A commercial I have frequently spotted on Austrian TV while I was in Innsbruck. I suppose it had been there during the whole EURO2008. I guess it's no longer there now.
I'll just put this on the top until I come back.



Watch me perform the art of deep sigh.

1.
I heart Schoenbrunn

2.
If there is this thing as Fritz x Prussia, there just has got to be Sisi x Hungary too...

3.
After Franz Joseph heard about the assasination, he said only one sentence:
"You do not know how much I loved this woman."

I almost cried for this man (for several times)...damn...

4.
I almost cried for Maria Theresia too when the audioguide read her diaries after Franz Stephen died. What was with these Austrian emperor/esses, an overdose of Venus-ness?

5.
Consort is a nice word.

1.
I must have left my heart somewhere in the streets of Vienna. Will try to find it tomorrow. If there is no avails, then might just as well let it stay there.
I acknowledge at no time that Franz Joseph and Sisi are both very problematic human beings, each in his/her own way. But they have good sense of aesthetics.

2.
While doing the laundry read the last bit of the "decline and fall of the Habsburg empire". Not really to prep myself for any schloss visiting tomorrow, but merely because all the computers were occupied and have nothing else to read.
The more I read, the more I feel that the Ausgleich is not so much of a marriage rather than an official seperation - of the house, of the furniture, of the bank account, of the concubines...(apologise to the Slavic world right now)
And also the more I read, the less I know about how to feel about Hungary. How can one be so defiantly progressive (for the Magyars) and relentlessly repressive (to the Slavs and Romes) at the same time? Now here's an interesting idea popping out from the book:

"...Hungary's insecurity about her national in dependence meant that she would not allow it to be risked by granting equal rights to the nationalities within her boundaries - the Slovaks, the Romanians, the Serbs and the Croats."

Somehow the boldfaced word enchanted me a little bit. Also may I call this explanation the equivalent to the common saying we all know, that the Sadistics are actually swords made of glass?
And yet still, I tend to feel that what she has been having throughout the years, despite a track record of both misery and guilt, is a truly inherent proudness - one that seems so innocent it is hard to blame, or sympathize her.
Now I know why I have been thinking in my mind that it would be great to have Austria sing the line "even in your pride, I never blamed you" to Hungary.

3. the post-modern, super-realistic extended version of the two-men-one-woman joke I read on the wall of the laundrette:

The first Russian man married the Russian woman and divorced her. He is the best customer to the Irish distillery.
The second Russian man made money by assassinating the second Italian man on demand (by the first Italian man), and making exit visas for the Bulgarian men. With these he bought 33.3% of the Irish distillery, including its distribution rights to the English people. He then hired the two Greek men as sales agents. The two German men were employed as rotating bodyguards of himself and his Russian girlfriend - hence the strict schedule (for the German men to visit the German woman). He sees the Swedish woman regularly to improve his English.
And with all these going on, the French still think themselves are the only ones on the island.

yu3 wei2 ye3 na4 shi4 min2 yi4 qi3 wei2 guan1 le ao4 di4 li4 lu4 jun1 yi2 zhang4 dui4, yi3 ji2 ao4 xi1 liang3 guo2 yuan2 shou3.

Regarding to the "life is a game" commercial currently hanging on top of this page...It may have been retracted out of the limelight on TV, but the huge billboards providing a close-up shot of the two flags vividly tonguing each other are still visible everywhere. It is on the wall of a back alley from my hostel to the westbahnhof. It is even outside the train station of Mariazell. Now, if everyone only realize how tiny, deeply-inland and non-frequented Mariazell is...

Anyway I spent the whole afternoon accomplishing my mission of stampeding, sorry I mean caressing, Mariazell. Of course, 90% of the time is spent on transportation to there, which involves first a considerably fast connection to St. Poelten, the capital of Lower Austria, and then a small and deeply sun-baked slow train up the hill and zigzagging among the mountains, stopping at every station there is. Now, I have nothing against that, it is actually quite enjoyable, if only the window of the carriage can be allowed to be opened down to half-height! I am not even asking for any kind of air-conditioning here. I merely hope that the temperature difference of inside/outside will not be 5 centigrades higher or more. The view along the ride is cute, not anything magnificent after Innsbruck or Salzburg, but really cute. Before ascending there were endless wheat fields, sunflower fields, and vineyards. After that it was just the green hills, trees, creeks or lakes. Occasionally some lovely little house that everyone would want to live in, or a wide ranch several tens of meters down under with a couple of horses grazing indifferently.

After 3 hours of slow steaming I finally alighted the train, feeling that if only there were some ginger, spring onion and soya sauce sprinkled over me, I would be just ready to be served. I took a 40 minutes quick walk to a point where the famous basilica is visible to the naked eye and back to the station. The thing is just that the train ride takes so long and it was already quite late in the afternoon (almost 5 pm) and I was deeply afraid that it would be the last train available back to St. Poelten. It is a risk a bit too high for me to take. Of course, after I returned to St. Poelten I discovered the last train was actually at 6pm, so I could well have spent an hour more there, but let the past be past. The basilica was good-looking even from a distance, and the walk was enjoyable both in terms of temperature and view, and I feel good enough for myself.

I had not eaten anything from 11am until 8pm, except for a 1 euro chocolate bar I purchased at a snack counter in the Mariazell bahnhof. I was deeply delighted to find out that I already can order food, drinks and newspaper without the involvement of English - I comprehend the phrase of "ai-nn-oy-ro, bitte schoen"! Now isn't that something. My German is officially on par with my French now! (Equally weak, you mean)

After I finally got back to Vienna my hunger and thirst strike was so serious that I bought a pack of weisser bratwurst and a bottle of weisser spritzer (why is everything white?) at the station supermarket, and actually consumed them in gorges while striding down the main shopping street. Still no Viennese stopped me and gave me a lecture - people very politely pretended not to see this practicing compulsive eater/alcoholic. Being embarrassing and ignored at the same time, I believe, is a rare kind of happiness...

I still haven't seen much of Vienna yet. Up till now I would even say it and Berlin have quite some areas of identicalness--which I am pleased to acknowledge, except that Vienna is a lot creamier -- which is not any sort of surprise at all. I like these cities. I like the posters that contained no commercial information at all in the tram station, and I like the public parks with swings for adults on oh-so-many corner of the street. I like the free open-air concerts to which one is welcome to bring his/her own drink. I even like the looks of the major train stations, which are hopelessly featurelessly neo-neo-classical and must have been built by either the Nazis or the Soviet (=non-existent architectual taste...sorry). I look forward to the platzes, schlosses, konditoreis and graves I will be visiting tomorrow. I know I'll like and miss the place for sure.

And of course I'm still staying in the good old Wombat's. They are so nice, they should expand to every city at least in the German-speaking regions. But then maybe they'll stop being so special. Ah, the paradox.

One final notice I forgot to mention about Italy last time. Yes, I know Italy is more than eating and drinking. But the country can indeed be well established on these two pillars alone. We all know the deal about pizzas and pastas, but the Italian coffee and ice-cream and alcohol are also super fantastic. There are no equals. Of course their beer is not as good as the German-Austrian-Czech-Belgian-Dutch-Danish ones, but the spritzer! They are just so good. Here's a truly poletarian dream: when I have enough money, I'll rent a small beach house in one of the outer islands of Venice for at least a week, and everyday eat nothing but local ice-cream, drink nothing but spritzer aperole. (And weigh 1,000 kg afterwards)