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Comment by kleiba2 | Hacker News Reader

Btw, completely OT but something I found puzzling when reading your blog post: how did your aunt communicate with the Austrian guy who didn't speak English?!

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Ah, the answer is incredibly simple: my aunt speaks fluent German! She moved to Austria as a young woman and picked up the language, and picked up a husband. :) She speaks Korean, of course, so that's how we all are able to communicate with her. Recently we were at a family gathering, and one of my extended relations is married to a German fellow (who speaks both German and English fluently), and it was utterly cool seeing my aunt and him chat away in German (and sing "99 Red Balloons (Luftballons)," the popular 80s tune by the German singer Nena, in their native German)!

Awesome family constellation, thanks for taking the time to explain!

"Luft" in German = "air".

So English title would be "99 air balloons" or just "99 balloons".

(Excellent choice btw, among German-language songs it's an all-time classic)

The English version by the same musician chose to add "Red" to presumably maintain the song's cadence.

Great! Did you ever visit Austria? Maybe you can take some of the early impressions of German-language speaking with you ..

I have visited Austria many times, on my own with my wife and also thanks to a friend who was stationed there for a few years. Vienna is such a lovely city, and I got to see one of my favorite paintings (maybe my most favorite painting, really), Gustave Klimt's The Kiss, in person at Belvedere. My aunt lives a number of hours away from Vienna so I never got to see her there, so a return trip is not out of the question!

I regularly take friends and family visiting Vienna to see The Kiss, its a common waypoint in our tours of the city. Glad you love the city, it is indeed a very fun place to live .. although, in some ways, a bit like a small country town.

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