Overheard in a bar

Monday, 29. September 2008, 19:52:51

While waiting for a friend in a restaurant last night, I couldn't help but overhear the raucous conversation at the bar behind me. Apparently, some Americans had spent the weekend showing their Austrian friends around. The Austrian man was tipsy and very loud.

"I mean, it's not what I expected. I came here thinking it would all be industrial wasteland, you know? But it's very beautiful here."

I've never thought of my hometown as being industrial wasteland (barring, of course, the old Georgia-Pacific site on the waterfront). Now I wonder if I should rescale my mental image of Austria as all cuckoo clocks and Alpine meadows filled with singing nuns?

Paul Theroux: Ghost Train to The Eastern Star (or, why I ought not write the things I think.)The daily drivel.

Comments

It's a sad reality that most peoples' images of a country originate from what they see on TV or movies.

In my first trip to the US, my mother-in-law was determined that I was going to be robbed or worse, as her knowledge of the states was based entirely on cop shows (and the US was reduced to New York, Washington DC, LA).

As I was actually heading towards Lutzen (Minnesota), stopping ever so briefly in Duluth, I don't really think she had much cause for concern. the skyline wasn't very, err, New Yorkish.

Similarly China isn't all Great Walls, Forbidden Palaces and Shangahi/Beijing. There are some pretty amazing spots further afield that aren't crammed fill of cars and people.

By chthoniid, # 30. September 2008, 02:47:53

Haha--I get worried like that when we go to the Big City--Seattle--mainly because I'm a country mouse.

If the only experience people had with America was what they were presented with on TV and in the movies, as you say, they're undoubtedly going to have a skewed perception. They won't expect all the wide-open space, for one thing--but even that surprises us sometimes, as when I was driving through the empty quarter of the southwest with some friends a few years ago.

Miles and miles--hundreds of miles!--of NOTHING. That was kind of cool (as long as the car didn't break down!).

I can only imagine what this country was like fifty years ago when it had half its population.

By mlynnjohnson, # 30. September 2008, 13:32:10