When I first decided to spend my Erasmus year in Dublin, I wasn’t really sure what I was getting myself into. My decision was a hasty one and I’d never been to Ireland before. Still, it was probably the best decision I’ve made in my whole life. But it wasn’t always easy being an Austrian in Ireland.
To know exactly how it was for me, you’ll need to know a little bit about my backwoods backround. Originally, I am from Werfen, a small township in the beautiful, but very rural area of Pongau region of the Salzburg province. On a nice and sunny August morning I headed out of Werfen on my way to conquer the Irish capital, with its approximately 500,000 inhabitants. Almost the minute I left the plane, I realised that a lot of my university training in English would not really help me here. My first day was a mixture of intense language confusion, nodding and smiling.
The first Irish people I talked to were a gregarious taxi driver and the owner of the hostel I stayed in for the first couple of nights. I soon noticed that people seemed to think I was German, a reaccuring assumption over the course of my year in Dublin. It’s an understandable mistake, I guess. What I didn’t realise was how many other nationalities I could be mistaken for.
When I told people I was from Austria, the usual reaction I got was “Oh, beautiful - Vienna is great!”. When I mentioned Salzburg, the typical connotations were our musical genius Mozart and The Sound of Music. The Irish were generally shocked when I said that I had never watched The Sound of Music and that we actually have other music to offer aside from Mozart. Oh, and how could I forget: Everyone’s favourite Austrian statesman Arnold Schwarzenegger, including everyone’s imitation of his accent.
Another chapter in my story of mistaken nationalities was added by the gorgeous little girls who lived in the house next to mine. They were convinced for the whole year that I had made up the country of Austria and that I was instead most definitely from Australia, although I didn’t sound Australian at all. Some of my other neighbours thought I was either Polish or Russian. One even identified me as Spanish, amusingly enough (despite my nearly translucent complexion).
What I had to learn as well was that my nationality was way more interesting than my personality and also more important than my name. Although we were all Europeans, I always had the feeling that I was sort of exotic. When I was introduced to people, they usually said, “That’s Christina, she’s Austrian”. After these successful introductions I found myself drawn into discussions about skiing, snowy mountains and cows. It also happened that after I had known my fellow college students for more than half a year, that they still introduced me as “one of the Germans”. There must have been a point when this actually stopped bothering me, when I accepted the fact that I would obviously just have to put up with being German (no offense to Germans intended).
One thing that enlightened my Austrian heart to the fullest was the enthusiasm of the Irish for learning weird foreign words. After teaching every single one of my college colleagues how to say Oachkatzlschwoaf I felt that I had succeeded in my mission to Austrofy the Irish - at least a little bit!
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