Culture Talks

Ok, I haven’t written in a little while, so I thought I’d talk about some things.  Mainly, my and Andreas’ trip to Burgenland last weekend!  Thursday was a holiday, so the two of us decided to take kind of an impromptu (and unscheduled) trip to Burgenland (the Eastern-most provice in Austria), but more specifically to Rechniz (the second-biggest town in Burgenland, about 3000 people strong).  The idea was to go to a pension (hotel/b&b), eat at a buschenschank (traditional restaurant) and have a wine tasting (because it is right in wine country).  Well, nothing worked out like we planned (ie. things sucked a bit more than we had anticipated), but we actually had a really great time anyway.

The short version: We hadn’t booked a room ahead
of time, and once we got there, discovered that there was
a big Hungarian festival (they share a border with Hungary) going on, and
every single room in the whole town was booked out for the weekend.  So, we stopped by a cafe and mentioned it to some locals, and everyone just rallied around and made it their afternoon mission to find us a room!  They didn’t have the
number of a woman who has the number of a hotel, so one lady called her
friend who was at the Hungarian festival down the street, and asked her
to look for the woman who has the number for the hotel in the next
town.  All this while Andreas and I were just sitting on barstools drinking coffees… it was quite the sight.

So at last, someone called someone else, and we had a place to sleep (in an even smaller town but just down the road).  I have to say though, that it was smelly small
room with 2 single beds that didn’t quite fit together (3 inches in
between), no soap, shampoo, or extra tp- but a really nice shower.  Anyway, we went to a
Buschenshank for dinner and drank some really good wine (no wine tasting though- they kind of acted like they had never heard of it…).  After
that we decided on a whim to take a look inside this bar called
"Disco Flamingo"- we thought we’d go in just for fun (it was 8:30), but ended up staying for many
cocktails, some dancing and a lot of pool and foosball.  The average age there was around 17, but we had a great time hanging out together.

So now I thought I’d include some pictures of things that I’ve been up to otherwise (we forgot the camera when we went to Burgenland).  Here you are.

Meet: Baby Mint, Baby Lavender, and Baby Dill

Meet: American baking products!!

Meet: My German book & kitchen sticky notes

Well, life is starting to settle back to normal now that my mom and sister have left… it was a tough adjustment at first (some tears, I’ll admit it), but I’m getting back into the swing of things now.  We had a really wonderful visit- they were here for 10 days, and although we didn’t do tons of sight-seeing, we got to spend some good quality-time together.  The first weekend we spent in Bad St. Leonhard chez the Schriefls, being fed and pampered by them.  They were extremely good hosts and took good care of all of us.  During the week we returned to Graz and just did a lot of shopping, walking around, eating and of course chatting (and napping).  The last weekend we decided to skip Vienna, as Catherine had a bad run-in with some Indian food.  Instead we went to a pool just around the block and spent the day swimming and relaxing (and reading fashion magazines). 
Even though it was sad to have them leave, it felt like a renewal, just in time for spring.  And it was less sad in that I am going to be spending a couple of weeks at home in early August- very exciting!  Here are some pictures from the visit:

First-day here

Family visiting

Birthday party for Petra

Everyone walking up to a castle in Wolfsberg

Me & Catherine at the spa

Raclette for dinner

A post- dinner schnapps

Nap time

Well, my mom and sister are still here, and we are still having a lovely visit, but before I do a big post about it, I thought I’d put up some pictures from our lovely weekend at the Schriefls.  They were extremely hospitable and generous, and took good care of all of us while mom and Catherine were recovering from jet-lag.