I will start by informing you with great enthusiasm that I
had my first roast dinner on Wednesday, as it was Thanksgiving and my friend in
Amstetten (my only friend.) is American! She came over with a dead chicken in
her backpack and then spent a good few minutes rubbing melted butter all over
it, into every single nook and cranny. Luck would have it that this girl knows
how to roast a bird – it was one of the best roast dinners I’ve ever had. The
meat was so delicious and garlicy and moist and YUMMY IN MY TUMMY! We also had
homemade stuffing, leeks and carrots, pomegranate (because I couldn’t find the
cranberry sauce in Spar, because I don’t know the word for cranberry, but I did find
a pomegranate), roast potatoes and grrrrravy. I had three helpings. Then we had
apple crumble with ice cream. Then we had buttermilk pie, which is basically a
normal pie case filled with a couple of kilos of sugar, butter and buttermilk.
Here's a pic:
Kirbee let me keep the carcass. I popped it in the freezer
and will boil it at a later date.
I didn’t have time to boil it this weekend, because the
PARENTS were here! Upholding a strong family tradition, they missed one of
their crossovers and were a teensy bit late, but this didn’t bother me as it
just gave me more time to snooze!!! When they arrived I showed them the sights
in Amstetten, which took all of four minutes, then we had schnitzel. The best
thing about them visiting was I could say things like “oh, I know the best
place to get schnitzel.” Little did they know there is only one place! But it
made me sound like a genius. Also mother looked extremely impressed whenever I
spoke German. Father was less convinced.
“Wow,” he sneered sardonically, after I completed an
extremely long and complex telephone call with the car hire company in dialect(!!!)
“You’ve learnt to say ‘okay’ and 'super' in a German accent!”
“I think you mean an Austrian
accent,” I retorted coolly. The tension was too much for the small hotel room
so we retreated to the hire car.
They were both suitably impressed with Melk, and we went
inside the catacombs of the abbey and it was very good. The church there looks
like somebody ate lots and lots of gold leaf and renaissance art work, then projectile
vomited all over the walls and ceilings. In a word, I would call it ‘EXCESSIVE’.
In two words, I would call it ‘VERY EXCESSIVE’! But also pretty awesome. The
pictures just do NOT do it justice.
Are my parents ghosts!? Mere figments of my imagination!? eek! |
This beautiful model is used to hold the lower jaw and one remaining tooth of one of the abbey's saints. |
Stify Melk Church cieling |
Then we spoke to a miserable Scrooge of a tourist office representative,
who, after much pestering, finally revealed there was a Christmas fair we could
go to nearby. This was held in a local castle and was a treasure trove of
handmade goods! The locals charged large sums of money for all sorts of strange
objects, our favourites were small angels made out of pieces of pasta and
entire cribs encapsulated in a walnut shell. It was a marvel of the power of
recycling. As I pointed out to the parents over tea and cake, the producers of Blue Peter would have pissed their pants at
all the craft activities they could have stolen there! Mother didn’t approve of
my turn of phrase, but still whole-heartedly agreed.
Then I took them to that nights Kulturwochen event, which
was a local punk-protest-folk-band-thing and they sang some songs and gave me a
free sticker! The lyrics were in German, but the music had an upbeat,
toe-tapping, head-nodding, shoulder-wiggling tempo that kept all three of us entertained!
The name of the band was WOSISIG, check them out on youtube, if you so wish!
Most excitingly, the viola player from the ‘troupe’ (as mother would no doubt
dub them) plays in the orchestra I’m in! our final performance of the season
was on Sunday, it was a roaring success, despite the fact I missed several
rather important cymbal-solos due to losing my place in the music. Turns out
you cannot translate ‘to lose one’s place in the music’ literally into German,
as when I tried to explain to my fellow tub-thumpers what had happened, they
were pretty nonplussed. They smiled politely though!
On Monday we ventured in to Vienna. We saw a great deal of
Klimt artwork, and also an impressive amount of Klimt memorabilia. The Belvedere
art gallery has taken every object known to man, and covered it in Klimt. If
this is something you think you’d like, pop over to the museum shop BUT BE
PREPARED TO PAY BIG BUCKS. We had lunch in a little café that reminded me of my flat INSOFAR AS it was a bit of a time
warp. Mother was rather taken with the waiter, mainly because he was wearing a
bow tie, but also because he was ‘softly spoken’. I worked out that ‘susserdapfel’
is sweet potato and felt extraordinarily pleased with myself.
There then followed a rather long-winded quest for Christmas
markets. I do not know Vienna that well, and I was following shady directions
from a teacher friend that I could half remember, and for a while all we could
find was some kind of soviet occupation protest (TYPICAL COLLINGSES!! Straight to
the soviets! We can’t keep away!!!!) In the end we found a nice market with
random things in it, and a stall that sold the sausages that are filled with
cheese. Me and Daddy had one each, it was super!
IN THE CASTLE! |
I left them at the market so I could catch a train home.
Father enthused greatly about my tour guiding capabilities. “Thank you for
showing us around!” he said in a jolly, rumble-tumble sort of way. Mother was
slightly more cryptic. “Yes, thank you for
trying your best,” she said pleasantly. I chose to take this as a compliment.
I was (unfortunately) back in school bright and early this
morning. I did a lesson about extreme sports and explained the difference
between the ‘jumping’ and ‘leaping’ through the medium of mime. Turns out they
like mime a LOT! They also like it when I read things out and then do a funny
face. I then did a class about protests and accidentally showed them a photo
with a big protest sign saying “DAVID CAMERON IS A C***”. Unfortunately the sign
in the picture did not use cute little starts to disguise the foul language. I had to very quickly skip to the next slide,
which so happened to be the liberal democrat mock election campaign video we
made in year 13. For some reason, the students did not seem to enjoy watching
this as much as I did. However, I shall leave it here for you – my fans – to truly
appreciate. It a nostalgic trip down memory lane, which MIGHT leave a bitter taste in your mouth (not just because of the Scottish accents!!!!)
Papa just text me (being rather wizz on the old mobile telephone). They've landed safely back in the UK and he said a good time was had by all. After I left them, mother apparently bought a new hat which is 'very becoming'. BECOMING WHAT!?!?!? We'll never know! Only four weeks until I’m back in the bosom of Blighty – so pumped!
xx
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