Once we assembled, we started our journey by going to a bike shop close to our destination called Pedal Power. Being in there made me feel like I was in a professional bike shop in San Francisco; these guys were competent and very friendly. The young man who helped us get situated reminded me of some of my cyclist friends back in Davis: long hair, baggy shorts, and a friendly smile (pictured below behind CJ).
.JPG)
He seemed really eager to help us get everything that we needed for our ride, including the information necessary on safe biking and directions. I was impressed at how welcoming they staff at this bike shop were being, considering that we were American students who had no idea how to get to where we wanted to go. In previous encounters I had been treated as an ignorant outsider by the Viennese (see day 1, margarita incident). I was happy to see that the youth of Vienna are not propagating the same kind of resentment that the older generation are. Additionally, I think that the fact that we were coming together over a common activity (cycling) really provided a medium for us to have friendly and high-spirited interactions. This was the first time that I fully realized that attitudes towards Americans are not uniform among the population of Vienna; a realization that in turn caused me to question how attitudes would differ in other European countries/cities. I guess I am going to have to travel more to find out! After we were all geared up, we were off.
The ride was amazing. The combination of biking in the park with the cityscape in the background was absolutely beautiful. We stopped at one of the many benches along the way so that we could eat and swim.
My friend Melody and I decided to be awesome and swim to the other side of the stretch of the Danube that we were swimming in. It was a little harder than we expected, but well worth the effort. After we tired of swimming, we ate some sandwiches and had a relaxing time just talking about the different things that we were experiencing on this trip so far. The most popular subject of this discussion was how weird it was that the Europeans seem to think that putting ice in drinks is somehow bad for you (this sentiment later confirmed by Jan, our program coordinator who grew up in Germany). Every time that we have ordered drinks they have either had one or two cubes in them, or none at all. This is something that we are not used to in America, where we expect everything to come in a nice package and be well prepared. The same is not true here in Europe, we suppose, where people do not care as much about receiving everything designed to specification and convenience. What I think is really REALLY odd is the fact that a country that had a 23.2% smoking rate in 2006 (many of whom smoke multiple packs per day) is concerned about the use of frozen water to cool beverages. It seems pretty backwards to me, but I guess that’s the way things turned out. (Stats courtesy of http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/37/38979610.pdf)
After lunch a fair portion of our group headed back. The remaining four of us decided that we wanted to press on and see more of the island. Little did we know that we were heading for disaster. As we rode along, we noticed that the level of nakedness was going up the further we went. It was not until we were about 5 minutes down the road did we realize that we were accidently riding head-long into a nudist colony! This would not have been terrible, but there was not a single person there younger than 50. Once we were out of the jungle, so to speak, we stopped to recover from our scarring excursion. Looking back on it, this experience is very indicative of the different attitudes held by Americans and Europeans on the human body. My American upbringing has ingrained in me that the naked form is reserved for private moments. We have public indecency laws against exposure and social norms sending the message that nakedness is only for a narrow range of situations. The same is not true of Europeans, where there are sections of public space DEDICATED to nakedness. I would have thought that this practice would lead to some form of moral degradation (being the American that I am), but it in fact is just another method of relaxation for them. They take it as a way to truly experience the outdoors. I don’t plan on becoming a nudist, but I have definitely gained a new respect and appreciation for how the naked form can be integrated into society for the purpose of quality of life. (That being said, we biked as fast as we could).
Hunger drove us to finally return the bikes and find some dinner. On the way back my friend CJ and I had the misfortune on meeting the ugly side of Viennese aggression towards Americans. We accidentally rode on the wrong side of the road because there was construction on the road and we were not familiar with the signs directing us to the right way. We rode to the sidewalk as soon as we could so we would not cause in more danger to ourselves or to the motorists. When we got off the bikes so we could walk them to the path, we were confronted by a couple who asked us where we were from. We told them that we were from California, expecting a friendly conversation. “You’re both brainless idiots,” was the response that we were met with. Stunned, we did not really know how to react. We tried to say something but they already disappeared into the crowd by the time we could form a response. That’s probably a good thing, because I was pissed off enough to have said something rash. CJ and I both understood that we were doing something wrong and we tried to fix it as soon as possible! Their actions toward us are a discredit to the Austrians; we had already seen how friendly and understanding they could be when the guy working at the bike store helped us out. I will try and be diplomatic in my discussion and conclusion of the incident, but I will say that I hope to run into them again at some point. The lesson that I chose to learn from this is that there really is not a unified consensus among Europeans/Austrians/Viennese on how to feel about Americans. In the same day we were treated with both kindness and contempt. This just proves to me that, just like that couple made assumptions about us, I made assumptions coming to Vienna that there would be a pretty consistent attitude towards us. I guess that we were both wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment