It took a while to feel unwelcome in Vienna, and it was really a pileup of small things that didn't sit right with me, many of which on their own would be easil

It took a while to feel unwelcome in Vienna, and it was really a pileup of small things that didn't sit right with me, many of which on their own would be easily dismissable. It may also be my particular heritage that made it more difficult. The primary annoyance was my Jewish heritage. I'm completely secular, it's not a big part of my identity and something I rarely mention, but it's also not something I conceal. It would only take a drink or two at some social event for people to decide to unburden themselves in one way or another. I would have to listen to people apologizing for their racist/backwards countrymen, I would have to let people try to set the record straight about how Austria is misunderstood and actually Hitler's first victim, and I would have to watch people's expressions grow pained and conversations go dead when I honestly answered questions about my heritage. Eventually I learned that it's easier for everyone if I stopped mentioning it, and eventually I grew resentful that I had to hide it. Generally, Austrian-ness played an uncomfortable role in social interactions. Older people, upon hearing my standard (Hochdeutsch) inflected German would react with hostility and tell me that their language is different (I had no intention of learning the Austrian dialect), and that Americans need to learn to distinguish Austrians from Germans. I found the constant "in Austria we say 'x' instead of 'y'" and "in Austria we always do this in 'x' way" corrections to be tiresome. Generally, I was reminded that I was a foreigner much more than I felt was justified, and gradually I came to understand why many expats in Vienna cluster together as opposed to integrating.