When in Austria, do as the Austrians (just not Joseph Fritzl)

The liftie gives me a slight nod as he buzzes me in the side door of the Gondola Hut. I skip the line and climb into the gondola with a clammer of boots and bags and goggles and gloves. This 22-minute gondola ride before work allows me to gather my thoughts and tame my looming hangover. As the gondola rises through the pine trees and the morning mist I get a view of the neat and compact village of St Johan in Tirol. The town lies on the intersection of two rivers in the Austrian Alps, it has three supermarkets, five bars and one beer brewery. The town isn’t as vibrant as Kitzbuhel, the larger and better known resort down the road, but it does have a charm to it that small ski towns inherently have; a healthy comaraderie amongst the seasonal workers, a welcoming environment, and karaoke Wednesdays. At the top of the mountain I strap on my board not far from a sign that tells me that Johannesburg is 8360 km away (I am not too phased by this as Honolulu is 12430 km away). The steep hill that intially daunted ,now exhilirates me and I am at work in a matter of well-carved moments.
The place I work at is a slopeside lodge and restaurant and in summer it is an alpine pasture (if I close my eyes and breathe slowly I can hear Heidi and the trademark echoes of her yodelling). I am the kingpin food runner performing such jobs as vacuuming, polishing cutlery, serving food, clearing tables, snow plowing, acting busy and intermittently hiding in the bathroom playing Sudoku on my phone. I perform all functions except taking orders and handling the bills because, “I am a dirty South African and cannot be trusted”. There is another food runner who started shortly after I did. Initially I thought they were trying to phase me out because the boss had “caught me staring at the wall” one too many times but I soon learnt she is simply here on an internship for hospitality training. Her name is Suzie and she is sixteen. I know. We would make a dynamic duo if it were not for the fact that we struggle to commmunicate. We kind of just humm around each other doing our own thing.

The rest of the small team of staff are typically Austrian and hence a little different. There are three waiters. Alex, a forty-something wounded drinking hero, smartass, and entertainer. I work with him most which is trying because he is as patient as an irritable child. Then there is Charlie,a sexed up fat man who ignores the fact that I don’t speak German and has a hysterical laugh. He could be my favourite. Topping off the trio is Katharina, a peppy ray of sunshine in this otherwise demented environment and also happens to be the boss’s daughter, so extra points for her blonde scalp.
The kitchen staff, like most, are an array of off-beat characters. The head chef is a shrivelled little man with a stringy goatie and a quiet manner and has picked up the nickname of ‘test tube baby’, quite rightly too. The daytime dishwasher is a crazy-eyed Croatian whose name is something that begins with a Z and so we have no choice but to call him Zoltan. The night time dishwasher is in fact two guys who share the job, two Australian ski bums who I met in Amsterdam, who hooked me up with this job, Trent and Pixie. They are happy drifters and all-round good drinking buddies. They are the guys who I stay with when in town, who are kind enough to let me sleep on their floor. The Boss is an acclaimed somellier in Austria, gracious host and naturally I dislike her purely for being my boss despite her being very nice.
The entertaining aspect of the staff dynamic is that each one considers the next one completely crazy, with sufficient reason too. The kitchen staff think the waiters are crazy, the waiters think the kitchen staff are crazy and they are both right. This cycle of looniness is epitomised with a tune that everyone whistles. Throughout the day everyone - kitchen staff, waiters and barman all whistle the same tune of a deranged circus song. Do doo da lud do doo… it is irritating and maddening but I catch myself humming it too, am I becoming one of them?
Each one of them, apart from Pixie and Trent stay up on the lodge on the piste which I strongly suspect lends to their wackiness, I spend four days a week up here so I manage to retain some sanity, while simultaneously also contracting the batty behaviour.
There is the mutual craziness of the shared cabin fever, the frustration of a stunted lifestyle and lack of a robust social life. On the quieter nights, however, we sit around the kitchen table helping ourselves to beers, gluwein and schnapps and get merry and forget the dramas of the day and gain some perspective in drunken serenity.
Initially my casual manner, unabashed clumsiness and lack of German did nothing to endear me to everyone. The clumsiness especially was a problem. Every clatter of a knife or cling of a plate on the floor was always me. They knew it without looking. It still is, but they have come to accept it as I have had to my ntire life. This place has actually managed to drive some hard work into me and I am by no means as lazy as I was when I first arrived, I have even ceased the bathroom Sudoku. My German continues to lack.
When I tell customers I don’t speak German, “Ich spreke kein Deutch”, they cannot quite believe nor accept it. “No German? No German?” they mutter to no one in particular, looking around quite astounded and disappointed. “No German” they say quietly again to themselves, finally believing. This is when I consider telling them about what I have had to endure in my effort to learn German. A wise man, a man who knows about these things and these matters, a man you don’t question, our barman, told me upon my arrival that the secret to learning German is to think and live like a German speaking person. Fair enough.
“You have to try think like them, you have to get inside their minds”. I nodded, imagining the inside of their minds. “You have to mimic them” he told me.
“I have to eat a schnitzel everyday?”
“Yes” he concurred, clearly impressed.
I couldn’t quite believe it either but I liked shnitzels back then and I was attracted to the lack of effort involved in this osmosis effect of learning a new language. One week into the schnitzel diet, the nightmares started, the schnitzel mares, as I have come to refer to these savage experiences as. They are innocent enough and in fact start just like normal dreams but suddenly the conversation becomes German and in turn completely frightening. I wake up in a cold sweat with the taste of schnitzel in my mouth. There is nothing more grotesque than a random dream interrupted by an angry German and the only explanation I can think of is the schnitzel diet. By now I am fully addicted to these delicious lunchtime indulgences and there is no answer to this tribulation. My German remains useless and non-existent.
Despite the torment of the schnitzel mares, it is a sweet deal here. I get free accommodation, free food (I can raid the kitchen at will, which supports and encourages my schnitzel addiction), free beer and hot chocolate, so my only costs are snowboarding and drinking in town coupled with an acceptable salary so I am not complaining. I also get to cut the first tracks in the morning before the gondola starts up and at night I leave work with a torch, freshly groomed tracks awaiting, the lights of St. Johann below and nothing but the swoosh of my board to be heard.
Beyond work there is snowboarding, ski shows, apres ski, live music, destroying karaoke, sledding, Swedish ski instructors to ogle at, and setting personal records for paleness. I finish up this job within the week, and after two months of mild devotion, I am more than ready for my reward of a week of snowboarding and chilling out, followed by a week in Ireland.