Fresh air, beautiful views, breaktaking scenery! Wilkommen in Innsbruck.
I arrived, after a harrowing seven or so hour train trip, to Innsbruck, and am already refreshed.
So what can you do in Innsbruck? Hike! Armed with bread and cheese, I took the cable car yesterday, taking me up to Hungerburg, a station up in the mountains. It was a bit daunting to look at the hundreds of routes possible to me. How do you choose? Healthy-looking, red-faced Austrians mountain bike, climb and hike along these routes, taking a break at the local Gaststube with a glass of beer. I finally decided to simply get lost (I am very good at that) and ended up in a field of cows, all of them staring at me curiously. So I threw myself on the grass, took out the bread and cheese (Austrian Gouda by the way is incredible) and lay in the sun.
Speaking of the weather, it is HOT here. About 36 degrees Celcius, no clouds... for me, a lizard, it's great.
Today I decided to be a bit more daring and climbed up higher with the cable car. Destination? Seehohenburg. At first, I thought I had come to the wrong station. It looked like a deserted ski station. And it was. Gazing at the rocky mountains about me, I wondered at first how I was even going to be able to get to them. Talk about steep.... but somehow or other I managed to put one foot in front of the other, very carefully and holding my breath, and gradually making progress along a thin, jagged path along the cliff. Luckily, I don't suffer too severely from vertigo.... When I finally sat down on a stop that seemed "flat", I looked up and found out I was surrounded by sheep and goats!
So what do I think of Innsbruck? Love it. The fresh air, the blue mountains, the milky white river, the golden roof or Goldener Dachl, the city's source of pride.... all of Innsbruck has allured me.
My German is getting better, but now and then, exhausted by the continuous strain of not making a grammatical mistake, I lapse into English, sometimes producing funny situations. In a health store today, I asked the shoplady in English if they sold soap. She nodded and led the way to... the soup counter! I looked at her for a minute and then burst out laughing. For some Austrians, the way to pronounce "soap" is basically the same as "soup". Love it!
One more day in Innsbruck and then off to Hall in Tirol. Ah, the life!
mardi 28 juin 2011
vendredi 24 juin 2011
Reflecting on food, stereotypes and Austria
I embarked on a small excursion yesterday. Destination- Krems, a small town nestled in the Austrian mountains. I immediately felt relieved when walking along the cobbled streets, since as most people know, I am definitely not a city person. Place me in a quiet country-side setting any time. Krems was, then, a perfect destination.
The churches are to die for. I kept randomly discovering one
after the other, from Baroque to Gothic. Some were tidy white churches with minimalist charm, others were grandiose heavily gilded golden ones. My favourite: a large church with a gorgeous organ, and eerily realistic wooden statues of Christ.
Carnivores are made for Austria. Or Austria is made for carnivores. Either way, as a vegetarian, I have to laugh when I read menus. Pigs' feet, stuffed veal, roasted Taffelspitz (a local delicacy... Austrians love meat. At the supermarket, I asked an employee if they sold fish. Cocking an eyebrow, she took me past a splendid meat counter and pointed at two packets of frozen fish. "That's it?" I asked, trying to keep the dissapointment from my voice. She nodded energetically. Ah, the joys of being vegetarian.
Apart from meat, what do Austrians eat? One of my favourite dishes is Spinatnockerl, a dish of spinach dumplings in cream sauce. Sounds heavy? Absolutely. Other classics are strudel, which also come in the salty variety, either spinach, ham or asparagus strudel, again in cream sauce. I suppose the heavy dishes explain why Austrians are stereotyped as heavy, robust, good-natured, bon vivants. Yesterday, a holiday, the residents of Krems walked about in their Trachten, the traditional Austrian dress for women and Lederhosen for men (molto sexy... not) and enjoyed beer at terraced cafes. I love them.
The churches are to die for. I kept randomly discovering one
after the other, from Baroque to Gothic. Some were tidy white churches with minimalist charm, others were grandiose heavily gilded golden ones. My favourite: a large church with a gorgeous organ, and eerily realistic wooden statues of Christ.
Carnivores are made for Austria. Or Austria is made for carnivores. Either way, as a vegetarian, I have to laugh when I read menus. Pigs' feet, stuffed veal, roasted Taffelspitz (a local delicacy... Austrians love meat. At the supermarket, I asked an employee if they sold fish. Cocking an eyebrow, she took me past a splendid meat counter and pointed at two packets of frozen fish. "That's it?" I asked, trying to keep the dissapointment from my voice. She nodded energetically. Ah, the joys of being vegetarian.
Apart from meat, what do Austrians eat? One of my favourite dishes is Spinatnockerl, a dish of spinach dumplings in cream sauce. Sounds heavy? Absolutely. Other classics are strudel, which also come in the salty variety, either spinach, ham or asparagus strudel, again in cream sauce. I suppose the heavy dishes explain why Austrians are stereotyped as heavy, robust, good-natured, bon vivants. Yesterday, a holiday, the residents of Krems walked about in their Trachten, the traditional Austrian dress for women and Lederhosen for men (molto sexy... not) and enjoyed beer at terraced cafes. I love them.
mercredi 22 juin 2011
Vienna und das kitsch
Greetings from Vienna! I HAVE ARRIVED.
After 12 hours of travelling and being on 2 planes, I finally arrived in Vienna.
So how is Vienna, and what do I think about it? Big, hot, and beautiful. The women are impeccably dressed, the buildings resemble wedding cakes, and good natured "Gruess Gott" or "good day" make me really feel like I am in Vienna.
Walking along the streets yesterday, I was struck by a certain duality. What duality? The sharp dissimilarity between kitsh and authenticity. You can get real Gucci glasses on the famous "Graben" square, or you can get fake Gucci glasses down the street from my apartment. You can listen to authentic musicians performing Mozart sonatas at the Opera house, or you can be led astray by people dressed like Mozart chasing you (a man chased me this morning) assuring you this is "the real thing". People may call this kitsh. The word "kitsch", originally in German, appeared in the XIX period and has been adopted by languages internationally. Milan Kundera, in "L'insoutenable legerete de l'etre", wrote a beautiful sentence about kitsch: "Le kitsch exclut de son champ de vision tout ce que l'existence humaine a d'essentiellement inacceptable". What does he mean by this? Whatever is kitsch, we think, is a sloppy copy of the authentic. But isn't there some beauty in a copy? Why are we so obsessed with authenticity?
So I am trying to embrace kitsh. Vienna is a city of paradoxes. Slender women dressed in Prada saunter along next to Arab women dressed in run down clothes pulling children along. Fruit and vegetables are either incredibly fresh (found only at specialty markets you have to know) or are wrapped so tightly at Billa, the Supermarket in Vienna, they make the Communist era goods look good.
I have a feeling a lot of people here don't feel like they belong. At the supermarket yesterday, a woman wearing the veil approached me timidly and asked, in even more broken German than my own, if the drink she held in her hand had alcohol. It was juice. When I assured her it did not contain alcohol, she gazed at the bottle confusedly. This woman probably lives in Vienna and can't even understand the ingredients, written in German, on a bottle of juice.
Vienna is offering me another image of itself on this trip. It is poetic, beautiful and stuck in the past, but I am seeing other parts of it too.One image, most particularly, struck me yesterday. Sitting on the subway, I looked at a couple near me. The lady, a petite reahead, wore a fluffy black tutu, a string of fake golden pearls, seven inch heels,crossing and uncrossing her tattooed legs continually. In her lap slept "Schnufli" as she called him, a tiny chihuahua. The man, huge and bearded, had his arm around her shoulder. They seemed, at least by the way they were dressed, to be fighting tradition, to be wild, to be "free". Together, they cried out to me: This is as much Vienna as the opera, or fancy clothes, or the famous chocolate cake, or a horse drawn carriage. You can't reduce Vienna to cliches. Vienna is the city of music and love, but it is a lot more. A duality of authenticity and kitsch, of tradition and modernity, of common sense and wildness. I love it.
After 12 hours of travelling and being on 2 planes, I finally arrived in Vienna.
So how is Vienna, and what do I think about it? Big, hot, and beautiful. The women are impeccably dressed, the buildings resemble wedding cakes, and good natured "Gruess Gott" or "good day" make me really feel like I am in Vienna.
Walking along the streets yesterday, I was struck by a certain duality. What duality? The sharp dissimilarity between kitsh and authenticity. You can get real Gucci glasses on the famous "Graben" square, or you can get fake Gucci glasses down the street from my apartment. You can listen to authentic musicians performing Mozart sonatas at the Opera house, or you can be led astray by people dressed like Mozart chasing you (a man chased me this morning) assuring you this is "the real thing". People may call this kitsh. The word "kitsch", originally in German, appeared in the XIX period and has been adopted by languages internationally. Milan Kundera, in "L'insoutenable legerete de l'etre", wrote a beautiful sentence about kitsch: "Le kitsch exclut de son champ de vision tout ce que l'existence humaine a d'essentiellement inacceptable". What does he mean by this? Whatever is kitsch, we think, is a sloppy copy of the authentic. But isn't there some beauty in a copy? Why are we so obsessed with authenticity?
So I am trying to embrace kitsh. Vienna is a city of paradoxes. Slender women dressed in Prada saunter along next to Arab women dressed in run down clothes pulling children along. Fruit and vegetables are either incredibly fresh (found only at specialty markets you have to know) or are wrapped so tightly at Billa, the Supermarket in Vienna, they make the Communist era goods look good.
I have a feeling a lot of people here don't feel like they belong. At the supermarket yesterday, a woman wearing the veil approached me timidly and asked, in even more broken German than my own, if the drink she held in her hand had alcohol. It was juice. When I assured her it did not contain alcohol, she gazed at the bottle confusedly. This woman probably lives in Vienna and can't even understand the ingredients, written in German, on a bottle of juice.
Vienna is offering me another image of itself on this trip. It is poetic, beautiful and stuck in the past, but I am seeing other parts of it too.One image, most particularly, struck me yesterday. Sitting on the subway, I looked at a couple near me. The lady, a petite reahead, wore a fluffy black tutu, a string of fake golden pearls, seven inch heels,crossing and uncrossing her tattooed legs continually. In her lap slept "Schnufli" as she called him, a tiny chihuahua. The man, huge and bearded, had his arm around her shoulder. They seemed, at least by the way they were dressed, to be fighting tradition, to be wild, to be "free". Together, they cried out to me: This is as much Vienna as the opera, or fancy clothes, or the famous chocolate cake, or a horse drawn carriage. You can't reduce Vienna to cliches. Vienna is the city of music and love, but it is a lot more. A duality of authenticity and kitsch, of tradition and modernity, of common sense and wildness. I love it.
lundi 20 juin 2011
Time in space
Some people love flying, others hate it.
Personnally, I have always enjoyed airplanes and even, dare I say, airports. There is something exciting about walking about in airports, hearing foreign languages spoken, being in a state of total exhilaration and truly living in the moment. When I was a child, we used to take the plane a lot, due to the amount of moving we did as a family. I would grasp my beloved toy dog "Chien Chien", close my eyes tight, and count to ten as the plane took off. My stomach would turn as the plane lifted off the ground. It was, and is, one of the best experiences I have ever had.
Some people claim that being in the air allows them to "think". I love looking at the clouds, changing from fluffy white cotton balls to full grown grey matter. Being in the air is a time to clear the mind, to be... how can I put it.... think-free? We are slaves of the mind, continually thinking, assessing, calculating. To be free of thought, to clear the mind, is not so easy. Some turn to meditation, others to intensive excercice, others to sleep, to avoid thinking.
A good friend of mine, knowing I am off to Europe, shared a link about Le Petit Prince. Watching the clip, I was amused at the grown up prince, in his plane, singing "I need air!" Disgusted by the adults who affirm that the elephant within the boa constrictor is a hat, the little prince takes off to be in the air, to share the sky with God, as he says in the clip.
I haven't even left yet, but thought I should post one more blog, since, yes folks, there are more changes to my trip which I must mention.
Change number 1: I am not going to France.
Change number 2: In lieu of replacement, I am going to Croatia.
My reaction: Why not?
At first, the idea of not visiting France, which to me means baguette, crunchy croissants, fourme d'Ambert.... I will stop there.... was dissapointing. That said, Croatia now seems just as enticing. For those who have not had the chance to see this gorgeous country, I would say the three attractions I love are fish, sea and sun. Long beaches, sun-drenched villas covered by bougainvillea, fish markets that never end.... voila Croatia.
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I would venture to say that time spent on the plane is not just time spent travelling. It is a time to disconnect, to perceive reality from another angle, to float among clouds. As I will be on the plane tonight, I will hum the tune on the clip: "I need air!"
P.S.: In case anyone is interested, the picture on this page is one I took in Verona, Italy. Just to give a foretaste....
Personnally, I have always enjoyed airplanes and even, dare I say, airports. There is something exciting about walking about in airports, hearing foreign languages spoken, being in a state of total exhilaration and truly living in the moment. When I was a child, we used to take the plane a lot, due to the amount of moving we did as a family. I would grasp my beloved toy dog "Chien Chien", close my eyes tight, and count to ten as the plane took off. My stomach would turn as the plane lifted off the ground. It was, and is, one of the best experiences I have ever had.
Some people claim that being in the air allows them to "think". I love looking at the clouds, changing from fluffy white cotton balls to full grown grey matter. Being in the air is a time to clear the mind, to be... how can I put it.... think-free? We are slaves of the mind, continually thinking, assessing, calculating. To be free of thought, to clear the mind, is not so easy. Some turn to meditation, others to intensive excercice, others to sleep, to avoid thinking.
A good friend of mine, knowing I am off to Europe, shared a link about Le Petit Prince. Watching the clip, I was amused at the grown up prince, in his plane, singing "I need air!" Disgusted by the adults who affirm that the elephant within the boa constrictor is a hat, the little prince takes off to be in the air, to share the sky with God, as he says in the clip.
I haven't even left yet, but thought I should post one more blog, since, yes folks, there are more changes to my trip which I must mention.
Change number 1: I am not going to France.
Change number 2: In lieu of replacement, I am going to Croatia.
My reaction: Why not?
At first, the idea of not visiting France, which to me means baguette, crunchy croissants, fourme d'Ambert.... I will stop there.... was dissapointing. That said, Croatia now seems just as enticing. For those who have not had the chance to see this gorgeous country, I would say the three attractions I love are fish, sea and sun. Long beaches, sun-drenched villas covered by bougainvillea, fish markets that never end.... voila Croatia.
P.S.: In case anyone is interested, the picture on this page is one I took in Verona, Italy. Just to give a foretaste....
dimanche 12 juin 2011
Time for some adventure
For those people to whom I have talked to in the past couple of months, you all know I am about to embark on another crazy, reckless annual adventure. So this blog is created for you, friends, to follow me as I undertake solo adventures in Austria, France and Italy. This means leaving beloved friends and bf in Sherbrooke, family in Sutton, the comforts of Canadian living, and trading in for new cultures, new food, and so on.
So why did I call this blog "Spain pilgrimage"? Fear not, I haven't lost my marbles yet. Plans changed at the last minute, my best friend Lea couldn't come with me, so I glanced at a map of Europe and, after sensible advice from my ever-wise father Fred, chose to tour France. Cities on my list? So far: Albi, Carcassone, Chartres, Corsica and Avignon.
Is this still a pilgrimage? Definitely. Even if this won't be a heroic, back-breaking pilgrimage on a dusty road, this will be a pilgrimage to a French cathedral. Very probably Chartres.
One might ask why do a pilgrimage in the 21st century. After all, we are all individualistic humanists, geared towards technological and scientific accomplishments, aren't we? Haven't we successfully turned our back to religion? Wrong, I dare to say. Yes, secularism is the state of modern society. But no, that doesn't mean we aren't looking for the "meaning of life". Look at ashrams in Tibet flooded by confused Occidentals, look at yoga-practicing Americans and Canadians, look at the never-ending flow of books being written about spirituality. Let's face it: religion may not be today's obsession, but spirituality is.
This blog will try to incorporate both. I would define myself as both religious and spiritual, and heading by myself to seek European cathedrals should awaken some questions within me which I hope will create some reactions.
Once this journey begins as of June 19th, friends, let me whet your appetite with Vienna, city of music and culture, and then allow me to whisk you through the Austrian Alps. Next up: northern Italy (Turin) and architecture. Main course: a week in Corsica, French island bathed in sunshine and blue skies. Dessert: French towns (mentioned above), French culture and French food of course.
That's the menu offered. I hope it draws you close!
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