I’m on a work trip this week. Four of us are visiting a satellite office in Klagenfurt to meet the team and join some planning sessions. We took a five-hour train ride through the Alps. It was mostly dark and foggy, but whenever the fog lifted, I found myself comparing the countryside to places in America. The mountains look like the Rockies—big peaks and spires—but the grass and trees are a vivid, perfect green, just like Vermont. Little family farms dot the landscape everywhere.

We sat in the first-class section and drank wheat beer the whole way down. I got to know my teammates better—where they’re from, what they like to do, that kind of thing. I also learned that when you drink wheat beer, you clink glasses from the bottom. No real reason, just tradition.

We arrived in Klagenfurt at 10:15 PM. Full of beer, we grabbed a taxi, checked into the hotel, and promptly had more beer. Beer, beer, beer. Time for another beer.

The Next Day

The following day was productive and social: breakfast, a few meetings, a nice lunch, more meetings, and then dinner. For dinner, I ordered a Bavarian dumpling dish made out of pretzels, topped with a fried egg. Naturally, we had Austrian wheat beer, followed by a couple of pints of Spaten Oktoberfest—a German beer. Interestingly, German beers are clinked from the top of the mug, not the bottom.

Dinner wrapped up around 9:30 PM, and I joked that it was time for tooth brushing, urination, and schlafen (sleep). Wishful thinking. A smoky, dimly lit place called Monkey Bar awaited us instead. And there we sat. Beer, beer, beer. We had some more beer. By 12:30 AM, I’d had enough.

“I’m ten years older than you guys,” I said. “I can’t do this anymore. We have to work tomorrow.”

Of course, I lost that argument. We stayed for more drinks. I finally stumbled back to the hotel at 2:00 AM. Everyone was up at 7:30 AM for breakfast as if nothing had happened. One of my coworkers even went for a run an hour earlier.

Like Vermont, but Not

In some ways, this place reminds me of Vermont. The grass is green, the beer is endless, and there’s always time for one more. My college years in Burlington could be summed up in much the same way.

Update

Thursday afternoon. We’re headed back to Linz. I picked up some sandwiches at the market for the journey. And of course:

This time, the ride home is much sunnier. The scenery is breathtaking.