From other cultures and customs

Hello! Here comes my report after 14 days in the cabin! We are still alive and realize that you don't have to travel far to get to know other cultures. But more on that later!
How are you all doing in the last days of summer!? The vacations are almost over everywhere. It's not unbearably hot anymore, from what I hear. So hopefully you are enjoying the last days of August.
We (or rather, I) struggled a bit last week to adapt to the culture up here. The "getting along with everyone" - "doing your job well" is deeply ingrained.
Now there are moments when I manage to rise above it and let the cabin owner indulge in her quirks!
Maybe I exaggerated a bit in the last post with the description of the unspoken expectations. The cause for that was surely my own disappointed expectations. But overall, it remains the same: the work and the surroundings here at the cabin are not fulfilling. Helmut thinks it's exemplary and transferable to other cabins. I don't think so. There are surely other cabins with eccentric cabin owners and weak teams. But we have also experienced many that are managed differently and where people work together differently. And I also believe that we would be fine up here and wouldn't leave so often if we felt more comfortable.

So, what is nice in these weeks and makes us stay? Having time off and going on trips. Graz, Fürstenfeld, Vienna. We have already traveled a lot on our days off. But also being able to go on a hiking tour, visit the neighbors, go to the cows. By now, I don't get annoyed anymore by spontaneous half-day off or take forever to get out of a bad mood, which smokes through the house here like cigarette smoke from the landlady's apartment.

And something meets us here in the Alpine foothills for the first time on our travels this year: No matter where we go, it's really empty and quiet. (apart from the 67 pensioners who invaded the cabin yesterday with 2 busses from Styria). We go to Graz on our day off: the majority of cafes and shops are on summer vacation until the end of August. I visit the Waldbach organic nonsense forest pool: nobody is there. Even the lifeguard is not there yet. We want to spontaneously go to the evening concert at the swing festival: no problem, there are still enough tickets. You can get a parking space everywhere, a seat in the inn.
So in that regard: On your next vacation, go to Styria or Burgenland. They have cleared forest paths everywhere, cleared everything and replanted it as uniformly as possible, put cows in the meadows everywhere, which create beautiful paths in the meadows and fertilize everything automatically. No, down below it's already pretty in the sunshine. A bit like the Allgäu.
As a tourist, you can quickly find your way around culinary-wise here. The offer of soup, Beuschel, and Gesöchts is the same everywhere. They also gladly offer things from the standard frozen food assortment. From Kaiserschmarrn to Topfenstrudel. Very important: All places for warm food close at 5pm. But it's unhealthy to eat so much in the evening anyway. At the counter here, I have also learned many new things about drinking culture. I find it sympathetic that the trend here is to mix everything with mineral water in half-liter portions. Not just juice or white wine (by the way, this mixture has numerous names: Spritzer, Weißer gespritzt, weiße Mischung, Sommerspritzer...). Here, they also like to mix Cola, Almdudler, orange soda, which is called Frucade here. Or raspberry soda, which is called red Krachel. They also like to drink it as a Dipperl filled with red or white wine. Radler with Almdudler, beer with water... they don't know any limits here. If it's ordered light/leit (?), they might want the mixture with tap water. On our trips, we were shocked by the still very pronounced smoking culture of the Austrians. It's crazy how many people smoke here! A smoking ban in gastronomy will only be enforced this year in November. Austria is actually the only OECD country where the smoking rate is still increasing. Allegedly, it's currently just under 24%. At the Africa Festival on the Donauinsel yesterday evening, it must have been 50%! (the other 50% were smoking pot). And another sad truth: Austrians don't eat licorice. I had suppressed my childhood experience: We were hiking in the Zillertal with the family. A faithful companion was my Knight Rider audio cassette where Michael Knight buys and eats licorice alongside catching criminals. Of course, I also developed a craving for the black sweet stuff and back then, Mom and I searched all supermarkets in vain. If I had remembered, I would have imported the stuff from Germany in the good Aldi mix. In large quantities and maybe I could have introduced completely new culinary traditions here.
And with this vision, I say goodbye to you for today: Servus, Pfiati, Baba... Totally Austrian style!