Austria - LEF2010

Facts about Austria:

No kangaroos in Austria!

A headline that makes sense. Austria is famous for its creative guys (except that one who sold T-Shirts with this slogan printed on them) – may they be musicians like Mozart, Strauss, Haendel, Bach or Schubert – artists like Klimt, Schiele or Kokoschka or thinkers and dreamers like Freud. Forget about all these passed legends, newer heroes have melodic names like Falco, DJ Oetzi are equally famous and even more popular. But who is interested in music? Us – we are. But it’s not only the music. Austria is famous for its sportsmen – especially when we are talking about winter sports (and no other discipline) by moving down an imbalance (not a balance – that would not be too easy in a land full of high mountains) and that is what makes 75% of Austrian patriotism. Further five percents for the already mentioned guys, another five percent for our cuisine and the remaining 15 percent for great Austrian history. Not the younger history but the one when we still had an emperor who told us what to do.
Nevertheless – Austria is an alpine republic – plenty of mountains, plenty of skiers.

Well – so much information in a few sentences. Are you smarter than before reading this text? Probably not. So – let’s quote a few facts that are REALLY relevant. Austria is one of the smaller countries in Europe – sandwiched by its German and Italian neighbours, and watched at being sandwiched by its neighbours Switzerland, Hungary and a few more neighbours like Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia and so on. Surrounded would be the wrong word – but for sure each of these countries shares a little bit of history and culture with us. In a typical Austrian restaurant with typical Austrian cuisine you can order Gulasch (same as Hungarian “gulyas” but a little bit different in wording), Wiener Schnitzel, Frankurter sausages (we make them out of Frankfurters, Germans and the rest of the world take Wiener from Vienna), Knoedel and of course beer and wine.

So – there is one question still open – what is typical Austrian, who are these Austrians, what makes them unique? Good question – I would say it is the Austrian mental comfortability (Gmiadlichkeit). Some bad tongues might call it laziness but history tells us: Don’t try to change the world by aggression or by application (tu Austria nube!) do it like the ancient emperors – don’t fight the enemy – merry his daughter. So you can defame him by no risk and in the end things will be better than before.

But did this text answer the last question? Definitely not! Ok keep it short and simple: every Austrian is good at at least two things: skiing and dancing waltz. Some are even good at three things (Mozart for example). Some other multi-talents have created wonderful baroque Abbeys and churches, have constructed the capital Vienna or have invented Red Bull.

But find out by your own!