No kangaroos in Austria

The prophet’s birthday this weekend…lots of firecrackers and fireworks on Thursday night, not to mention at least one child being hit and killed, and a second (unrelated) child being hit and put in a coma…nice one, you irresponsible hoons, learn to freaking drive.

Anyway, on a less disturbing note, we had pleasant holiday in Austria/Germany. Four nights in Vienna based at a lovely little pension just out of town centre. This time included a day trip out to Europe’s largest underground lake (a flooded salt mine; for some reason the tour included a stop-off at the hunting lodge where a crown prince killed himself and his girlfriend 100 years ago. Said stop-off included a guided tour and time to buy souvenirs). We also visited the local palace and local monastery. It turns out monks make really good wine. And they knew it too, to judge by the celebratory table situated in the cellars.

We visited the butterfly house (for warmth as well as insect observation); the State Hall, now a rather lovely old-book library with baroque decor eg 3D ceiling frescos; and the globe museum - not nearly as cool as a watch&clock museum, though the Ambassador disagrees. And also indulgenced our kitschy tourist selves with a Mozart concert (held daily! Includes costumes!) and a ‘no kangaroos in Austria’ fridge magnet.

A week or so in the Salzkammergut, based in Fuschl-am-see (25 minutes out of Salzburg), where we discovered a lovely little café serving a beautiful chicken with gorgonzola sauce, a fantastic Caesar salad, and a parfait which was like icecream cake for adults. Oh, and the area was nice too: we went skiing for a couple of days, visited the ruins of a castle, relaxed.

Up to southern Germany, where we based ourselves near the Romantic Road and more-or-less drove up and down it for a few days visiting little walled towns with medieval history and towers to climb. One was situated in a meteorite crater, which is all very well and good but the crater’s so large and old you can’t really tell. This portion of the trip ended up with a visit to Lake Constance dividing Germany from Switzerland, where we visited my favourite castle yet: Die Meersburg, said to be the oldest intact castle in Europe (or possibly just Germany).

And then to Hitler’s playground, Berchtesgaden. That Fuhrer, he knew where the picturesque spots were. Okay, there is a little bit of Nazi-tourism there, what with the Eagle’s Nest and all, but it’s not all there is. Unfortunately for us, snow had been poor (so no trying snowboarding for us, as no baby slopes were open) but that didn’t mean any no-snow activities had re-opened early. However, aside from an awful awful tour of a salt mine (the salt mine itself was interesting, it’s the touristy side of it that sucked), we had a lovely old time hiking down the mountain (yes, down; we caught the cable car up first), shopping, relaxing on the balcony of our hotel with a bottle of sekt and 86% dark chocolate (too much, I’ll stick with 70%). We also took a boat tour on Lake Konigssee and took a walk to see the ‘ice dome’ which was not readily apparent, however very many avalanches coming off the rock-face were, and that was amazing. Oh, and our little hotel had a restaurant in the basement, which featured an almond-encrusted venison schnitzel with cranberries that put any Australian variant of this national dish to shame.

Emergency: almost out of Vegemite. What disgustingly salty spread am I going to have for breakfast now?
Reading: Watching the English by Kate Fox, an engaging and clever anthropological analysis of English behaviour. Recommended.
Watching: Battlestar Galactica, halfway through S3. I’ve heard the finale is great. Well, good. Well, alright.
Knitting: a tea cosy.
Up next: pottery town.

One year anniversary

One year anniversary

It’s been just over a year since we came to Tripoli, so this post is a photo-less session devoted to a few of the things that have changed since then.

Let’s see…there’s a couple of Egyptian fast food chains now, but no McDonalds (yet). Coke’s shown up, in the stores and in actual vending machines – it was rare when I got here (rumour: not allowed in because of Coke factory in Israel, conveniently circumvented due to Coke factory in Tunisia) and still is in restaurants, where Pepsi holds sway. Coke, by the way, translates nicely into Arabic, as this other blog agrees. On a ‘Big Two’ fight I actually care about: Mastercard ATMs have proliferated even down to our end of town, while Visa needs to Lift Its Game and supply more than the two constantly-out-of-order ATMs it currently has in-country.

The roads are busier than ever. We saw our chummy plumber from a year ago today; he was driving a brand-new car and so are a lot of people. Car dealerships have popped up all along Gargaresh, and, as one expat put it, ‘that bloody woman driver in that bloody yellow car’ is all over the place ie every day, I see women learning to drive in yellow learner cars, and they’re braver than I am to get behind the wheel for the first time ever in this place – I only hope their instructors are teaching them the organic rules, not the real ones if they even exist (Men, by the way, don’t have to pass any kind of driving test to prove they’re roadworthy, which explains a lot).

One unwelcome addition to the roads is four-wheel-drives, which recently became legal and have naturally become the car of choice for the privileged little brats. I’ve even seen a Hummer, those 4WD tanks that are twice as big as what Australians consider a 4WD. But that was a nice Schadenfreude feeling as we gradually left it behind completely gridlocked in traffic along Garagaresh, because here’s a clue for drivers here: small gaps require small cars.

Can’t park on Green Square anymore, and there’s even been photo and art exhibitions held on the previous parking lot. Meanwhile, bus stops have shown up…unused as far as I can tell except for parking in front of and sleeping on. The buses (a shared-taxi kind of system) remain the bane of other cars with their erratic, aggressive driving and the authorities change their mind regularly about where the buses get to pull over on the coastal road to the office.

Advertising became legal quite a few years ago, and the airport has gradually got a few billboards up, but billboards in general have remained rare, and people on billboards rarer still. Alcohol, still not legal. Lots of new restaurants, standards still low (even the ones that open well gradually decline in quality). I’ve mentioned the new clothing stores before. New supermarkets are opening, but there’s still just the one large one; range of products still limited but expanding. There’s a brand new multi-storey building coming up on the large Souk Thalat roundabout, rumoured to be a new mega-giant-super-market, we’ll see if it ever gets finished (hint to the builders: surely you have room for a multi-screen cinema in there…).

Lots more tourists in the medina and prices rising accordingly. Less rubbish on the roads…could be I just don’t notice it anymore. We haven’t lost power for ages, even during a massive thunderstorm last night (weather otherwise as pleasant a spring as could be wished for), so that bodes well for infrastructure upgrades.

Next week: a little about our holiday in Austria and Germany.