Wednesday, November 25, 2009
All Smiles?
I very rarely watch TV here in Austria, because almost everything is in German, which I can only take in a limited amount of doses. After weeks of not watching anything but occasional CNN news I turned it on last night to find a program about Danes, the supposedly happiest people in the world. I was switching between finding the whole phenomenon a bit overrated and missing home.
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Saturday, November 21, 2009
Countdown to Christmas
It's not even December yet, but Vienna surely is already dressed like it. They have turned on all the Christmas lights, put up Christmas trees on public squares and last weekend the famous Christmas markets opened throughout the city. I'll be back later with more explanation and for sure more pictures, but these were some of the impressions we got when visiting the Christmas market in front of the city hall (the big building in the first picture) the other night to get a glass of the steaming hot punsch and soak up the Christmas atmosphere.
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Sunday, November 15, 2009
Dosados in Vienna
Alright, so this I got to share with you.
When living in the US I developed a strange fascination for country music and the whole culture surrounding it. Actually this might seem odd considering the fact that we stayed in a bustling metropol like LA and not Nashville or the like. Anyhow, we would drive to these country themed clubs outside of LA, where they were serving cheese burgers and Budweisers while big crowds wearing cowboy boots, cowboy hats and fringe leather jackets were line dancing. It was an amazing insight into a culture that affirmed some of the stereotypical images one (read: I) had about Americans. And the music somehow slowly growed on me. We would come across it when roadtripping and flipping through the radio stations. Also we once attended a party for international students at USC with square dance, which was so much fun.
After arriving to Vienna I knew I had to sign up for some kind of activities to meet people and to do something FUN. I remembered my friend Christina back in Copenhagen, who joined a line dance-class and always talked vividly about it. So after considering other activities, I thought, oh what the heck, it's time to give it a try. And so I signed up for a linedance/square dance course and started about a month ago. Every Thursday night I show up to Kopetsky's Tanzschule, where I'm joined by women, who are about twice my age and one guy (who by the way is always wearing rolled up jeans, tight and very shiny cowboy boots and a toupe..). When not dancing the women are smoking cigarets - and lots of them - in the lobby. The teacher or rather the caller is a man in his 60s wearing a cowboy hat, who make the ladies giggle. I don't understand his jokes in German... He is teaching us to dance line dance to this song. Now when I listen to it, I can't even understand how it's possible to dance to it. It's SO slow!! But somehow it works out.
When dancing we can look across the street into the building on the other side, where a pilates institute is located. There we can see young women sliding elegantly back and forth.
And then I'm thinking: what am I doing here with all these chain-smoking ladies and a man with a toupe, dancing something I remotely connect with line dance? I do spend a great deal of time when I'm there those Thursday nights laughing inside myself of the whole situation. If anything I guess I could have told myself that a Wiener walzer class might be more appropriate in Vienna.
Now check out this video for the world's longest line dance. Yehaaaw!
- Oversæt til dansk
When living in the US I developed a strange fascination for country music and the whole culture surrounding it. Actually this might seem odd considering the fact that we stayed in a bustling metropol like LA and not Nashville or the like. Anyhow, we would drive to these country themed clubs outside of LA, where they were serving cheese burgers and Budweisers while big crowds wearing cowboy boots, cowboy hats and fringe leather jackets were line dancing. It was an amazing insight into a culture that affirmed some of the stereotypical images one (read: I) had about Americans. And the music somehow slowly growed on me. We would come across it when roadtripping and flipping through the radio stations. Also we once attended a party for international students at USC with square dance, which was so much fun.
After arriving to Vienna I knew I had to sign up for some kind of activities to meet people and to do something FUN. I remembered my friend Christina back in Copenhagen, who joined a line dance-class and always talked vividly about it. So after considering other activities, I thought, oh what the heck, it's time to give it a try. And so I signed up for a linedance/square dance course and started about a month ago. Every Thursday night I show up to Kopetsky's Tanzschule, where I'm joined by women, who are about twice my age and one guy (who by the way is always wearing rolled up jeans, tight and very shiny cowboy boots and a toupe..). When not dancing the women are smoking cigarets - and lots of them - in the lobby. The teacher or rather the caller is a man in his 60s wearing a cowboy hat, who make the ladies giggle. I don't understand his jokes in German... He is teaching us to dance line dance to this song. Now when I listen to it, I can't even understand how it's possible to dance to it. It's SO slow!! But somehow it works out.
When dancing we can look across the street into the building on the other side, where a pilates institute is located. There we can see young women sliding elegantly back and forth.
And then I'm thinking: what am I doing here with all these chain-smoking ladies and a man with a toupe, dancing something I remotely connect with line dance? I do spend a great deal of time when I'm there those Thursday nights laughing inside myself of the whole situation. If anything I guess I could have told myself that a Wiener walzer class might be more appropriate in Vienna.
Now check out this video for the world's longest line dance. Yehaaaw!
- Oversæt til dansk
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Neighborhood Impressions
A lady face placed atop the entrance of an apartment building around the corner and the Danube canal in beautiful fall colors. The last picture is a couple of weeks old. These days we have mostly grey skies and rain.
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Sunday, November 8, 2009
An Evening With The Danes
Next Tuesday is St. Martin's Day, which is celebrated in Denmark by eating goose or duck along with some traditional Danish side dishes, which, among younger generations, are not eaten very often. I haven't celebrated the day for years (much like a lot of other Danes), but this year we decided to do something about it, and invited a couple of Danes over for the traditional dinner. It was a crash course in the making of all these traditional dishes that I otherwise have very little experience with, and I felt much like a house wife wearing my apron stuffing the big goose and timing the potatoes with the red cabbage and the sauce. Oh the sauce! Very important part of the meal. It was impossible to find the brown coloring, which is ESSENTIAL to getting the proper color of the sauce, so it didn't look quite right. But otherwise I think everything turned out quite good, and it was fun hanging out with the Danes for a change.
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Monday, November 2, 2009
Someone to Practice German With
Remember Lola? Well, Ines left for a conference in Scotland for a couple of days, and hence we have the enjoyable company of our fetch crazy four legged friend. Lola is quite a cosmopolitan dog, who have lived in Germany, Denmark, America and now Austria. In spite of her international exposure we are confident Lola is a German-thinking kind of dog, so this turns out to be an excellent chance for us to practice our German. Lola is not frowning upon any mistakes. No, her strategy is to wipe her tail, which makes us feel like native German speakers...
And on a dog related note, check out this video :)
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