This is how it should be done

You know you’ve been in Vienna for a while when certain things become natural, such as automatically retreating into a bar at 10 pm, so other people can sleep

Vienna limits you to places according to the time of the day and ensures that everything looks great on the outside

Because this is how it should be done

You make sure to use all the sehr geehrter Herr Prof. Dr. so-und-so and show deep remorse if you’ve failed to include them all

Of course, you never cross a street at red light, and if you find banknotes on the pavement, you bring them to the nearest police station

Just like you’d never overtake someone in the queue in front of you, even if your waiting number will cause spending a significant part of your life there

You bend and agree, because rules are rules and rules are sacred

And because Vienna tells you, in a calm voice of a Ö1 moderator: this is how it should be done

Most of all, you are so thankful to this city with the highest quality of life and the unfriendliest people in the world

That granted you a flat after your daddy waved with enough money – which also outweighed the čz in your surname

And six years later you cry your tears of happiness over the 1000-euro document in your hand, confirming that you know the Austrian values and all the correct forms of Plusquamperfekt

And that you are a good citizen, a good Burger (even though secretly a vegan one, but only secretly)

You know the differences between Topfen, Quark, die Butter, der Butter, between Käsenockerl and Eiernockerl and even what it means if a restaurant offers them on 20th April

You’ve started dressing according to each district and blended in so much that your migration background becomes a rumor even to yourself

Because this is how it should be done

These days, you reach the highest of emotions when someone shouts zweite Kassa at the grocery store and then you get to that second Kassa first

Or when you speed up a little too roughly on the Gürtel

Your life has never been so fulfilled as you merrily hike and whistle through the Alps, looking down at the burning world, somewhere far out there, but never here

Is this how it should be done?