One of the great things about living in a rural town with healthy fields abounding, is the home-grown produce you can buy. Not only does it mean that everything is fresh, it also means you’re supporting the local economy and reducing unnecessary shipping of goods around the world. So here are ten of my favourite locally produced things from my area:
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My taste in music is what I’ve already coined – Light Alternative. This takes up the majority of my collection. But I do listen to a diverse mix of songs. I like random pop, random metal, random rap, and so on. Who knows why certain random melodies appeal to me – they just do.
But one genre of music I definitely love, and am slightly embarrassed to admit, is love songs. The more heartbreaking the better, much like the sad movies I love. It seems that when we talk about love songs, people either love them or hate them. I used to switch from Triple J in the evenings to listen to Love Songs & Dedications. I couldn’t get enough of the old love songs on Easy Music Listening 1377 3MP (my first car only had am radio). I went through the discount bins at JB Hi Fi to find the sappiest romance mixes to add to my collection. I am that person.
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Despite over a year of living with Covid (or hiding away from Covid), we’re all still up in the air about what the future is going to bring. What’s the right thing to do? Should we be in Australian-esque-style lockdowns, or should we be celebrating Freedom Day? The government has an opinion, the scientists have an opinion and the people have an opinion… they don’t always agree, and no one really knows who’s right… if a ‘right’ actually exists.
In Austria, following the removal of almost all our measures in early July, our numbers are steadily increasing again, which is hardly surprising. So what do we do now? Half the population is already vaccinated, yet Delta is threatening to plunge us back into chaos.
I tell you what we do. We get in the car and we drive to Italy.
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A while back I was in the supermarket and something in the deli cabinet caught my eye. Nestled among delicious slices of salami and prosciutto with the tang of pungent cheese wafting forth, I came across… the Liver Paste Bunny. Is anyone else channelling Donny Darko here? Because as far as evil bunnies go, this one takes the cake for me… or the paste… or whatever.
I don’t know if there’s a story behind this bunny. Here’s what I know:
I also know:
Because another time I was there and behold… the Liver Paste… Mouse? I’m not sure if this one’s a mouse… or just a different breed of bunny. Obviously the artist is improving because this guy looks pretty suave – he’s got a bow tie and all! But the spoon looks decidedly heart-wrenching… as if someone is slowly caving out the inside of his skull at the back where you can’t see…
I recently returned to this supermarket with the sole intention of sniffing out possibly a third critter, or to glean some more information as to… well… why?
Sadly this time the bunny/mouse was absent.
So I leave you with the question… why?
It’s the classic when you go to a foreign country or just a restaurant where English is not the native language, to spot spelling mistakes in signs and menus. It keeps us in good humour, somehow, to titter over other people’s errors.
So much so that back in Oz, a friend of mine and I stopped going out for Chinese Banquet and went to Banguet instead. To this day we never use the proper word “Banquet”.
So when I came to Austria I picked up ‘Gordon Bleu’ pretty quick. Did they really think it started with G? Is it the way they say it that makes it seem like it’s a G?
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Like many others in this world, I’m a sucker for a romance movie. I’m a sucker for a rom-com. I’m a sucker for a drama. To be fair I’ll give just about anything a go.
Whether or not it’s embarrassing to admit, I’m going to say that the romance movie is probably on the top of my list of favourite things to watch. A great romance movie is worth its weight in gold. But when you add heartbreak into that movie, then I’m all the more in. I don’t live for happy endings, I live for the drama. I live for the guy walking away in the end because he knows it’s the right thing to do, even if it breaks his heart. I like movies where people die, goddamn it!
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Many countries in the last months have been dealing with the rocky ride of transitioning out of hard lockdown into something a bit more normal. In Austria, the official date was May 19th. And yes, I took the afternoon off work to go to the pool… and yes, it was freezing but I went anyway.
With the opening of the restaurants and so on, they introduced the 3G rule. That is… Getestet, Geimpft oder Gesund. Basically if you want to eat at a restaurant, have a haircut, visit a pool or lake etc. you have to be able prove that you have either a valid negative Covid test, have been vaccinated (3+ weeks) or have recovered from Covid (in the last 6 months).
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We are currently in the midst of a heatwave here in Austria. And yes I know, I do tease the Austrian folk about how much they complain the second the temperature goes over 25 degrees, but I have to say, this heatwave is a good one. It’s been consistently over 30 for more than a week now. And while that may be fairly ‘normal’ in Oz, it only tends to happen once a year here (if we’re lucky) – and it’s only June!
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Following on from my post last week about my obsession with music, I undertook an experiment. I attached my iPod Classic (with its 4584 songs) to a speaker (using an actual cord because it was invented before Bluetooth), and I wrote down the first ten songs on shuffle… just to see how eclectic the mix would be. I must admit I was nervous… there’s a lot of crap on there… but I think it went pretty well. And here’s the big reveal, from 1 to 10.
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Everything I do has a soundtrack. I hate sitting in silence – be it in the car, eating dinner or working – if there’s no music playing, I’m just ever so slightly edgy.
I understand that plenty of people find it difficult to concentrate with music on – but I’m the opposite – I find it difficult to concentrate without it on. There are some situations where silence is required, but for me, they are very few and far between.
I consider my taste in music to be epic. And I consider my music collection to be extensive. Extensively epic, obviously (this is my blog, I can write what I want). Of course most of it sits in what one might call the ‘alternative’ sphere – and in that sphere I’m quite mainstream with a bit of quirk on the side. I don’t really do hip hop or rap or jazz or classical or metal or dance – my passion sits in what I might call light alternative. To demonstrate, here’s some of my favourites: The Living End, Birds of Tokyo, Bloc Party, Radiohead, Nirvana, The National, Muse, Ballpark Music, and the list goes on.
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an aussie in austria 