When I read Carl Weese’s post here, I immediately remembered a similar event in 2007. Funny thing is that both the boys and I were native German speakers. But in Salzburg everybody strolling around with a camera seems to wear that invisible “tourist” badge, and tourists usually come from abroad. So those cool Salzburg youngsters addressed me in English.
Markus, a photo which makes me wonder if these three young men are still friends or together. How cool they were then!
Also about the English, it’s amazing how the human mind will jump to conclusions based upon quickly gathered visual or audio clues. I believe it’s built into us to supplement our “fight or flight” instincts.
Earl, they were quite young and their coolness was very demonstrative – just see the way two of them hold their cigarettes. Yes, it would be interesting to now a bit about the ways they took – meanwhile they probably (or hopefully) are working, maybe are starting a family.
Earl and Markus, it works the other way too. My father’s parents were from Austria, and I quite take after that side of the family. When I was briefly in Zagreb in 1970 (school scholarship trip) I noticed that, this close to the Austrian border, everyone sort of looked like a relative. Then American tourists kept approaching me and asking questions in broken German from their guidebooks…they took me for a native, even though there was a Leica hanging from my neck.