an aussie in austria

I’m not sure if it’s a German-language thing, or just an Austrian thing, but it seems that when you say goodbye to someone here, it’s not as simple and just saying “bye” and heading on your way.

Everyone I hear combines a few different words into a kind of muddled up sentence as they are leaving.

For example they might say: “Tschüss… Baba… Pfiati…” and add a “Ciao” on the end for good measure.

I guess if you translated it to English it might be something like:

“Bye… See ya… Cheerio… Ciao.”

To be honest I kind of got stuck after “See ya” when trying to think of English words for good bye. But here there just seem to be so many.

I mentioned this to hubby once and he kind of just gave me a weird look as if to say that’s not what we do. But some time later he came back and said I was right. He doesn’t even realise he’s saying it 3-4 times… it just comes out naturally.

So that’s all from me today… “Tschüss… Baba… Pfiati… Ciao!”