Irish pubs and public transportation March 10, 2008

The Claddagh is an Irish pub in Klagenfurt where Frank, I, and the other English teachers frequent. Every other Thursday they host a quiz night consisting of five rounds of trivia on topics like geography and movies (or “filims” according to the über-Irish MC), which brings in a large crowd into the small, smoky place. Our team consists of about 10 people (from the US, England, Wales, and Ireland) and we call ourselves “The Cunning Linguists” which is usually pronounced by the MC as “The Cunning Linguistics”. Nevertheless, we usually dominate. Last week Frank and I were the only ones from our team attending due to a concert that night so we called our duo “I pooped a hammer” (Anchorman, anyone?). We bumped into an Englishman that Frank is acquainted with and over the course of the night he managed to tell us his life story including his thoughts on fatherhood and the birth of his child, the details of his ancestry, and his past relationships and devastating breakup. He also told me about five times how excited Frank was that I was coming to Austria and that he had heard so much about me already from Frank. I wanted to say, “Well I think we’re even now”. Anyways, we went to the Claddagh a few days later and after Frank went missing for about 30 minutes he finally showed up and said he got trapped once again listening to the life story of the Englishman.

All in all, the Claddagh is a fun time; the only thing is we get rushed because the last bus of the night leaves at 11:30, otherwise we have to take a cab. Frank and I each have month-long passes for the bus which run about 35 euro apiece. Our passes had expired a few days earlier but we weren’t really concerned because in his 6 months here in Klagenfurt he hadn’t seen ticket checkers. Not even once. Plus the transportation office was closed and we didn’t feel like buying day passes from the driver so we figured we’d be fine. Not worried whatsoever. Can you tell where I’m going with this?

Well, what do you know, we get on the bus at 11pm and one stop later, two ticket checkers jump on the bus. One in the front door, one in the back, trapping us. I froze. I tried to play it cool while they were checking other tickets but Frank knew from the look in my eyes that inside I was screaming “Oh my god I’m going to get in TROUBLE!!! What if I get deported? Oh my god why didn’t I buy a damn day pass!!!” All the posters I had seen so far plastered on buses and trains throughout Europe prohibiting free rides started flashing through my head…although I couldn’t read them in German, whatever they were implying looked very scary and from what I could decipher, something VERY BAD happens to you.

So as the ticket checkers are checking everyone’s tickets with no problem (because apparently we are the only ones to think we can get away with getting a free ride) the older ticket checker, who resembles Santa’s skinnier brother, from the back finally comes to us. Frank nonchalantly hands him his card which is scanned and the man stops and raises an eyebrow. Frank and the man start speaking in German and all I can do is read body language and give the man puppy dog looks as if I am just a dumb tourist and didn’t know any better and maybe they will take pity on me and not whisk me off into scary Austrian jail. Frank is shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders, while the old man seems like he’s wrestling with the idea of whether to punish us or not. I sense a glimmer of hope. Could we really get out of this?! The younger ticket checker with a Satanesque-goatee stops and comes over to see what the fuss is about and I can see from the sheer evil in his eyes that he does not want his partner to let us off. He’s new to the job and wants to see some action. “Don’t ruin this for us man!!” I want to yell at him and shoo him away. The seconds were like hours. I still had no idea what was going on since I couldn’t understand the conversation. But then…something happened. The old man put his scanner away, walked to the front of the bus, and sat down. The younger man looked irritated and followed, clearly powerless. “Are they letting us go?” I ask Frank. He says, “I guess so.” I sighed. Then I removed the shit from my pants.