Today I went with Heide, Nouri (Heide’s son) and Heide’s mother on a bicycle ride to celebrate Mother’s Day. The ride consisted of us riding about 10 miles out of the city and having a small picnic along the bicycle trail.
Throughout the entire ride, Heide’s mother keep breaking away from us and we were constantly trying to catch her. Despite her age, she was a real speed demon on the bicycle.
But she was not the only one. There was a good amount of people on the trail who were trying to set new land speed records. Unlike in America where for the most part people seem to take their time on bicycle trails and enjoy the ride, Austrians want to get there as soon as possible.
Although I have not worked out in ages and I have not been on a bicycle in over a year, I was able to keep up with 10-year-old Nouri and even pass him a few times. But when we returned home, I was exhausted and went to bed shortly after 6 p.m.
Today I got my first taste of Austrian German. I had almost written it off as a myth because I had been able to understand everyone up to this point. However, today I listened for about 10 minutes to two older people conversing and literally had no idea what they were talking about.
In high school I learned Bavarian German, a dialect that this very similar to Austrian German because of the proximity of Bavaria to Austria. The accent I heard today was so thick that it could be cut with a butter knife.