A World of Pen Pals

My Austrian Roots and How I ‘Blossomed” Beyond

International Pen Pals are my favorite in letter writing because I feel I learn so much from them about the world. This article is from an Austrian pen pals perspective about foreign pals.. thanks Anni! Enjoy! Wendy

By Anni B. from Vienna/Austria

I was born (1970) and raised in Vienna, the capital of Austria, a small country in the middle of Europe. Maybe that was one of the reasons I got attracted to foreign friends quite early – because we reach our borders so quickly. I also love the written word – by now I’m a writer & journalist, but I was far off that idea when I started writing letters!

My first letters went out when I was 8 – to a girl that had left my class at school – it only lasted till she found new friends in her new surrounding, I guess. Well , I got my first “real” penfriends at about 12 or 13… learning English as first foreign language (like most people here nowadays), we were soon encouraged to write to children of other countries, just to make practical use of English! I remember writing to a girl from England for a while…others came and got lost again…but I’m still in touch (via e-mail now) with a woman from India, we got to know when we were around 16 (if I remember correctly). Amazing I think. We shared a lot of different times…

I seemed to receive never enough letters, it didn’t always work out very well, I wrote and got no or very late replies. Things started to set off really when I got to know FBs … these little things are one of the most practical idea and invention I think! Of course it would be nice to get your own ones back, but that’s not the point to me, most important is that they travel just everywhere… I have also been an avid decorator of deco FBs, they can be pretty… people are so interesting and creative sometimes.

By now I’ve met several of my penfriends, here or at their home countries, since I’m always a passionate traveller, most times it’s been nice and rewarding. I have always considered myself “internationalist”. I truly love exchange. I love languages as well, but am too tired to learn more now. However one of my “sports” is to pick up foreign words/expressions.

Austria has about 7.5 millions people now, and by the way, our native language is mostly German – but we’re not Germany! Neither Germans. Haha, many people ask such things but I wouldn’t know everything about any country in the world either… strange still… if you think about our history…

Vienna, the capital, has about 1.8 millions now, after years it is growing again. We have quite some, mainly Turkish and Yugoslavian immigration here since about the 1970s. Despite of the idea of many Austrians to be some kind of “German”, we’re moreover a “mixed breed”… through the centuries, different waves of immigration have passed, like many Czechs around 1900. There’s still a Czech minority in Vienna, that preserves their language and culture. We have inherited a lot of their cooking for example. Nowadays, the politics are severe against immigration, which is contrary to the fact of that we’re no “pure” nation of any sort (which is by the way). Nowadays, aspects lay on tourists and economy, not the human being and I find this quite sad…

I know and write to a lot of people and have heard a lot of stories, everywhere in the world. I guess people should be allowed to live the place they are most happy at. Most often than not, so-called foreigners work harder than Austrians, still they are looked down upon. Too sad. Another point of loving to become an “international friend”.

My website : http://members.blackbox.net/anni.buerkl

Kallithea’s friendship Café: www.geocities.com/kallithea_rodes

I run a yahoogroup: international_culture