WORDS I WOULD NEVER USE VOLUNTARILY

(And only grudgingly, if I absolutely have to …) Sorry, this is gonna be a bi-lingual post with some of the words not being able to be translated into German. But, since German words like “rucksack”, “kaput”, “kindergarten”, etc. have also become part of the English language … and Google knows everything … you might be able to forgive me.

The German language and its differences to the Austrian one can be compared to British and American English. Language is identity and I just don’t want to lose it.

The most horrible word, I’ll never use – and get goose bumps of horror by just hearing it – is “lecker”. Which is used for a tasty dish and means “delicious”. Living in Germany, I have to suffer hearing it occasionally – and every time when I do I have to think of my world travelled Grandfather, who became quite mad if anyone dared to use this word. And I feel absolutely the same.

“Brötchen” (roll) is another word that barely comes across my lips. Whenever I have to buy one for breakfast at the bakery, I quickly mumble, “one roll please” and look around embarrassedly … I just can’t stand it. Which is why I’m happy that my favourite discount grocery store offers “Kaisersemmeln” (Kaiser rolls) the way we have in Austria. Of course, I can’t expect “Langsemmeln” (long oval shaped with a deep cut in the middle lengthwise to divide easily) – typical for Styria – to be obtained here.

Here in Germany everything is “Brötchen”, in Austria we differentiate much more. We have Kornweckerl (rye and wheat with corn), Kornspitz (long shaped), Salzstangerl (long shaped wheat roll with salt and caraway seeds on top), Vinschgerl, and many more. Same with “Hörnchen” (basically a croissant but different kind of dough). Euw. Euw, euw, euw. They are called “Kipferl” in Austria. And Kipferl is how I will call them. And oh, how I miss them. You can’t get them here the way they are back home. I miss having one for breakfast, dunking it into my hot chocolate. Pure bliss. 

And the German cakes and pies … if there isn’t whipped cream involved, it’s not cake. (But, we’ve already covered the German culinary excentricities!) Oh, and don’t get me started on the word “Quark” (curd cheese), called “Topfen” in Austria. Quarkstrudel? No, it’s Topfenstrudel. Just like Apfelstrudel! And once again, no, puff pastry is NOT the correct dough for either. It’s filo pastry. Otherwise it should not be allowed to be called a “Strudel”.

Why do I even think about this? (Not to mention write about such an insignificant matter?) Well, what else is there to write about? Corona, check, home office, check, everyday politics, check, books, check … boy, it’s about time I get out more again and return to my travelling self … soon, soon, I’ll be on vacation too. The first one in two years!

Advertisement

FAVOURITE MOVIES EVER

There are lots of great movies out there, masterpieces of cinematic art. All kinds of movies, dramatic, romantic, funny movies. My favourites? Not sure about the “masterpieces”, but … they certainly are to me!

1. Bringing up Baby: Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant. One of the first screwball comedies. What’s there to say? I just adore Katherine Hepburn – much more than her counterpart Audrey Hepburn, who is more the delicate type. Katherine … what a woman! Feisty, funny, tough! And who wouldn’t love Cary Grant as the nerdy dinosaur professor?
2. Arsenic and old lace: Two lovely old ladies getting rid of their lodgers. A classic!
3. Spaceballs: Mel Brooks at his best. I’m not that much of a Star Wars fan, especially not when it comes to the “new ones”. But the parody with Bill Pullman, John Candy, Rick Moranis and the master himself is just awesome. You barely can’t stop laughing … I must have seen it at least a dozen of times, it just never gets old.
4. The life of Brian: Monty Python’s best movie by far. I first watched it together with a couple of friends at barely 10, I guess. (So, we weren’t really allowed to watch it yet!) I loved it! From the start! Guess my critical views on the Catholic Church have been ingrained in my mind at a very young age. Monty Python’s still are my favourite comedy troupe.
5. Dirty Dancing: THE movie of my youth! Patrick Swayze – whom I had already admired in “North and South” – teaching Jennifer Grey to dance. Terrific music, terrific plot, terrific actors. And very unhappy that I wasn’t allowed to go to the cinema to see it. Too young. How I envied my cousin who’s one year older than me, who could see it in the movie theatre. I remember how anxious I was when it came out on video and how long I had to wait – again – for it to borrow it, because it was rented out all the time in the little store in our little town. Funny story on the side? My cousin and I performed to “I’ve had the time of my life” for our grandfather’s birthday. Plus the famous lifting figure. And since we were at the other ends of Austria – me in Carinthia, her in Vienna, we could only train in our holidays … but we did it and were a great success!
6. Flashdance: And again – the music! (Not to mention the romantic plot, of course!) The mixture of all kinds of dancing styles, from ballet to striptease … whenever I hear “What a feeling” I see the big dancing scene before my eyes and start to move with the music as well.
7. Footloose: Sexy young Kevin Bacon, jumping and dancing, fighting the strict conservative rules of John Lithgow and his church. (I do seem to like rebels! Especially when it comes to religion!) What a great soundtrack. I still have it and listen to it quite often in my car, singing along as loudly as possible.
8. Man’s favourite sport? With Rock Hudson and Paula Prentiss. The German title is something like this: “A goldfish on the leash”. Still one of the funniest movies as Rock Hudson pretends to be an expert angler … with no experience at all.
9. Demolition Man: Ha, now I got you, right? You wouldn’t have suspected Mr. Sylvester Stallone in my favourite movie list together with the greats of Cary Grant and Rock Hudson. Well, I can’t help it! I just love it! How he has to adapt to this “clean” future, hunting down the killer Wesley Snipes together with lovely Sandra Bullock. Fun and thrilling. Who could ask for more?
10. Never been kissed: Drew Barrymore and Michael Vartan. So incredibly cute. So romantic. So funny. So heartfelt. And so easy to empathize. 
11. The Great Gatsby: only the Robert Redford version. Counting F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books among my favourite classic books, the movie has to be too. Strangely, I knew the movie before I read the book. As a young girl I saw it on TV and especially the beautiful eggshell coloured car and the clothes stuck in my mind. Choosing the book at school to present to my classmates in English class, I got hooked again.
12. Con air: tragic, hot Nicolas Cage against a plane full of murderers … add quirky John Cusack as an US Marshal and a high-profile cast (John Malkovich, Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames just to name a few) and you get a spectacular movie.
13. To catch a thief: Finishing off my list with another classic … Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in Monte Carlo. Great setting, great story, beautiful clothes (of course, what else is one expect from a 50s movie, they just had style). The society beauty and the former thief … throw in Alfred Hitchcock and you better not miss it! Speaking of Alfred Hitchcock, he was just a genius and every movie is worth watching again and again!

Well, I think 13 is a great number, which is why I’ll leave you to your movie nights now … there might be other “favourite movies” around I might rediscover and share in another post with you one day!

THEY JUST DON’T STOP …

… pissing me off. Who? The bloody German politicians and their way to handle the pandemic! They just don’t seem to have brains anymore nowadays. Where are the great ones? There are none! I wouldn’t know who to vote for – even if I were allowed to as an Austrian living in Germany – and that’s not only sad, it’s tragic.

What is pissing me off? (Or let me rather rephrase that, since it’s basically on a weekly basis!) What is pissing me off this time? Well, the whole pandemic issue, of course. Once again! And frankly, I just don’t get it! We have been living with the pandemic for one and a half years now! And last summer we were in the unlucky position that we didn’t have vaccines yet. Which we do have now! But with the Delta variant on the rise … We’re in the middle of the summer, in the middle of school holidays, in the middle of people traveling to the usual tourist hotspots like Spain and its islands, Greece, Turkey … and now the politicians are surprised that numbers are rising again? Just like last year? Really? NOW? No one could have seen that coming!? Of course not! How could they! After one and a half years of living with Covid. Only now, the government has decided that it might be a good idea to only grant fully vaccinated and convalescents “free” entry back into the country, without a negative test and quarantine, unless one comes back from a high-risk country. 

Well. Well, well, well! I presume the vaccine conspiracy theorists are going to decide that it might not be such a bad idea getting vaccinated after all. If this means that they will be excluded from the life of the vaccinated or at least at great costs. AND, I hope the brilliant idea (which, by the way, the Austrian government has already voiced weeks ago) of finally considering invoicing all kinds of previously free tests to the unvaccinated will take root and they won’t be so cowardly again to back off.

As I might have mentioned before … I seem to be surrounded by dumb people. A) Those on top and B) Those who see conspiracies everywhere and refuse to get vaccinated. Am I mad? Of course, I’m mad! Hopping mad! Because of those ignorants we have to suffer and I just hope the government finally wakes up and restricts their everyday life as much as possible, punishing them for their stupidity any way possible. I’m glad, my parents are not alive anymore and had to go through this. Those unvaccinated stupids would have been their death sentence for sure!

OUT AND ABOUT

• 

• 

• 

I know, this is coming a bit late, since it’s already August and some kind of normalcy has returned to our lives here in Germany. But frankly, I was a bit stuck, so … 

Tuesday, June 14th 2021, 3:30 pm. A day to celebrate. The first time I’m “out and about” again. As in sitting at an ice cream parlour, without mask, without testing required. The numbers have gone down so much that they have finally decided to scratch the mask wearing requirements in the pedestrian street. As well as the testing stuff when sitting outside. I could hardly wait to finish today’s home office and the most important tasks … and head outside. Dressed normally for a change (since I used to live in jazz pants, T and sneakers the past months and didn’t bother to dress up for a quick outing to the grocery store). I’m even wearing high heeled yellow sandals with my gorgeous yellow Dune tote bag.

Such a pleasure. Sitting in the sun, enjoying banana split ice cream – even though it lacked originality. Next time I will have to tell them again, how it is made … and how I want it. As in: vanilla ice cream, no whipped cream and lots of chocolate sauce. Instead of: banana, milk and chocolate ice cream, cantaloupe melon as decoration and not enough chocolate sauce. Hardly any meal in Germany I don’t have to tell them how to do it … it’s tragic, really …

And my great afternoon just got better. My MD called to tell me that I would be vaccinated in two days’ time. And even better: I will receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which only has to be given once instead of the two-parters. Which also means that in roughly two weeks I’m fully vaccinated and can safely do whatever I want again. Going out for dinner, travel … and being more or less safe from this awful virus.

So, two days later I got my shot and was a bit concerned whether I would have any side effects, but apart from some muscle pain in my vaccinated arm, there was nothing. And I couldn’t be happier! Happy being back “in the land of the living”. Enjoying coffee, lunch and dinner outings with my equally vaccinated friends, looking forward to my Austria trip this fall to visit my vaccinated relatives and friends there.

Sadly, though, thanks to dropping numbers of infected people and serious cases, the numbers of people getting vaccinated are dropping as well, not showing up for their appointments with many doses having had to be disposed of. What a terrible – and expensive – waste. Those stupid, stupid people. They make me so angry I could kick their ass from here to the netherworld. I wish the government would take more drastic measures. Like: no restaurants, no traveling, no nothing without being vaccinated, since by now there is enough vaccine around so that everyone can get vaccinated quickly. My colleague mentioned with a smile, how “hard” I am. Yes, I am! Those who refuse to be vaccinated and those other stupids … they can rot in hell instead of dragging us back into high numbers and death due to the appearing virus variants. Which they help to emerge and distribute to all of us. And the best of it? They are begging to get the vaccines when they are lying in hospital on the brink of death. Well, your bloody fault! You had the chance! Too late! I don’t feel any pity with those people! Not when there’s no shortage of vaccine now!

Well, at least life for the vaccinated us is starting to improve. Let’s hope it stays that way!