, so don't be scared listener, just come on over. If you're visiting vienna, you know, maybe take a take a little drive outside of vienna, because you will have a different experience between vienna and some of the other outlying states, because one thing is true you might have an unfriendly experience outside of vienna, but you will have an unfriendly experience for sure guaranteed, yeah, guaranteed, just go although less and less and less.

Mr. Giggles:

I'm finding fewer of those experiences. All right. Well, that's probably enough. So guten bye-bye, guten bye-bye.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Lukas Marsak (Dr. Schnitzel)

Host
Head Shot

Michael Johnstone (Mr. Giggles)

Host