The Other People

One of my first experience with truly foreign people was when I was in 7th or 8th grade. At the time, one of my dad’s best friends was an American, that moved to Austria quite a while longer ago than I have a somewhat working brain. Eddie, as we collectively called him, was a quirky old dude, who was always happy to provide cheesy jokes and had no problem being the most stereotypical American possible. He spent his working time teaching English to younger kids. Because, no one better to teach English, than a native speaker, wouldn’t you agree?

Eddie’s main place to spend his free and break time was an old pizzeria somewhere in the older parts of Vienna. “The Blue Lagoon” it is called, still to this day. He and my dad told me multiple stories of the old owners and how the restaurant had a nearly mafia like appearance at some point, often being guarded by policemen. He told me, that it was one of the favourite places to eat for the force and so in return, they took care of bad people acting up inside. 
Over the years I heard many different stories about the place, had my own fun experiences when I was younger. A lovely place in my memories.

Apparently the restaurant was bought up by newer folks. They didn’t remodel anything, but something has changed inside. The flair is not the same that it was years ago anymore. Maybe it is just an artifact of my youth, believing the many stories I was told when I was younger.

My parents and I often met Eddie when we went there. Most of the times without any prior contacting. He was there so regularly, you could set a clock around his eating habits. “See ya latah, alligator!” he always said to me, when, after having lunch or dinner, we parted again.

One time Eddie’s relatives went on vacation. To Vienna, Austria. I guess they wanted to meet the old guy again. My dad, as proud of his culture as Eddie of his own, naturally invited all of them to our home. At this point I didn’t speak fluent English. I wasn’t comfortable around strangers that didn’t speak at least a bit of my native language. I was scared. I knew one-hundred percent — no, one-thousand percent — , I would embarass myself beyond imagination.

They turned out to be lovely people. From California, as far as I can recall. Today, that whole day feels like a blur, me being an excited youngster, barely knowing the language to communicate in with these people from a different world. Surprise, I didn’t embarrass myself. They were happy, ecstatic even that we, that is my family and me, spoke enough English to communicate and to have fun. I bonded with one of the American kids over Pokémon, discussing the difference of the names of the monsters we knew in both languages and trying to find out the English names of the ones we didn’t know. We only had my German editions of the games to look at.

Looking back on it, it was a fun day and an amazing experience, thanks to Eddie. I haven’t seen the old lunatic in a long time now. I wonder what he would think of my grasp on his native language today.

“So, basically you want to be a musician?”

“Well, yeah, I was in a classical-music school. And it really always fascinated me. The music, the culture … the people. That’s why I’m here in Vienna now. To study music, you know? I think, that this is the direction I want to steer my life to!”

Over my active time on the internet, I met some interesting people. I didn’t meet them so much as to write and occasionally Skype with them, but you have to start somewhere.

I, like so many others, actively played online video games. No, I was not a World of Warcraft kid, but I was a Starcraft 2 teenager. I remember the summer of 2010, when the first edition came out and I fell into the hole of computer games, that the company behind it, Blizzard, oh so well creates.

I played a lot. Some would have probably called it an addiction. And yes, I was addicted, but not so much to the game, as I was addicted to the competition. The whole multiplayer experience in Starcraft is a competition. Playing against other players, comparing each other on a ranking list, the top players playing in big tournaments, being broadcasted in some way or form worldwide, thousands of people watching.

The game, I don’t miss so much anymore. Yeah, sometimes I have an itch in my fingers and remember the old times, but most of the time thinking back just motivates and inspires me. Because, even though I didn’t really realise it back in the day, I worked hard to become good in this weird genre of competition. It was one of my first real passions. I wanted to be one of the best and I guess, for a short time I was one of the better players. At least in Austria.

Over the roughly three years I played, I met some amazing people and played in some really cool groups. Two of the british people I played with heavily, I have to thank for my English accent, even if it still sounds unbelievably fake. They taught me a lot. Way more than I ever learnt in school and they probably didn’t even realise it. That’s okay.

I remember one of the German dudes in the group. Looking back, he has one of the more inspiring pasts. He got kicked out from his family at around 17, had to deal with general non-support and horrible situations, the others and me only being a soothing online-presence, that really couldn’t do anything. And still being one of the most optimistic and cool dudes I ever get to speak to. I wonder what he is doing currently.
What’s interesting is, that I never actually spoke German with him. Because of the group calls we were so used to speaking English, we didn’t even consider German as an option for just us two.
He is one of the people I can’t really find online anymore today, which is too bad. I hope he is doing well.

“Of all my friends, I’d consider you the most … hmm … normal one!”

“The most normal?”, me not knowing how to respond.

“Yeah, all the other people I know are really weird people. You seem like you got your shit together.”

One of the very few online people I actually met, was this girl, Heather.

A fortnight ago I created an OkCupid account, mostly because I was bored and I thought it would be fun. If you don’t know, OkCupid is basically a dating website. You create a profile; you message people you like. Simple as that, there isn’t too much to it.

Heather was one of the first I messaged with for a bit longer. She seemed nice, friendly, open minded. She isn’t from Austria, she is all the way from Singapore. Barely spoke German at the time. The girl wanted to study music, Vienna being a fitting place for exactly that.

At some point we thought it would be a nice idea to meet up. Food, obviously, was the plan. A nice little Chinese restaurant. Although the place was really small, it was a cozy little getaway from the stressful life outside. The meals were amazing.

I was there first, she was a bit late. I remember my first thought when she came in, that she was smaller than I expected her to be, not realising that I didn’t actually know what to expect. We started off on a very light note, she making fun of my accent, not in any mean way. We got food, we ate. We talked about this and that; music, family, things you would expect on a first meetup. We promised to meet each other again.

To me, she is fun, passionate and a bit crazy. The good kind. The kind that gets you far in life. Someone who sees the bigger picture.

People shape you. Every single experience with people you never met before, people from the same culture, from another culture, with whole different ideologies; experiences that are good, bad, or strange; all these are valuable experiences. I learnt that, over the time. I want to be more outgoing. I want to make more of these experiences.

Living life is a challenge, every day. You can either choose to crawl around and get nowhere or you can stand up and run forward. As fast as you can. It’s hard and it takes work, a lot of it, but sometimes it’s worth it.

“Who is true stays, who isn’t will leave. I have complete security of myself in this aspect!”

“Sounds good! I would love to have self-confidence and security like that…”

“It will come… just tell yourself that everyday. Make it a habit, it can never reverse.”

… I guess in the end, I was just too boring for her.