I’ve just come from playing the ukulele at a party for Austria National Day. The party was at the German Club here in Seattle. The folks there were mostly older, in their 60s or so. They LOVED us, which is funny because I’m not sure we were any good. (Except for our yodeler, he was great. No, really, it was amazing.) There were only five of us and I had to help lead the two German language songs. I started WAY off key. “The horror, the horror,” I said, afterward, and my fellow German speaking uke player agreed.
After we played our set we stuck around for a bit, then played a little more. I spent some time talking to a German gent who told me I was too shy about my German, that I needn’t hold back because it’s clear I’ve got a good grasp on the language. He also told me they have a Hawaiian dance every year and we should come and play.
Then, on the way out the door, another gent introduced himself and thanked me for my excellent use of German when I sang. He invited me to come to their events. I told him about how I’d been chatting with someone else about the Hawaiian event. “Oh, that’s not us,” he said, “That’s the GERMANS. We’re the AUSTRIANS. Wir sind die lustige leute!” I cracked up. “Oh, you really DO speak German,” he said. He invited me to various events and picnics and parties and dinners, told me to bring my husband, told me to give my husband his greetings, and thanked me again for the Aloha. All this, auf Deutsch. In German. Excuse me, in AUSTRIAN, I mean.
Wir sind die lustige luete means “we’re the FUN people.” Folks who aren’t familiar with the place often lump the Austrians and the Germans together. But try doing that with an Austrian. No go. They’re the FUN people, okay? Don’t you forget it.
Gemutlich means cozy, by the way.