A bit of Christmas in Austria

In Britain, St Nicholas is one ingredient in the Santa Claus / Father Christmas / Coca Cola conglomerate figure, firmly associated with the 24th/25th December. In Austria, the saint leaves presents (typically nuts and oranges) in children's shoes on the 6th December. Here are some little chocolate-bearing Nikolos we found in our shoe drawer.

I was actually in Bratislava on the 6th, but nevertheless caught a glimpse of Nikolo himself, with his ever-present companion Krampus (the one with the chain and horns):

In some places you have to watch out as herds of Krampuses run around hitting people with sticks or throwing them into their sacks. This one was quite well-behaved.

A more palatable pre-Christmas tradition is mass biscuit baking. If you're not a great baker you might limit yourself to only four different types... P and friends have made two beautiful batches:

From bottom left, clockwise: Rumkugeln, Kokosbusserl, Zimtsterne, Vanillekipferl, Schokonuss-etwas?. And Linzeraugen in the middle. This was about one third of the overall output.

And of course there are the famous Christmas markets, which are lovely, (more or less) varied and absolutely everywhere.

Hidden treasure - the Türkenschanzpark

Up in Vienna's (relatively) leafy 18th district, right next to the university where I work, the Türkenschanzpark is a beautiful oasis of trees and grass, looped through by meandering paths. It is big enough to get lost in, and is landscaped in a more natural way than the geometric flowerbed approach seen in the more formal Viennese parks.

The "Turkish fort" of the park's name refers to a fortification located there during the second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683. The park itself was opened in 1888. In 1991 a fountain dedicated to the Turkish poet and mystic Yunus Emre was added as a sign of Turkish-Austrian friendship.

A lake complete with ducks, overhanging trees...remind you of anywhere?

August.

Beginning of autumn.

Glorious colours.

My Paraguayan friend Susi...

...and her adorable son in one of my favourite trees.

Winter sunset. You can see the silhouette of the Turkish fountain.

By way of contrast - the Belvedere gardens, exemplifying the geometric flowerbed type.

As well as the park being a bit of a hidden gem itself, there is also treasure to be found - some friends and I found a geocache there.    https://www.geocaching.com/

Advent, Advent, ein Lichtlein brennt / Christmas is coming, the goose...

(...has probably already met its end on St Martin's Day in November).

Advent is a proper season in Austria. Advent wreaths and Advent calendars have a strong presence even among those not involved in church activities. P, C and I followed their WG tradition of making "calendars" for one another - here is mine:

and this is P's:

At any rate, it feels much more acceptable to have lights in the street, decorations and mulled wine appearing from mid-November when you are celebrating Advent a little prematurely, rather than Christmas a whole month and a half in advance!

Given the conspicuous absence of the forecast snow, we made some  of our own:

And thanks to the Advent/Christmas/Seasonal party for the international students which we organised at work this week, we also have a Christmas tree (branch) as well as our Advent wreath!

Some post-Oxmas carol singing is in the works for the bank holiday on Monday. I have been loaned a Clavinova while I am here, Ianthe has brought Carols for Choirs and I think we have all voice parts among the Oxford-in-Vienna cohort - a little consolation for missing the Worcester carol service.

Clavinova!!!

"Is this a waltz?"

The Viennese ball season has begun.

Vienna has no shortage of spectacular venues (this is in the town hall):

Unlike at Oxford balls, the main point of the thing is dancing - as pictured here, the ball is opened by waltzing débutantes dressed in white, after which couples of all ages take to the floor and the orchestra continues all night. Viennese waltzes feature heavily, of course.

BOKU, the university where I work, has its own ball in January in the Hofburg ballroom. This is not generally open to the public, but I saw it recently during an art and antiques show which C gave me a free ticket to:

I look forward to dancing there!

Guest post: Muddy comes to visit

Mum came to visit me just over a week ago, the weekend doubling as a well-deserved break for her from the small triumvirate at home. As there has been a dearth of activity here recently (sorry, more posts are in progress) I prevailed upon her to write a guest entry. Enjoy.

“I’m going to Vienna for the weekend .”
“Oh is it for music or opera? “
Being very truthful, I had to reply “Well, actually it’s for maternal monitoring and sachertorte.”
Both these purposes were admirably fulfilled.

I saw Sarah’s place of work and met some of her colleagues; saw her flat and met both her
flatmates, Petra and Christina. In contrast to our house which is full of coloured plastic, small
people and treasured pieces of string, their flat, although full, feels very cultured and civilised.

I worshipped in two different churches, the Rupertskirche, where Sarah goes to Taize services midweek, which is an ancient building, and a Lutheran church, recently and beautifully restored. We sang Wachet Auf. It was encouraging to feel a bond despite my lack of German.

We went to the Albertina, an art gallery; to the Karlskirche where you can ascend inside the dome; on the famous Ferris wheel; and to a Christmas market on the outskirts, where we could view the twinkling lights of the city by night. 3 days worth of clean, fast, efficient public transport was 16 euros – amazing value.

We walked miles through the gracious and spacious streets of central Vienna (although I did get off the bus in a seedy back street by the railway sidings, which was very reminiscent of Glasgow or Belfast). Although it was not very cold, in the interests of keeping warm, I drank mulled wine and ate hearty Austrian food, goulash, lentil stew with dumplings, pumpkin soup and walnut bread. And we did take refuge in some coffee houses...

Dorothy Peyton Jones 29.11.14

Ausdruck der Woche #8 (catch-up)

[ENGLISH SUMMARY BELOW]  

Bei ihm/ihr ist Hopfen und Malz verloren = he/she is a hopeless case (literally: with him/her, hops and malt go to waste)

Wenn man schon alles ohne Erfolg versucht hat, damit jemand sich ändert, muss man letztendlich das Bemühen als vergeblich aufgeben. Dieser Ausdruck zieht eine Analogie mit dem Brauverfahren, wobei die Bierzutaten Hopfen und Malz verloren gehen, wenn der Brauprozess misslingt.

Was man nicht im Kopf hat, muss man in den Füβen haben = (literally) what you don't have in your head, you have to have in your feet

Ich musste heute am Vormittag ganz viele Dokumente und Belege in der Personalabteilung einscannen. Während ich beim Kopiergerät war, ist eine ganz liebe Kollegin von der Buchhaltung mehrmals vorbeigekommen. Das dritte Mal kommentierte sie, dass „Was man nicht im Kopf hat, muss man in den Füβen haben! Sagt man das auf Englisch?“. Sie erklärte mir dann, dass man diesen Ausdruck verwendet, wenn man z.B. etwas vergisst und zurückgehen muss, um es zu holen. Das heiβt, wenn man geistig zerstreut ist, muss man immer weiter gehen! Der vorige Ausdruck wäre vielleicht auch in dieser Situation passend...
 

A variant: What you don't have in your head, you should have in your bookcase.

Wehwehchen = aches and pains  (literally breaks down as "little-pain-pain")

Man weiβ, woher ein Muskelkater kommt. Die Ursache von Wehwehchen ist meistens nicht ganz so klar – wie das „chen“ (Verkleinerung) andeutet, geht es hier nicht um ernstliche oder konkrete Erkrankungen oder Verletzungen, sondern um die leichten Beschwerden, die sich oft mit dem fortschreitendem Alter entwickeln.

Artist's impression. Christian Moser, Monster des Alltags

 English summary:

1. This expression draws an analogy with the process of brewing beer. If the procedure goes wrong, the hops and malt are wasted; similarly you might dismiss someone (or yourself) as a hopeless case if all efforts to change their behaviour have been in vain.

2. An excellent phrase for when you go to the shops, come home, realise you've forgotten the one thing you actually needed, and have to go back again. Essentially, if you don't use your head, you have to walk further!

3. I especially like this illustration, which describes the Wehwehchen in the caption as a novice in the pious order of the Hypochondriacs.

The Wiener Prater

The Prater is something that gets mentioned in books. Before coming to Vienna I had a rather nebulous idea of it - some kind of park? Or possibly a fairground?

It is in fact both. Previously the imperial hunting ground, the 6km² area was opened to the public by Kaiser Joseph II on 7th April 1766. It includes an amusement park known as the "Wurstelprater" with the famous Riesenrad (see this post).

I went on Saturday to enjoy the autumn weather. Here are a few pictures so that you can all visualise it the next time it comes up in a novel.

The main avenue ("Hauptallee")  is 4km long.

Beloved of cyclists.

Autumn light.

The natural beauty is briefly interrupted by a road bridge crossing over the park. This is for Norman, who liked the graffiti.

 

Austrian National Day

Jumping back to last weekend...

26th October is Austria's National Day - Nationalfeiertag. Google knows I'm in Austria:

To mark the occasion, lots of museums are open for free and you can go and look round the Parliament building on the Ringstrasse:

I went with C, bright and early for the first entry at 9am. There was already a queue. We were greeted at the door by some people who were clearly important and well-known political figures, but at this stage we weren't quite sure who they were (C is from Munich). We shook hands and smiled anyway. Later it became apparent that they were the first and second presidents of the National Council (Nationalrat), Doris Bures and Karlheinz Kopf. At least we got a photo with the cuddly rabbit.

The building is extremely impressive throughout.

This is where parliament used to sit (now only used on special occasions):

And this is where they sit now:

I now feel marginally better informed about Austrian politics, but not so well that I'm going to risk attempting to explain any of it, you will perhaps be relieved to hear. The cuddly rabbit runs "democracy workshops", but unfortunately I don't qualify - only 8-14-year-olds get in.

Día del museo muerto // Tag des toten Museums // Day of the Dead Museum

[ENGLISH SUMMARY BELOW]

El Weltmuseum (antes conocido bajo el nombre Museum für Völkerkunde), el museo de etnología de Viena, cierra el lunes para una renovación que tardará aproximadamente dos años. Como la fecha de su último fin de semana abierto coincidió por casualidad con el festival mexicano del Día de los Muertos, se combinaron los dos conceptos el sábado en una misma celebración, a la cual asistí con mi amiga austroperuana, Milena.

Dentro del impresionante edificio (que forma parte del palacio imperial, ubicado al lado de la biblioteca nacional) el artista mexicano Sergio Otero había construido un altar de flores en una plataforma que servía de escenario para diversos músicos. Pancartas que mostraban la figura mexicana de la muerte, Catrina, colgaban de los balcones donde la audiencia asomaba – los que no encontramos espacio abajo. La Catrina es una calavera que lleva un sombrero grande con flores.

 Vimos danzas precolumbinas, disfrutamos música mariachi, comimos pozole y tortillas, bailamos y generalmente lo pasamos muy bien. Incluso pude ver a unas profesoras del LAI y compañeras de mi clase de español.

Había una exposición pequeña de calaveritas y viñetas de León José. La calavera literaria es una composición de verso típico, en que se trata de la mortalidad. Se caracterizan por su tono irreverente y algo satírico, con frecuencia expresan descontento con la situación política y suelen acompañarse de dibujos de calaveras.

This is a cheerful calavera about a grandmother who is carried off by death but refuses to get off her bicycle.

Al salir, el palacio estaba envuelto de neblina - muy evocador!

 English summary:

Vienna's museum of ethnology, housed in part of the imperial palace buildings, is closing for renovations. They went out with a bang with a festival of Mexican culture to celebrate the Day of the Dead. This featured dancing, food, music, lots of people with skeleton facepaint...

There was a little exhibition of "calaveras" (literally 'skulls') - traditional Mexican poems written as '"epitaphs". They are irreverent and often satirical, frequently voicing political discontent, and are usually accompanied by pictures of skeletons. The Mexican death figure is Catrina, a skeleton who usually wears a large hat decorated with flowers - see Wikipedia for her origins.

It was appropriately misty when we finally left.

Pumpkins in heaven

Yesterday I joined a couple of girls from the ballroom dancing class I've signed up for and their friends to go to an autumn pumpkin festival, held on a open grass area known as "Am Himmel" ("In the sky/heaven") high up among the vineyards on the Kahlenberg (previously mentioned here and here).

There was a spectacular array of pumpkins and squashes on show, variously recommended for eating, carving or decorative purposes (as below).

As well as the pumpkins for sale, related regional products including pumpkin seed oil, pumpkin seed pesto, apple-pumpkin jam etc etc were on offer. Other stalls ladled out hot spiced Sturm and pumpkin soup from large vats - very necessary as it was really quite cold.

A brass quartet played some traditional tunes.

For those who plan their presents well ahead, you can pre-order a pumpkin with a message:

The words are carved into the pumpkin early on. As it grows to full size, the cuts scar over leaving a slightly raised white inscription.

To continue the theme, C and I came home in the evening post-theatre to find that P had made a beautiful pumpkin lasagna! Himmlisch.

Ausdruck der Woche #7

Muskelkater = (literally) muscle hangover 

[ENGLISH SUMMARY BELOW]

Man bekommt einen Kater, wenn man am vorherigen Abend (zu) viel Alkohol konsumiert hat. Ein Muskelkater ist auch eine Folge von einem Ueberschuss von einer bestimmten Aktivitaet, aber in diesem Fall geht es um koerperliche Anstrengung. Sei es nach einer Bergwanderung, einer zu kraeftigen Massage oder einem Wohnungsumzug, am naechsten Tag tun die Muskeln oft weh -  oder man ist wenigstens davon bewusst, dass sie da sind!

Ich verdanke meinen Muskelkater einer gewaltigen Bergwanderung am Sonntag im Gasteinertal, wo ich ein verlaengertes Wochenende mit vier Freunden verbrachte. Wir haben den Bernkogel (2325 Seehoehe) bestiegen und sind anschliessend ueber das Rauchkoegerl (1810m) und Drei Waller heruntergekommen. Insgesamt 12 Stunden, 1700 Hoehenmeter und ein unglaublich schoener Herbsttag.

Der Tag fing mit Nebelsuppe an.

Sonnenstrahlen brechen durch.

Nebelsuppe von oben

Bernkogel (von Rauchkoegerl)

Salzachtal (von Rauchkoegerl)

English summary:
A 'muscle hangover' is the ache you feel after physical exertion. The word for hangover also happens to mean tomcat, as becomes evident if you google image search the phrase! Mine (a mild case) came from an epic walk on Sunday in the Gastein valley (near Salzburg) where I spent a long weekend with four friends (three from Vienna and one Hungarian). The main peak was the Bernkogel (2325m), which you can see in the second-last picture as viewed looking back from the Rauchkoegerl (1810m), which we incorporated on the way down. Twelve hours, 1700m ascent and a stunning autumn day.

Street art

The Danube canal (Donaukanal) runs along one side of the inner (1st) district, marking the border with the 2nd. It flows considerably below street level, with cycle paths and an assortment of bars and restaurants on either side of the water. The wall space between the levels is the canvas for some large-scale and impressive graffiti art - here are a few particularly striking designs - click to enlarge!

Monsters of the Danube canal

 

Two adjacent works of art - and a passer-by for perspective.

I was quite taken with this collection of signs on a street corner just a couple of hundred yards into the 1st district from the canal - in particular its juxtaposition of different time periods, official infrastructure and contemporary creativity ( / vandalism? ). Alas, the PacMan ghost mosaic has since been removed - I was rather fond of it.

 Other odd corners of the historic inner district have also been subject to contemporary additions:

An angel in Jesuitengasse.

Not sure if this person loves life (multi-lingually) or just Vienna - perhaps the ambiguity is deliberate?

 This is a little further out, next to a café called the "Maedchen-Café" (Girl café) - I'm not sure if the painting is related to the name, or which came first.