You know you are in Carinthia when ...

Last month I have been at home visiting my parents in Austria or better say I have been in Carinthia which is the south part of my homecountry. It is an awesome place with huge mountains, with fresh air and with lakes their water you can drink and with nice people.

BUT: Since 2002 I am not living in Carinthia and I have to say everytime when I am coming to my little village with 500 inhabitants I see which special things there are going on :)

So one fine day I had to go to the next town, 20 km far from my village and just to reach with a bus who is driving just once an hour and at weekends not even that - going to the next town is really something you have to plan and you never just go there to have fun, you need a real reason! I am always saying Vienna is far away and it is like a wonder if you are saying that you are going to Vienna - it is like you will say that you would like to make a world trip and in general the carinthians don't like Vienna because in Vienna are the bad politicians who are not interested in our people - the so called eggheads who are far away from reality ...

So I stepped out of our house and the sun was shining, the fresh air invites you to stay in nature, the first flowers were in blossom and the birds were twittering - a real wonderful feeling.

When you are going on the street to the bus station which is 20 minutes away people are all greeting you with the obligatory "Grüß Gott" (if you translate it like this it means "Greet God" which is the greeting Austria is known for "May God bless you" - so germans should never make jokes about that as they do and don't say "Have a good day" in Austria as everybody will know that you are german and will stare at you bewildered but if you are Austrian living in Germany you have the highest respect in Austria) although you never saw the person before - most of the people I know in my village but they don't know me or better say they can't remember me :)

Than at the bus station you are standing and waiting for the bus enjoying the sun BUT you can feel that there are some look daggers at you! In every car which is passing by the car driver is starring at you, is x-raying you and you can see how their brains are working thinking over "who is the new one and to which house does she belong?" and than an old lady came along. She starred at me and she didn't know what she should think about me ... I saw how her brain worked and laughed inside - I always feel like incognito :)

So after a few minutes she started talking to me "Oh the weather is fine but it is too early to seed flowers and vegtables." I just sad that my mother is not having flowers so far. Then she continued talking to me and I saw that she was thinking all the time "Where is she from? Which family could it be?" and than we started talking about my grandmother and she was thinking and thinking and after I said the Magic Word (my family's name) she said "Oh yes of course I know your grandmother but which of her sons is your father?" I answered "I am the daughter of Walter, living in xxxway" than for her was absolutly clear were I am from - but she never had the idea to ask me directly - it's clear she wanted so hard to know who I am but she doesn't want to be pushy.

So than the bus came and the bus driver said with a big smile in carinthian dialect "Dirndale, gehst heite stirzln?" (It is really hard to translate but it means something like "Lass, are you going out today?" the word "stirzln" is translated by the University of Klagenfurt, a carinthian university, with breaking out of daily routine for amusement) - the prices are really high for busses and trains. I am always very shocked but ok for that you have the bus 20 km long for you alone as everybody is working and just a few elder woman are driving by bus and discussing what they will cook and the bus driver is talking with them as well and flirting and let them feeling like 20 - I am always so happy to see that and I have always to laugh about that. It is really amusing how friendly austrians are and how much fun they have together even if they don't know each other.

Than I came to the city because I had to renew my passport. After that I went to a drugstore - when you go inside a carinthian shop all salesmen or saleswoman are looking at you and greeting you in a friendly way - so if you pass the whole shop you will meet 4 or 5 of them and they will all greet you and at the cassier they are alway wishing you a nice day/a nice weekend and they are all talking to you in such a melancholy, friendly way with a smile on their face and asking you if you have a loyality card - they do that in almost every store and in almost every store I am saying the same sentence "I am sorry but I don't have such a card" - the saleswoman:"Would you like to have one?"- me in pure carinthian dialect: "I am not living in Austria!" I always enjoy this moment as the vendors are all looking that bewildered! Like - she is speaking carinthian dialect but she is not living in Austria??? My friends are always laughing when I am doing like that and the best thing is when I am saying that I am living in Germany - oooh, I am the big traitor who betrayed our country, culture and our high ideals!!

Once carinthian always carinthian! Before you are an austrian you are always carinthian! deeply attached by one's native soil!

At my first morning back in Austria I turned on the radio and I was just thinking "I am definitly back"! The radio is singing folk music, Schlager music and Carinthian choirs and a woman called the radio station and said "God bless our Skijumpers"!

I am nobody will call for our national football team :)) (the highest aim of the Austrian football team is to prevent the other team shooting goals and at the same time we prevent ourself to shoot a goal ... who is moving first has lost)

That was my little story of my beloved Carinthian homeland :) God save Carinthia!

Poachers in Austria

During the 50's and 60's in Germany and Austria were made sentimental movies in idealized sentimental settings - the life in the mountains, were is always a young girl who is falling in love with a young men and somebody is against that love and at the end they will always have a happy end or in Austria we made a lot of movies who are showing the good old time when we had the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy like the Sissi-Movies with Romy Schneider.

Thoose movies were made after the Second World War that the people remember how good the Monarchy was and some movies are really lovly and funny to watch so that people forget the hard life after the war.

In some of thoose movies the young maid of the Alps is falling in love with the poacher of the region and he brings her in dangerous situations when she is giving him shelter in her Alpine Chalet - I always thought that this is happening just in romantic movies of that time BUT my father told me a story:

In 1982 a poacher called Pius Walder (the second pic shows his grave) went one night into the forest and wanted to shoot some animals. His face was blackened with soot, at his shoulder a gun. He was not a poacher because he wanted to show his trophies, no in his opinion the forest is common property. The people in his little village knew all that he doing poaching for years but some of the huntsmen there were against it. Poaching is prohibited in Austria for a long time! Especially in time of poorness and hunger poachers were heroes for the poor peasant population - a kind of Robin Hood.

At the end Pius Walder was found by some huntsmen that night and they chased him and tried to shoot him 8 times - the 8th bullet killed him - it was a shot into the back part of the head and the sad thing is that the killer was just juged for 1,5 year for prison!!! The court said that it was not a precision shot he wanted to make just a warning shot. The family of Pius Walder is still fighting for their right.

The Palace of Charlottenburg

The Palace of Charlottenburg is biggest palace in Berlin and was built at the end of the 17th century. Sophie Charlotte of Hanover, the wife of the first Prussian King, Frederick I., gave her name for the building.

I have to say that the interior of the Palace reminds me very on my old working place in Vienna - the Schönbrunn Palace.

The New Palais in Potsdam

This is my absolute favorite! The so called New Palais in Potsdam at the end of the Sanssouci Park. I don't know why but I felt in true love with that wonderful building which was built as a guest house in the 18th century under the time of Frederick II. the Great.

The problem with that building is that Frederick didn't want to spent a lot of money and thought making a wood construction would be a good thing but nowadays the owner (Stifung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg - Foundation Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg) have huge problems! First of all in some rooms with the statics as the wood is mold-infested and at the other hand there is the woodwarm which causes problems. Therefore we were not allowed to go inside with our normal shoes we had to overdrew huge feltslipper which was looking very funny.

Sanssouci

The Palace of Sanssouci is in Potsdam - a city next to Berlin and the capital of Brandenburg. I love Potsdam but I have to say that I am not that big fan of Palace of Sanssouci like all the others. I like the New Palais at the end of the park more - I will write more about it in a little blog.

Sanssouci was buildt under the reign of Frederick II of Prussia (german: Friedrich II. der Große von Preussen). He was not just a King he was as well a freethinker, a musician and a writer and invited the French philosoph Voltaire to his Palace but Frederick's wife Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern (german: Elisabeth Christine von Braunschweig-Bevern) never saw that palace as Frederick was not interested in his wife and so she had to live in Exile in an other Berlin Palace for about 50 years. Her husband had no interest in her.

I have as well here a pic of his graveyard next to the palace. He is buried together with his dogs and you will see that there are potatoes on his grave. People still lay them down as he brought potatoes to Prussia and people are still thankfull for that. But he was the only one who didn't like to eat them :))

Memorial of the German Resistance

I visted as well the Memorial of the German Resistance (german: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand) at the so called Bendlerblock. Nowadays and during the Nazi-Regime it was/is the Ministry of Defense.

At the pictures you can see the place were Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg, Ludwig Beck, Friedrich Olbricht, Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim and Werner von Haeften were executed after the failed assassination of Hitler on 20th July 1944 at the Führer Headquarter Wolf's Lair (german: Führer Hauptquartier Wolfsschanze).

After that visit I was really very oppressed. The problem nowadays is if a german or an austrian something is saying about the problems we have in our countries with some foreigners people are calling us Nazis - but I didn't live at that time!

For example at the airport we have most of the time problems with blacks because they always have a lot of luggage and then they have to pay for the overweight like all other passengers as well - we don't care if somebody is black or white or chinese or US-american or european or what else - in that case is just the weight of the bag important. But if you tell them they have to pay for the overweight they always, always, always call us Racists and Nazis!

Berlin Cathedral

I can't find the right words for that building! I was standing in the center of the Cathedral and just starred to the top of that outstanding cupola! I never saw something like that before! The present building was buildt in 1905. On of the reasons was to buildt a respectable burial crypt for the Hohenzollern family as the old crypt had the problem when the Spree river was having too much water the coffins into the crypt where all under water and it destroyed the coffins and it was not acceptable for the rest in death of the bodies. I would say it is really dishonorable for the death ones beeing buried like that. So during the last 30 years the city of Berlin began to restore all the coffins and since the 90's one could visit the crypt. Parts of the Cathedral were destroyed during the World War II but if you visit the Cathedral you don't think about that as it is not to be seen.

During the Cold War the Berliner Dom as we say in german was part of the GDR, the German Democratic Republic (DDR, Deutsche Demokratische Republik).