Winter in Austria

Although I expected this, I've had a long drought of blogp posts since being here. Technically I've hardly written any. This I do apologize for! But please let me explain a few high lights of the Winter season in Austria.

I'll begin with the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Flying back to Austria from a brief celebration with my whole family and visitng my brother, Andrew, and his family, Christy and Eden (and since January a new baby boy!)in Madrid, I already missed my family but had an adverturous evening to look forward to! On the tiny Air Dolomiti airplane, which succeeds in giving you a fancy mousse or couscous type salad, complimentary champagne, and espresso within 45 minutes time, I happened to sit next to a lady who had just come from an English/foreign language conference. She insisted that I also request a glass of champagne with her as we watched the sun starting to set on the snowy Alps. I arrived back into Klagenfurt and planned to spend the rest of the day with my other TA friends who were celebrating Thanksgiving and were planning to visit the infamous Krampuslauf in good spirits. As the turkey was gone, the mashed potatoes were being licked off their plates, and the apple pie was nowhere insight but rather in full tummies, I was simply happy to see their faces and celebrate the beginning of a new season...Christmas!

The rest of this infamous Saturday evening was dedicated to the Krampuslauf. If you are not aware of what this exactly entails, I will try to explain it but must mention that it's also something you have to experience to get the full affect! Krampus is a part of an old Austrian/German tradition called St. Nikolaus Day, which is every Deceber 6th. Although the official date is the 6th, it's traditional that children get a visit from St. Nikolaus on December the 5th and receive either sweets for their good deeds or a few threats from St. Nikolaus's companion, Krampus. Krampus is essentially a very frightening little devil who looks like he dwells in the caves of the mountains all year long. So, a Krampuslauf is a run/parade through the city full of all the Krampuses from all the villages in Carinthia. In small villages and towns, like Feldkirchen and Hermagor for example, they have no hesitation to attack adults and small children with their bundles of twigs! See, very scary! Thankfully my first Krampus experience was experienced behind metal barriers on the streets so they couldn't come tackle us. With that said, I did get a few whips but it didn't matter as we were warm, happy, and excited with the company of each other, the spectacle of the event, and lots of yummy Glühwein!



Glühwein could possibly be one of my favorite things about the Christmas season in Austria...during Christmas there are stands of it everwhere! The old Füßgänger (foot go-er, pedestrian) zone of Klagenfurt was completely decorated with hanging twinkle lights and stands up and down the whole path. A bit of snow made the whole experience dreamlike. Paired with some roasted chestnuts from a stand nearby, it couldn't get better.

SKI: ENOUGH SAID...need its own post


To catch you up to speed, here is a video I made from Fall-New Years. http://vimeo.com/18665213

Liebe Grüße,
Kathi