Day 3: Cold climate, hot climate cultures

Since I was very tired yesterday evening I skipped the daily blog that I decided to do this first week after my arrival.
Well, this is going to be just a short entry, but I would like to comment on something I noticed here in Austria.
Yesterday I went jogging/running in one of the small woods around "Strasshof an der Nordbahn" (My hometown)
On a sidenote: By the way, it was already after sunset and I think I saw a rabbit and some deer running away as I made my way along the track that forest rangers had cut. It is absolutely safe to run around in such small woods, since there are basically no dangerous snakes, no bears, no wolves, hardly any poisenous spiders etc... The only thing that can happen is that you get lost, but in such a case, just keep going and you will reach a street sooner or later, the woods are usually not that big. Well, I actually got lost and was running for about an hour, instead of the 20 minutes that I wanted to. (Just to your knowledge, there are actually some bigger forests if you get deeper into the countryside, but even those are hardly dangerous)

But now to the main topic:
It is one of those things that stood out when I switched cultures from the American way of life to the Austrian one. One of easily recognizable differences is the approach to strangers. Whereas in America you can talk to pretty much anybody on the street, as long as you are polite, in Austria that is fairly uncommon.
Let me give you an example:
On Wednesday when I was in the airplane to London Heathrow I was surrounded by Americans and as you would expect it, my neighbor and I talked a little bit. We were stuck beside each other for several hours after all.
On the plane from London Heathrow to Austria there were mostly Austrian passengers. Now on this flight I didn't speak a single word with my neighbor and he did neither with his neighbor. Does that seem strange to you? Well it isn't in Austria. Usually it is only uncivilized and inpolite (probably drunk) youth that will randomly talk to you in public. (Austrians usually need to get drunk to overcome their inner threshold) Of course there are exceptions to the rule. For example if a train is coming in late, it might be that some of the guys waiting seek to relieve their frustration and so they talk to you. (Especially the Austrians from Vienna love to complain, they even have a unique dialect word for it, that doesn't exist in Germany. It is called "raunzen" (pronounced: rountsn))
Another illustration for this distant closed behavior would be the Greetings. Over all it is still polite at least in the small towns to great a stranger should you meet him on the street, but it is also quite acceptable to not greet at all and to just ignore each other. Yesterday I actually greeted two people on the street (since I was used to do so from America) and both of them didn't even greet back. I don't think they were so terrified on seeing me that they couldn't move their lips anymore. To not greet back is inpolite according to the inofficial codex of proper behavior, but it obviously happens.
As we see in those examples, there is quite a difference in how people treat each other, between the US and Austria. Since the above was rather negative on Austria I want to bring out a positive side about this behavior too though. Whereas in America it is quite easy to make friends, or at least aquaintances, those relationships usually have hardly any depth. It was quite strange to me when I came to America that most (not all) of my relationships with US citizens never got beyond the surface. I really tried, but most Americans are apparently not really used to talk about their innermost feelings, or they at least have a very very hard time doing so. In Austria that is different. It might take you quite a while to gain somebody's trust, but once he trusts you, he will be open and frank with you. (There is another aspect though through which Austrians seldomly tell you when they are mad, since that would be too direct and inpolite for them, but that is another story)
I hope I could bring some insight on the differences between those seemingly so similar cultures. Sorry that the entry got so long, but I have to say that it by no means did the subject justice. To all of the above I have to say also that it is a rather generalized view and the individual experience will probably not include all of the mentioned aspects.