My experiences in Austria !!

It has been while after my trip to Austria and every time I meet any of my friends or relatives that I haven’t, after my visit, happens to ask me about my experiences. So I thought, why not make a diary entry of some sort describing the same. Here are a few, noticeable and funny incidences. Hope you too enjoy them reading.

You find Indians everywhere, almost

Yes, you might have heard many people saying this. I can cite three instances, where I felt the same way during my trip.

Here's the first one: This was on the first day. We had reached our hotel late in the afternoon and in the evening came down to the reception to check out if there were any restaurants nearby where we could have our dinner. Tamara, the receptionist, who had identified that we were Indians (when we registered our names in the hotel guests list) gave the name of two Indian restaurants where we could satisfy our tummies. One of them was “Hotel Taj”, the other being “Bombay Palace”. My manager didn’t commit the mistake of consulting me about the choice of eatery. Invariably we had to go to Bombay Palace, as the name would suggest. Reached Bombay palace and we were greeted with smiles and unbound Hindi words like “Namaskar!!, aaiye, kya khayenge??” . It was Avataar Singh, the owner of the restaurant who made us feel so important, it was a total esteem boost. We were more than happy to visit the café and enjoy Indian curries with delectable Austrian sweet dishes, especially the Apple Strudel. But, this so called “indianness” was not enough. While we were dinning, a group of 10 people came and sat on the table in our vicinity. We could make out they were Indians. My manager guessed that they were looking like Maharashtrians. Listening and then talking to them, we confirmed they were from Mumbai and everyone spoke Marathi. That was like an icing on the strudel. I exchanged notes with them and felt good. First day wasn’t bad after all.

The second one. It was on the weekend when we had been to Salzburg for the sightseeing. Salzburg is a very beautiful place near Switzerland. After the whole day of tourism we were dropped by our tourist vehicle to a bus station from where we had to take a bus to the railway station to catch the Eurail train back to Linz. We were carefully analyzing the chart at the bus stop to find out as to which bus would take us to the station. We knew hbf meant railway station in Deutsche. I could make out that bus no. 3 could go to our destination. My senior argued that it may also go to any other station on which I counter argued stating Salzburg was such a small town and having one railway station itself was too much to have. Our argument had started to heat up when one guy came from behind and politely said “Aap sahi keh rahe ho!! 3 number ki bus hi railway station jaayegi..” We realized that someone had just spoken to us in Hindi in a small town of Austria. Seconds later he disappeared as his bus had arrived at the bus stop. We looked at each other in some kind of shock but then happily waited for the bus number “drei”, “three” in German and reached the coveted destination. After this we had another argument which was based on the person’s nationality. Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi?? Don’t know?? Didn’t matter.

And the third one: This incident took place the day before we were supposed to leave for India. As per our schedule we had to catch a flight to Frankfurt from Linz, 6 o’clock in the morning. Since the hotel booking was on my name, I thought why not complete the check out formalities of the hotel, the night before we were supposed to leave. I was a bit skeptical about this; so thought of consulting Tamara (who was our fast friend by then) if this was possible. While going for dinner we stopped at the desk to meet a person other than Tamara. Didn’t matter, anyhow we had to ask him. I spoke to that guy and told him the case. He said “Koi nahi, sirjee, hum karlenge…aap khana shana kha lo!!” I replied “What??” He repeated the same thing. I could not comprehend what he was trying to say. I started looking at my companion, Sreeharsha. He too looked perplexed, then suddenly realized and said “Abey voh hindi mein baat kar raha hain..” I was highly surprised. I had understood that you can’t even understand a language you are used to talking everyday when you don’t expect anyone speaking the same. The guy never looked like an Indian, his style of speaking, his dressing sense and all never hinted that he was one of us. Anyhow, I was happy that he had agreed and it was possible for me to accomplish the check out stuff the same night. The next morning he was not at the reception and it was Tamara who bid us good bye. Funny and interesting incident isn’t it??

Watch out this space for some more experiences.....