Austria (August 2009) Diaries - part two
Monday, September 14, 2009

part one here... (essential to read before this part, obv)
holiday photos here...

Tuesday 11th August:

• NB to Monday - how could I forget Rhythm of the Rain by Jason Donovan? It occurred to me last night when there was heavenly torrential downpour and illicit tipsy activities were undertaken like stealing a parasol from a cafe bar and running home under it. Then there was thunder. All through the night. Did not see Jesus in the morning light as promised by Prince (possibly due to now being criminal element)...
• Forgot to mention that have been reading (now finished - Poppy and Kwame 4eva, etc) Diary Of A Snob with my thumb positioned over the S, thus drawing withering glance of STRW from plane and loud titters of chav family in fake kappa "trackies". Oh dear.
• Went on ANOTHER forest hike today and was soon "sweating buckets" from steepness of The Climb (miley cyrus). Decided to turn back after an hour as path was becoming less and less pathlike and due to thinness of air, I was having an out of body experience and thinking I was in Lost and was sensible doctor, Jack...
• I was sensible doctor Jack mixed with other Matthew Fox(y) character Charlie, from weepfest Party of Five (now airing on Hallmark channel fact fans). Darren was actual Charlie from Lost (but with clearner fingernails and no drugs stuffed inside Virgin Mary). Nice Austrian woman at edge of forest/civilisation was crazy Russo and her husband chomping on his pipe was Smoke Monster. It took 2 raspberry jaffa cakes to bring me back to reality.
• After 2 hour exhausting trek and gently mosey around village, sensible thing to do seemed to be to go to hotel gym. MP3 player still DNR so I did 40 mins of laps in quite chilly pool (due to be quite high altitude, in clouds and outdoors) while singing every track from seminal 1989 Electric Youth...
• Including all the acoustic and campfire mixes of songs I'd already sung.
• Was going to do a gentle walk in the early evening up to Russerhof or Rasselheiner or something, but both sounded like strange lovechild of tv weirdies Elizabeth Hasselback or David "Call Me Hoff" Hasslehoff, so gave up on idea and played scrabble instead...

• How is it Wednesday already? Week is half over (celebrated American "hump" day with traditional dazpaz British hump this am) which means only a few days until I am back battling the rat race with the rest of the hoi polloi/wage slaves. The indignity of it all.
• Am being adventurous today and crossing Austrian border to Germany today. Didn't even need passport, that is how free and liberal border control is nowadays. Not like when I cam back from Toronto to NY and had left a lollipop wrapper stuck to passport. Long story short, large borders control man Greg mistook it for a "tab" and poked his finger up my bum-oley looking for heroin whilst waiting for lab results on lollipop wrapper to prove my innocence...
• Went up 6000ft mountain to Eagle's Nest, which was apparently a present to Hitler from the Nazi party in 1938 (hardly a party were they?!). What no HMV vouchers that year? You go up to it in this lift at end of tunnels dug into a mountain. Can't help but feel it was a bit of a crap gift as looney Hitler was claustrophobic, scared of heights and suffered from altitude sickness...
• "Say what you want about the Nazi party" said chubby z-lebrity John from tv's Coach Trip (who was tour guide for the day) "but they were geniuses at engineering and architecture". Yes absolutely. That makes up for the slaughter of millions of Jews then - brilliant architecture.
• Whole place is now a restaurant so was up there 2 hours with not much to do, though some quite nice mini hikes and pretty views. Didn't try the Schnitlerzel at the cafe, but the Eva Brownies were a culinary triumph :P
• Also went down some cold damp bunker where Hitler hid from the air raids. Tour guide told us that if we felt through the gaps in the wall you could feel the original ceramic pipework. Excuse me for being a party pooper, but I ain't fingering Hitler's mouldy old hole for love nor money (excellent Debbie Gibson song title btw).
• Have become absolute social butterfly in hotel dining room as now know all the guests including miserable old coot who complains about the price of strudel daily. Flit from table to table regaling them with brilliant anecdotes from the day. Eva Brownies was particularly beloved...

• Woke up moody from continued kippus interruptus and continued mourning of MP3 player. Luckily have bought 3 books with me (finished 2, so just rereading The Deathly Hallows) and a plethora of magaines so have kept myself entertained and educated with my early morning risings...
• Unhealthy addiction to cinnamon toast crunch cereal soon perked me up as did post brekkie dip in pool. Today I chose to sing every track from brilliant 2008 album "Pop" by Same Difference. Except Breaking Free which is now rendered redundant by We R One.
• Forced Darren to go back to bed after swim as was very fatty-gay.
• (*forced as in whined incessantly about his rubbish mattress and how tired I was, not forced in a rapey way!)
• Did not want to waste whole day in bed (that is for the newly relationshipped and unemployed) so got back up just before noon and hiked up the quite high actually Kimmel Waterfalls. Is very steep trek so probably needed Sherpa, but footpaths and handrails were all I got. Was very pretty indeed even if spray-mist permeated every fibre of my being.
• This of course meant thata sun tan lotion has run all down my face and I did not notice white streaky marks everywhere until I got to bottom (2 hours and passing multiple people later). Looked like an extra from Cum Guzzlers 3: Farm Hand Studs (Excellent movie by the way, great plot)...
• Though am not a stud at moment. Feel old and fat. Must be psychological as when I breath in and look in the mirror, I look quite presentable, nay even do-able. Must be an R-Kelly thing (no, not sex with minors (ALLEGEDLY etc), but a "my mind's telling me no, but my body, my boooo-dy" etc)
• Got back just before another torrential downpour. Stood on balcony watching all the people on street below running like crazy people. Tried ever so hard not to feel smug, but is very hard when you are a non-parasol stealing, law abiding and dry citizen...
• Citizen! Reminds me of the 60s batman tv show reruns ("Citizens of Gotham!") ~ Robin was well alluring in his heyday. Pity he aged horribly.
• Which is actually what people say about me so I am reminding myself that it is inner beauty that counts and there I am a stunner!

• Realised today that finding interesting and "witty" things to write about in the very laxidaisical St Johann on a daily basis is actually quite a feat. Am now quite proud of my observational skills as there are only so many ways that you can write "went up a hill" and make it scintillating.
• Although we did actually go up another hihll today and it was ridiculously steep. Practically vertical (not horizontal as I mortifyingly and accidentally told a couple at dinner. No wonder they looked unimpressed). It was quite hot again as well, so once again the sweat glands were working overtime. Or as my possibly racially and gaybo intolerant old aunt used to say "horses sweat, navvies perspire, but ladies and poofters merely twinkle"...
• Which is quite lovely and poetic in a twisted sort of way, I feel...
• I better have lost weight on this holiday - have hiked and biked everywhere and not really had desire to stuff face. Although I did have a white Magnum ice cream the other day, and haven't actually "been" to the toilet since I got here, so it's no wonder that I feel a bit doughy...
• Also noticed that in photos this week, my face is very liney, like lovely Sean from Same Difference. I am of the ilk where I like to think lines add a bit of character to my face whereas Darren will do everything in his power to eradicate his. Maybe I should be a bit more diligent with the L'Oreal for Men Wrinkle Decrease though...
• Because I'm worth it too :)
• Time to go home now. Thanks for having me...

Posted by Paul 7:06 am 1 comments  

Austria August 2009 Diaries
Sunday, August 16, 2009

Saturday August 8th:

• Usually I enjoy the people watching of the airport, but I was surviving on 4 hours of sleep and a 3.30am wake up call so most of it passed me by. I do remember being vaguely outraged that there is no longer a Starbucks at Birmingham airport, merely a (prepare to shudder in horror everyone) Costa Coffee. How hideous :/
• The plane flight was a brisk 1 hour and 45 minutes - just enough time to get stuck into one of my holiday reads, Diary of A Snob by Grace Dent. I do not think these things out. It has a bright pink cover with a lipstick on it and it drew a withering glance from Snooty Times Reading Woman (STRW) next to me... (I realised why later in the week!)
• People don't half get dead excited by the food on the plane. It was sausage and eggs breakfast and I truly think that people believed a guy called Ed in a chef's hat had scrambled the eggs over a hot stove at the front on the plane. Ninnies.
• Ed had clearly scrambled the eggs with evil because they tasted like baby vomit (and I would know, my nephew once threw up in my face). Darren said the sausage was nice, but I am choosy and I wasn't about to gorge on Ed's meat after his sloppy evil eggs...
• STRW prayed to mother nature over her vegetarian option (seriously - God knows why because there was nothing natural there at all), but then thought better of eating it and just pocketed the prepacked muffin into her "fannypack" (ooer, etc)...
• Miracle of miracles - our bags were (specifically) 2nd and 5th off the conveyer belt and we were soon directed to our hotel by holiday rep Peter - the gorgeous Hotel Dorfschmidt...
• Not the Hotel Dogshit as some common as muck on the bottom of the Primark flip flops family tittered behind us on the coach. Savages...
• Hotel was actually very gorgeous - incredibly old, like Madonna, and set at the foot of the Kitzbulehorn Mountain range so we had a view of those dusty peaks wherever we looked. Our room was quite boutique chic (massive walk in wardrobe) with a ginormous (love that word) balcony covered in delicious smelling flowers...
• Of course this means that wasps are drawn to the balcony like a moth to the flame drawn by the fire so while Darren ignores them, I am pirohuetting around all over the place like Billy Elliot (only less graceful and without the Tonys) every time they come near. This means I barely get through a page of Diary... or even Entertainment Weekly (the one with abtastic Ryan Reynolds on the cover)...

Sunday 9th August:

• My much needed boutique chic sleep was rudely interrupted. Monsieur (or Missure as someone at work spelt it in an email the other week! Lumme!) Dazricht of Panteloonemheimer's mattress creaked noisily every time he moved, which was quite often. I tried burying my head in the pillow but the creaks or his snoring (like a sailor on shore leave) soon wafted through. Booooo!!!
• And then my mp3 (Archos) player died - completely kaput. This is obviously a tragedy of gargantuan proportions as it plays movies/tv shows too and I was halfway through an episode of Buffy, where Giles and Buffy's mom eat lots of candy and canoodle with each other.
• And does no one remember that before the hugely overrated Twilight existed (yes I know I liked it initially, but i've seen through the smoke and mirrors now ta very much and tedious plotting and writing is tedious plotting and writing), Buffy had the best vampire love story ever with hunky brooding Angel (who btw would beat Edward Cullen to a pulp)?
• Went to the welcome meeting where Peter Holiday Rep was very pleased to see us. Perhaps he gets very excited to see people not wearing lederhosen because he was soon assuring us that if we required ANYTHING, we could call on him anytime day or night. ANYTIME! Blimey luv, calm down - you might spaffle. I was fingering my ring at the time, so I think he got the message...
• As it was boiling hot (not literally - I didn't boil), apparently the sensible thing to do is go on the keep fit jogging trail up through the forest into the mountains. It was almost treacherous with little "stop drop and give me twenty" exercise signs everywhere. Call me lazy, but i'm not doing star jumps on the edge of a muddy ravine...
• ... so when we got back to the hotel, we made use of the gym and pool. I did some cycling. On a stationary bike. Inside. In austria. If you do not get the irony of this (and my slight misuse of the word irony) then there really is no hope for you is there?
• The pool was nice though. Then we played mario party on the DS, which unlike gargantuan tragedy of my ka-put mp3 player (did I mention that?) is not broken. I was winning as Peaches right until the end when Darren/Yoshi practically molested 2 stars out of me. I don't think that little princess will ever recover :/
• Sat with some nice people at dinner. I regaled them with stories of my office's broken sewer pipes. They were so enraptured that not one of them finished their schnitzel. Awww...

Monday 10th August:

• Made the non-german speaking mistake of buying sparkling water last night from the local Spar (ooo how provincial). Went back this morning to get the one with the different label as assumed it was still. It was not still. Sparkling again! I am completely bamboozled.
• Went up to Rattenberg and beautiful Lake Archanssee today (by cog powered railway Pete Waterman fans). Rattenberg is famous for some nun called Notburga who threw a sickle in the air and it never came down. Personally I think her name is a marketing person's dream, her creaky old bones on display in a church, not so much...
• The lake (set up in a mountain) was proper pretty. It was quite cold as we were right in the clouds. Darren and I bought a value chocolate bar (Spar again) and walked round the like, but after about 6km, I was sick of being attacked by giant butterflies (they are terrifying) so we hiked back and went on a boat trip instead.
• We sat next to a proper noddy on the boat trip though - he kept saying things like "the velocity of the water crashing down for thousands of years has created the most amazing rock formations. Sarah, take a picture". I swear I didn't mean to say "really professor Frink" out loud - or at least not out loud enough for him to hear ;)
• It rained quite a bit - here are 5 songs about rain (in no particular order of brilliance) that I sang to an unappreciative Darren: Rain (Madonna); Naked In The Rain (Blue Pearl); Kiss The Rain (Billie Myers); Come On In Out of The Rain (Wendy Moten) and Here Comes The Rain (Eurythmics).
• The day started with hearing the brilliant Martika's Kitchen, was punctuated by a Tyrolean radio station playing Jolene and La Isla Bonita and ended with a man at the hotel playing Black or White on a zitha. Don't ask!
• Foodwise, the day started with Cinammon Toast Crunch (never had them before, utterly delicious - americans, please send box loads now as not available in England. I will email you address :P) was punctuated with that value chocolate bar and ended up chatting to a lovely family over some barbecue beef. When we asked their son what music he liked and he said "Enter Shakiri", I misheard and said "ooo I like Shakira" before I could even stop myself :/

Part two coming soon! All holiday snaps here!

Posted by Paul 5:34 am 1 comments  

Labels: austria 2009