One day in Carinthia

... can be like this:

Sledge-family-time on the top of the Villacher Alpe, aka Dobratsch, close to the Italian and Slovenian order in the south of Austria, aka Carinthia. 

 The mountain builds a barrier and plays a major role for the local weather. It is really windy stormy on the top of the mountain. The view and the landscape pay off the rough condition on top.

Italy and Slovenia behind the mountains

You can not see the wind, but believe, it' right there! ... everwhere! In the Alps this special wind is called Föhn, english: foen. It is a wind that warms up while falling down from a high mountain. Well, here we are close to the mountain top, where the wind keeps falling down and slapped our faces. 

Larches dip the mountains in yellow shades in the autumn season.

The poles mark the way to the top

 I almost fell over - the wind was blowing so hard at this spot. In the photo the scenery looks so calm.

I tied the extra-shirt around my neck and face. Kept me warm!

from left to right: Ossiacher Lake, Wörthersee-Lake and Faakersee-Lake, the city of Villach in the middle of the valley. 10 min by car and you are in Italy!

The snow line is at 800-900mt, the large valley is green. The farmers are getting worried, since many plants need frost. Otherwise too many vermins survive the winter.

Ski touring works quite well with dogs as companions, as I noticed today. I also noticed how absolutely fit those people are, who walk up the mountains in Carinthia. People at any age, male and female. I take a bow.

Every single person who crossed our way smiled at us. We smiled back. The perfect antidote for uptight townspeople like us.

 Usually Jesus would be nailed on a cross, but here the tree decided otherwise.

 On our way to the Pyramidenkogel observation tower, we passed a ski jump that was busy. For the first time we saw this place in action. A very local experience. Including mulled wine and homemade cakes. :-)

 

 The pillars seem to be bending, but they are absolutely vertical. Fascinating design!

 Posters provide information:

Lake Wörthersee, towards Klagenfurt

We have been coming to Carinthia for almost a decade and every time, we discover new pleasantries.
 xo
Paula

Finally, immersing

Having listened to German internet radio stations, day in day out, in 2013, I finally made it to the Russian internet radio stations.

I am not quite sure, if I a listening to a Russian mass right now. ?!?

I enjoy decoding what I hear (I switched from the rather strange station to a news station):

Listening to a foreign language that you hardly unterstand is to me like solving difficult crosswords. In the beginning you have absolutely no clue. Over time it becomes less and less obscure and you start to recognise single words.

In the beginning you will probably hear mostly a melody and understand only a few words. My "puzzle" today included journey, friends, tomorrow, listen, lesson, speak, wish, many, twenty, riot, street, now, good, question, surely, eighteen. And no racism. It gets ... funny - ok, probably more ... embarrassing, when you realise, you have interpreted a word SOOO wrong for the whole past hour while they were talking about ... ! Want an example? Take racism. They did not say racism. Not a single time. All they said was Россия, Russia, which  - pronounced Russian - sounds a lot like "racism", especially when you are new to Russian.

It can get very, very annoying when you hear a word have learned half a year ago, but you can't remember the meaning. Lets take четверг. четверг. четверг. Come on, четверг. Arrgh. Thursday. Yes, of course!
I did not find it in my brains but went searching online. "four", forty, forth ... this one did not take too long. Wikipedia is a great source. One leads to you the other, Thursday leads to Friday and you learn that the oil on canvas is butter in Russian. Ok, you probably have to have a love for human languages to enjoy games like these.

I assume you like the sound of the language you are learning. Why else would you learn it? Listening to internet radio stations delivers the joy of listening to that unique melody that defines the foreign language.

In case you are trying to learn German and wish to immerse (I have to admit, I have no clue, how many people enjoy listening to the German "melody") I highly recommend the 3 DEUTSCHLAND RADIO stations: DRadio Wissen, Deutschlandfunk, Deutschlandradio Kultur, available right here.

Good news: 2014 I will take extra good care of you, my dear readers, having Raymond Murphy at my side. Thank you for being patient with me. Punctuation and tenses call me!

 

Happy listening!
Paula

New Tradition

Hello, New Year!

Last year Mr Paula and I started a New Tradition: around New Year we like to visit the Lainzer Tiergarten. The Lainzer Tiergarten is a huge park where the upper class hunts during the hunting season, that's why there are walls all around the huuuge park - today as well as approx. 120 years ago. The park is open to the public. You can walk or hike for ours and today - so to say the 2nd time when we did this around New Year's Day - we also used the walk to check our fitness status. Not bad, not bad at all!

 

We were not the only ones to visit Lainzer Tiergarten today. We literally ran into my brother in law (he running uphill, I running downhill), earlier we met a lovely woman from the Vienna Design Week and her whole family ... ah, I love it, when the city magically turns into a village, where anonymity is an unknown catagory.

Enough with the words, I let the photos speak for themselves. All pictures taken with the SIGMA DP2, a few crops, all JPG out of cam.

The 3 kings admire the new born and I admire the scenery.

One of my most favourite motives ever: to take a photo of people while they are taking photos.

I hope you enjoyed the picture-tour as much as we did.

Yery much to my surprise I fleed the New Year's Concert. I don't know what Daniel Barenboim had intended, I am very sorry to say, his selection bored me no end. In the past years - so to say the past 25 years the least) I was paralyzed by the concert and could not leave the living room. 2 hours full with waltz, polka and marches. After partying. Hardcore concert experience.
Today I was so disappointed. Maybe the chemistry between him and the Philarmonic orchestre did not work out? However, we left the house at an hour where we would sit at the dining table, drink orange juice and listend to the concert. Not this year. The light in the Lainzer Tiergarten evened everything out. No disappointment lft at the end of the day.

Happy New Year!
Paula