Thursday 13 November 2014

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.


Tuesday 4 November 2014

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.
 

Sunday 2 November 2014

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.