Well that was an experience…

Hold on, WHAT happened last night!?  You guys will not believe the crazy experience I had last night, or at least what I think must have been a crazy experience.  Allow me to start from the beginning…

I met with my Uncle Ludwig the other day before my first day of work at his company.  I haven’t seen the man for years and years and years.  I was much younger the last time he visited from Austria to the states.  Anyway, he met me at my apt and we went to a bakery, it was around 8:30am.  We get there and go straight to the counter.  He spits out some German and before I know it we are at a table with two bread rolls some cheese and what looks like pickled green peppers.  And oh yah, two Liters of BEER.  I checked my watch and, yup… it was 9:15am and we were drinking beer.  I could not believe it, but I thought to myself, “eh whatever, it’s my first day of work in a foreign city in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language… couldn’t hurt to have a little something that could take the edge off a bit.  Oh and by the way my uncle is a real nice guy, late 50’s I’d say, fat like me, probably from a regular diet of beer and bread.  He also gave me a job, anddd he paid for breakfast, so I like the guy!

Fast-forward.

Days almost over, work was… fine.  I found out that my job won’t be that difficult but it will surely get extremely boring.  I call people in English speaking parts of Europe, Australia, and New Zealand and see if they want to buy computer software.  If they don’t I hang up and try again.  But screw it, its money and I’m in Austria! I met the people I will be working with and one of those people was, Abelina  Who does the same job as be except in German.  The office calls German speaking countries and English speaking countries.  She is 24 and a few years younger than I am, very short, with brown hair.  She asks me to go out with here and her friend later, “Hallo, Zack. I am with my friend tonight and vee are going out, vill you join us?”  I think to myself, “hmmm okay Wednesday night… Girl I just met today…Friends I don’t know…” then I speak out, “yah sounds great!” (how did that happen) She smiles and says, “Vunderful! Vee vill see you at 24 (they use military time here, so 12am) at Ubahn (the subway system) stop Praterstern.” (Here a map of the subway to help you understand, I live at Simmering. http://homepage.univie.ac.at/horst.prillinger/metro/m/largemap.html.)  She was gone before I could process what happened.  But don’t worry it sunk in nice and slow.  I was going to a stop I didn’t know existed, meeting people I didn’t know, in the middle of the night in the middle of the week.

Fast-forward again…

The breaks squeal to a halt as I arrive at the Praterstern stop.  I am amazed I have made it this far.  I find Abelina (amazing myself again), Struggle through awkward hellos due to the language barrier and head to…. FLUC.(Fluc.at)  It’s a underground nightclub and when you walk in, it literally feels like you are entering the bowels of the earth, it smells like it too, oh and you have to pay 15 euros to get in and another 5 to check your coat… I am beginning to doubt my decision making skills. To enter the club you have to walk down this long flight of stairs, the jagged black spray painted rock walls are sweating profusely from the humidity screaming up through the stair case to escape into the cooler night air.  We get to the bottom of the stairs, and I am floored.  Crazy Drum and base music at what must be max volume and a mass of people dancing, I guess… although it just looked like a huge strobe light infused, volume fueled, sweaty human sea knocking against itself.  The darkest, loudest, sweatiest euro rave I could ever imagine.  It was too loud to talk down there so Abelina made a hand gesture to the bar and we all went over and they all bought shots which tastes like roots and pine leaves, and then another pine/root shot and then beer…. And that’s all folks….

I woke up today, Thursday the 26th, at 4pm this afternoon.  I missed work, I feel like absolute dump, I have a receipt from Fluc for 127 euros, and I can’t find my phone…  Okay I need something to change, everything was great and now it’s awful… I need to make a resolve, and I will do it here publicly so the world can hold me accountable.

Resolve: I need to get this city under my belt.  I need never to go to FLUC again.  I will make a place for myself in this city and, I will learn German. Fantastisch! (I learned the other day that that means Great!.. see I’m already learning!)

I mean I am happy I went out and did something new, sometimes you gotta just go for it, but there’s another part of this city and dammit I will find it!

Hopefully I still have a job tomorrow…

Zack