I returned two days ago from a weekend trip to Vienna. I enjoyed it immensely – but since my favorite things to do when I travel are go to art museums, eat large lunches and then fall asleep in parks, that doesn’t necessarily mean anyone will want to read about it.

Fortunately, when I wasn’t sleeping in parks or looking at art, I was staying in a hostel. As many of you know, this pretty much guarantees meeting strange people, and if you are willing to spend time with these people, strange experiences as well. The Hostel Ruthensteiner was no exception, and so I’ll tell a couple of tales about that. First, however, some pictures:

The Habsburgs were known for their subtlety and reserved taste

25,000 years old and still looking good

More Habsburg subtlety

I am no stranger to weird people. My family has always been somewhat eccentric. My grandfather, for example, once mailed me a box of chocolate-covered horse turds, which was actually a relief, as he had threatened to send live chickens. On the other side of the family, my Aunt Lispen required guests to her house to request permission to come aboard, and then blew the ship’s whistle to signify that it had been granted. There was also my great-grandfather Teggelaar, who kept a gun in a hollowed-out imitation bible (because using a real bible would be sacrilegious) and hid silver dollars in his socks and pockets for the grandchildren to find. And that’s just a few of the dead relatives. If I wrote about the living ones, I’d have to break it into multiple posts.

Yet, without a doubt, the strangest people I have encountered have been in hostels. Some seem strange to me just because they come from a very different background than I do. Others are just strange. In a hostel in St. Augustine, Florida, for example, Megan and I once met a man who believed his life was a “temporal anomaly” which had kept him from aging in 21 years. “I’m talking about some Benjamin Button stuff, here, man,” he would say. “I am exactly the same, in every way, as I was when I was 19.” To be fair, he did look quite a bit younger than 40, and I do not know many middle-aged men who can produce enough birds made of dried grass to fill a medium-sized hostel. But then I don’t know anyone who can do that, regardless of their age.

That guy would be weird no matter what environment he finds himself in. With others, however, it’s not obvious whether it is they or their environment that is bizarre. In Hostel Ruthensteiner, for example, there was a white South African woman, who despite having fairly normal social skills, told me that “some groups” in South African society are incapable of moral judgment, and so cannot help but murder people and steal things. I wonder which groups she meant.

There are undoubtedly some racist people in South Africa, which suggests that this woman might be normal, but raised in a racist environment. She was quite young, however, and well-educated, which makes it unlikely that her peer group shares her views. Also, most racist people probably know enough to not bring up their racism to complete and presumably non-racist strangers. Probably we will never know just how weird this woman is.

For another example, take this weirdo from Bosnia I met. She is the first person I have ever met to threaten me with stabbing before she knew my name. She is also the only person to threaten me with stabbing because I corrected her assertion that the capital of Liechtenstein is Liechtenstein City. As anyone who has studied Liechtenstein in a fourth-grade geography project knows, the capital is Vaduz, and though many Americans do not know the capitals of tiny European principalities, that is no reason to say that she will stab my ignorant American ass, when I have just proven that I am not ignorant, at least not of the capital of Liechtenstein.

When I protested that google agreed with my position, and that in any case stabbing is probably a disproportionate reaction to being challenged over the capital of Liechtenstein, this woman claimed that it was normal to resort to violence over minor geographical disagreements in Bosnia. I was about to write that this struck me as unlikely, but now that I write it out, I realize that in another sense she’s perfectly correct. The question hinges, I suppose, on the scale of the geographical disagreement. In any case, I didn’t tell her that my father had once claimed to be the trainer of giant geese whose mission would be to pluck Bosnia out of the Balkans and move it to another continent, where it could be safely dropped as Bosnia is made out of a specially drop-resistant mineral known as Bosno-bounce. She certainly would have stabbed me for that.

Other hostel weirdoes are definitely the product of their environment. Take my roommates in the hostel – a couple of wayward Australians, a Brit, and a Taiwanese guy. These were charming, friendly people, and I enjoyed spending time with them even if their English was occasionally difficult to understand. “It was quite hot yesterday,” one of the Australians told me. “I wore shorts and thongs all day.”

Thinking quickly, I deduced that this man had worn flip-flops, not multiple pairs of racy women’s underwear. The latter interpretation simply does not stand up to scrutiny – while thongs, I imagine, might be excellent underwear in the heat, there is surely no reason to wear more than one pair.

There were also some cultural differences, like the Australian’s claim to use his car both to wake board and to hunt kangaroo. Not to hunt kangaroo from his car, mind you, but with it. Or the his laughter at horrific injuries, as in the case of his friend who had burned half of his face off by an unfortunate encounter with a burning shot of Bacardi 151. Most shocking, however, was their ability to drink and eat. For example, one of the Australians ate not one or two but three of the largest wiener schnitzels I have ever seen. They were large enough that they were served on a wooden slab, not a plate. As for drinking, one of the Australians, the British guy and I went to get a few beers at a nearby beer house. It was a casual evening of conversation and easy drinking, at least initially. We talked about manly, intelligent things like carpentry and Jewish history (the Australian guy was a carpenter whereas the British guy had studied history at Oxford), and I felt as though I fit in well. However, as I quickly noticed, both of these men drank their beer considerably faster than I. They would be finishing their pint when I still had a third of it left. Not wanting to be labeled as an effete American, I drank more quickly.

I have not drunk very much alcohol in Norway. The cheapest drink you can get in a bar is about $10, and they often range much higher. Also, most beer is limited to 4.7% alcohol, which is obviously not very much.

Austria does not have these problems. Their beer is cheap, plentiful and strong. After several pints, the Aussie bought us a round. Then the Brit did, and then I, filled with bonhomie, bought a third. Each of these was difficult for me to finish as quickly as they, but I managed.

Sometime near the end of the third round, I got up to relieve myself. I had already been to the bathroom twice without incident, but this time, I noticed two things. First, neither the Aussie nor the Brit had risen once or seemingly been affected by the beer we’d drunk in any way. Second, I could no longer see clearly. How had the pub gotten so blurry? I glanced back towards my friends. They were sitting casually, relaxed, chatting amiably. I, on the other hand, was frozen halfway across the pub, staring back at them unsteadily, acting like a total weirdo.

No amount of alcohol, however, can slay the indomitable Gris spirit. I was determined to keep it together. “Just tying my shoe,” I announced loudly, to cover my moment of realization. I untied my shoe, tied it again, and then went to the bathroom. Crisis averted, I thought.

I returned to find a full pint sitting next to my half-drunk one. One of them, the Aussie probably, had finished his, and bought everyone another round. I began to panic as I realized that there were at least three more rounds in my future.

From that point on, the night became a bitter struggle to preserve my sanity. If I could just think every aspect of behavior through, I could determine what was a sober thing to do, and what was a drunk thing to do. Then I could just do the sober thing, and I would be fine.

Fortunately, it’s not particularly difficult to act sober when you’re talking about carpentry and British Jewry. Eventually, however, the conversation turned to juicier topics, like dangerous animals found in our countries. The Brit didn’t have much to add to this particular vein of conversation – as he claimed, the most dangerous animal in Britain is easily avoided by listening for bagpipes and keeping an eye out for kilts – but the Australian had endless blood-curdling stories about deadly spiders, snakes and red kangaroos. “But,” he said dramatically, “the most dangerous animal has to be the drop bear.” He then described a fearsome variant of the koala which, driven to madness by excessive Eucalyptus, drops from trees onto innocent passersby. “Generally,” he said, “they’ll just go for the throat and kill you, but occasionally they’ll rip your face off instead.”

Now, I am undoubtedly an idiot in many ways. However, I am not gullible, at least not anymore. Anyone who was raised in my family quickly learns to be skeptical. I have spent hours swatting mosquitoes on snipe hunts. I have learned, among many other things, that Fruit Loops are actually available in many states beside Florida, and that there are 365 days in most years, not 364 as my father claimed. Admittedly, I haven’t always been quick to realize these lies – I lost $10 in 11th grade because of the days in the year thing – but I am now highly skeptical of anything anyone ever tells me. Also, I watch a hell of a lot of nature documentaries, and so I was well aware that this Aussie was trying to bullshit me.

I considered the sober thing to do. A drunk person would overreact and argue, I reasoned. A sober person would play along. “Indeed,” I said. “Vicious creatures. My Australian uncle lost two of his eyes to one.”

“You have an Australian uncle?”

“I do,” I said, though actually I do not.

“And he has more than two eyes?”

I saw immediately that he had caught me a bit there. “Well,” I said, “not anymore.”

I don’t remember much of the rest of night, but I seriously doubt I was able to hide my drunkenness, especially when I excused myself to vomit in the bathroom, or when I was unable to use the doorknob to the bunkroom. In any case, we were all eventually drunk enough that it didn’t matter, I hope. In any case, it was a great trip, and I hope to go back someday.

In closing, I leave you with a few excellent examples of Norwenglish I have heard recently:

In reference to the container in which milk is stored: milk cartoon.

In reference to fishnet stockings: “Those things you put on your legs with the strings…you know, whore socks.”

In reference to the large barrier that once protected China from the Mongol hordes: “That thing in China… the, uh, what’s it called….the Grand Chinese Fence?”