You will be both thankful and disappointed there are no specific photos for this blog post.
I’ve mentioned mowing in previous blogs, Austrians’ need for a perfectly manicured lawn and their penchant for mowing around the flowers. But I have forgotten to mention one detail so far. There seems to be a kind of mowing ‘uniform’ in Austria… and it’s… bathers. Continue reading
There is a significant difference between summer and winter in Austria. And in summer, every plant goes mad. Something that was basically a grotty patch of mud two weeks previous can unexpectedly bloom a veritable forest of green and colour. It’s amazing to see.
This is still one of the funniest things that has happened to me in Austria. Caution: this story contains sexually explicit material and graphic images. If you think this might offend you, best skip it.
If you’re a mad sports fan right now, or actually even if you’re not, you will probably know that the World Cup is on.
The World Cup is something I had no knowledge of prior to moving to Austria. In fact, no knowledge of prior to a few weeks ago.
Shortly after we moved into our house, hubby and I started up a tradition – Friday Night Dinners. Friday Night Dinners is exactly what it sounds like – on Friday nights we go out to dinner. How indulgent of you, I hear you say. Well, not always.
Each year my company gives staff members a sum of money to undertake a Team Event. Since I started working there, our team has been a bit lax in organising something exciting. But this year we were adamant – we would do something awesome. So we got in early and we threw in some extra cash of our own and we… went to Italy for the weekend. Because why? Because we can.
I am a lover of chips – a chip lover, you could say. You can put chocolate in front of me and I can keep my cool… but chips… I have absolutely no control. My favourite chips before Austria were Samboy salt and vinegar, crinkle cut, of course. And I still love salt and vinegar chips – but it’s hard to remain in love when there are literally three people in the whole country that share the same enthusiasm.
And I’m not saying I have moved on, but I have found something in Austria equally as good.
When I was growing up we always had a vege garden. My dad was head gardener and he’d spend a lot of his free time toiling outside to produce masses of pumpkins and beans and glossy red tomatoes. I loved helping him, and by helping him I mean, only doing fun things: planting seeds in an already prepared garden bed, picking snow peas and eating more than went in my basket, watching new shoots break through wet earth… that kind of thing.
When I told people I was going to Düsseldorf for the long weekend the first thing they said was: why? Düsseldorf is a relatively large city on the left side of Germany (and that’s the level of preciseness you’re going to get from me), and from what I can tell it is renowned for two things:
Definitely not renowned for a ‘long weekend destination’. For us, it’s only flight from where we are in Austria, and when you’re constantly taking two flights to get anywhere OS, going somewhere that requires only a single hop is very enticing.
We’ve been in our house now for almost two years. Prior to that I was in an apartment for three. When we first looked into buying a place, we tossed up between house vs apartment. Having had a dog and share-situations in Oz, I’ve always lived in houses, but Thomas, having lived longer alone, had always been an apartment-dweller.
So house vs apartment… what’s the verdict? I’m still pro-house, and Thomas is slowly coming around.
