Having travelled Sri Lanka and southern India, and pretty much eating whatever I liked, I was pretty confident about the constitution of my stomach while I was in northern India.
Here’s what I learned:
It seems like on the subject of India, the world is divided into two halves. The ones that can’t wait to get there, and the ones that absolutely, positively never want to go near the place.
“Keep your expectations low”, our tour leader kept saying on our latest adventure to India. I’m not sure if it was a ruse to ensure we were never disappointed, but it worked for me. I remained pleasantly surprised for most of the trip. From the transport and roads, to the hotels we stayed in, to the experiences we had, everything was either as I expected, or better. At least, when compared to what the trip had promised.
The start to our growing season this year saw a few early warm days, but by the time I was ready to begin the weather had turned. After that it seemed that the re-warming was so gradual that most of my veggies got off to a late start. Add to that the fact that I had to first eradicate the Giersch, and I wasn’t as on the ball as perhaps I could have been.
Following our (in retrospect, cruisy) trip to the south of India two years ago, hubby was keen to introduce me to the craziness of the north – the real India.
And I was prepared. I really was. But it still hits you hard.
In an already busy year of visits and holidays, we had one last visitor to our town at the beginning of September, wedged between a trip to Crete and a holiday in India. At this time of year, the weather should be lovely… you would think. In the past we’ve often spent the first weekend in September in Italy, where it’s still warm enough to swim, but most of the crowds are gone.
Well… not this year. The weekend my friend Larry was with us saw it rain almost the entire time. Luckily she was fresh off the plane, hopped up with jetlag, and had been here before, so all she wanted to do was… well… whatever happens.
Austria is well known for many different types of food – some you will definitely have heard of: strudel, schnitzel, goulash etc. Each region also has specialities they call their own. Though consider that Austria has nine states in a total of 84,000km² (compare that to Australia’s 8 in 7.7million km²) – this means that a dish ‘local’ to one area is very often found in other places too.
I live in the state of Carinthia (Kärnten) and I work in the state of Steiermark (Styria), so I’m familiar with quite a few.
I’ve already talked about Kärntner Nudeln and this week I’m focusing on Glundner Käse.
There’s often a day between summer and autumn in Austria, where the weather turns, and everyone knows that at that point things are going to go downhill (certainly in terms of temperature). Winter is coming.
It’s not always a hard and fast rule. After a couple of weeks in the low-teens, it’s not unheard of for temperatures to pop back up to 18-20.
But by then it’s too late.
Austrians have changed their wardrobes.
