Walking in a winter Donkey-land

After the beautiful sunrise this morning we did go out for a walk "somewehere" like Mrs. CS predicted. Dressed up in ski suits (we don't ski at all, but it looks impressive!) we took a drive towards Langenbruck. Langenbruck is a nice, small regional ski area, about half an hours drive from our place. Obviously many people had decided to go for some skiing, snowboarding, sledging or walking in Langenbruck which showed by crowded parkings. We had the luck of finding a parking close to the ski slopes (thanks for leaving Mr. BMW from Aargau) so we didn't have to walk too far to get to the piste to go up the walking path along side the slope.

Remember, we only wear ski suits, we don't ski. Armed with the DV camera and the photo camera, we walked up hill for about 30 minutes and there it was: winter Donkey-land! In the middle of the hills there is a small farm and outside we saw 2 cute donkeys: mother and daughter. Of course we had to capture this sweet "couple".



We walked up until we came at the second station "Obere Wanne" and stopped at the kiosk to have a coffee and a hot dog. Unfortunately the terrace wasn't open yet. Probably to early in the season where the sun is still too low to lighten up the seating area outside. As it was also busy in the kiosk we didn't stay very long and started our way back. Thank you Lord! Walking back means going down hill! I must admit, that after 20 minutes of walking down hill, I felt my calves building up tension. Mrs.CS was better off than me. All the training she enjoyed after the knee operation has built up her muscle condition. On the last stretch down we met this very affectionate young cat (sorry, no picts available!). She was begging for attention, rewarding our caresses with loud purring. For a moment we thought she would follow us until we reached the car, but she decided otherwise...there's no place like home! Luckily she chose to stay as our big black panther would not have accepted a cute red cat as competition in the house (I guess...)

While we drove back we had the great idea of enjoying our afternoon drink in the garden by the warmth of the Caminero. That meant we needed wood, but that is absolutely no problem in our region. Most gas stations sell wood for the fire place, so this was an easy job: just pick up some wood on the way home. Well folks we did it, we set up the Caminero, took out two chairs and enjoyed the fresh outdoors life by the warmth of our mexican friend burning the logs. Now it got to cold (the caminero is not big enough to bring more warmth). We're back inside and start preparing dinner soon. Have a nice evening!

Can't stay indoors

We just have to go out....

The weather this week has been absolutely beautiful! The pictures below were taken around 9.30 this morning. Pity that it was still a bit misty up in the hills, but it does give a nice atmosphere.

We'll be driving off later to take a nice walk somewhere.

More later...

RTFM??

No RTFM, not for my new blogger pals!

I will share the "secret" with you, passed on to me by fellow blogger Christina (see post below) that I will quote:

"I really only know how to change the photos for my template - where there was a photo already - don't know if it would work for the other ones.

1) choose a picture (your own or stolen from somewhere on the web - watch out for copyright issues) and cut out the part you want. The size that fits in my header was 800 x 133 pixels. Upload that to your blog and copy the HTML

2) Go into your Blogger template and find the part marked "header" and replace whatever's in there (mine was a link to a photo, I guess, originally something blurry and green with leaves) and replace that with the HTML for your picture."

And I guess this was the most relevant hint for me:

"I have another "test blog" with the same template as this one that I use to upload pictures to see how they'll look or fool around with the header or colours and stuff. Just click "create a new blog" in your Blogger settings and don't list it in your profile. You can experiment to your heart's content and it doesn't matter if you wreck it!"

Thanks again for your help, Christina. I will be experiment more myself in my test blog and will let you all know if I find out something new.

Thank you, Christina

Thanks to a fellow blogger - and Canadian - , Christina, I was able to change the header of my blogspot in no time.

I'm usually the one who reads through manuals and find out things by trying out until I get it right, or "leaning by doing". I hate to have to ask "How do I do that?" - unless I'm REALLY under pressure. I'm always the first to help, but I know of a few people at my work who are just too plain lazy to even open one of these manuals or click on the "help" menu. In those particular cases, I'll be the first to say RTFM! (a.k.a. "read the f*cking manual!")

I've been wanting change my header for a while and thought that once it would really started to bug me, I'd dig into it. Well, this time, someone was quicker than I was and asked, and Christina gave simple step by step instructions.

Thank you Christina, for sharing your HTML knowledge with us and making our "blogger lives" so much more colourful. I know you must have spent hours studying your template and fiddling around until you found it. You may have cold hands, but you do have a warm heart.

PS: Love reading your blogs.

Beautiful Weather

We've had this kind of weather all week and it should hold until the weekend! This pic was taken from the balcony at work towards the northeast around 1 pm. The sun was too bright to try a shot towards the south...

Last days in Vienna

Gosh. I left out part of our day 3! Not willingly, but time goes by so fast when you're enjoying that you kinda loose track. I forgot the lunch!

And what did we not have yet?? Right, a Wiener Schnitzel!! Anyway, we went for a stroll in Wiener Neustadt and had the lunch at a local restaurant called Zum Siegl, which turned our to be pretty good. Schnitzel for all and all for Schnitzel. Yay! After that, we needed to walk a few hundred meters to -ahem! walk off the calories - and suddenly, we faced a beautiful cathedral. I didn't know Wiener Neustadt (pop. 40'000) had one, but they do. You've read the rest of day 3 in my previous post, so I'll just carry on. Hope I'm not too confusing.

Day four of our stay in the Vienna area. We slept in this time. No waking up around 7.30 am. This might sound early to many of you - for a weekend trip - but in my case, I need time - and coffee -to wake up. Otherwise, meet the zombie! Not that I'm in a bad mood, or grumpy, or anything. It's more like my vocabulary in the first hour consists of: "Huuuh?", "Sure. " and "What d'you just say?", and instead of hearing: "Let's visist a winery this weekend", I hear "Let's visit raspberries this weekend". Followed by me saying: "Huuh???!! You want what??". Anyway, so much for the morning moi. After taking an hour or so - and lot's of coffee - to "wake up", take a shower and just hang aound, it was time for lunch again. Pinki cooked us a nice meal and we relaxed a bit, knowing that the night ould be a long one.

Then, one of Christain's (a.k.a Pinki) friends dropped off the food and drinks for the evening party. Now, Pinky has a party room in the cellar that would make many Europeans envious. They just recently repainted and redecorated it, and of course, following precious machines had to be put in place again: An old pinball machine (in perfect working order) - not the new electronic one, I'm talking probably the 70's - a cigarette machine - you don't want to smoke those anymore -, a chewing gum vending machine - you don't want to chew those either - and a very old condom vending machine - you certainly don't want to use those!!... Unless, you like taking big risks!

We set up the cold buffet in the afternoon, brought the drinks down, and soon after that, the first of 35 - 40 guests started arriving. We were celebrating Andrrea's 30th birthday, Pinki's 37th and New Year's Eve.

I won't say much more other tha: It was a great party and I'll let the pics speak for themselves. I crashed on the sofa upstairs around 4.30 - 5.00 am, Orange joined me aroud 7.30 and I think Pinki and Andrea went to bed around 8.00 /8. 30 am.
We can't put up all of the picts, but here are a few.







The day had come where we had to fly back home. Pinki and Andrea took us to the airport, but we promised to return soon.

More Vienna - The Steirereck am Pogusch

Actually, the restaurant we went to that evening is about 1 hour 20 minutes by car from Vienna. After putting all available seats in Pinki's Voyager, we -Pinki, Andrea, Gerhard, Brigitte, Orange-X and myself - left for the long awaited dinner at Steirereck am Pogusch. After an hour or so of highway, we had another 20 minutes or so of mountainy, winding roads that led us to our destination.

Some of you may have read TBF's complimenting comments about he Steierereck in Vienna, an we can only second his vote. We were greeted by the Chef de Service who accompanied us to our table. Now contrary to the restaurant in Vienna, which is very classy and almost demands a suit, the one in Turnau is a charming old inn in the woods. The food, however, was a feast for the eyes and the palate. The ladies in service wore the traditional dirndls and the men wore the Lederhosen (leather pants, also often seen in Bavaria). Here are a few pics of the restaurant.


There were a couple of things that really fascinated us there. Usually, one picks the wine from the wine card. Not here! Here, one goes to the wine cellar and chooses from the many bottles and wine regions. You pick out your white and then your red and bring it to the waiter to be opened and properly decanted. Yum yum! The choice was just amazing. Then, the restaurant also sells some of its specialties, so that you won't miss them once you've returned home. The regional and home-made products like their bread, lamb salami, preserves, sauces, honey, etc. are presented on a table with much attention to detail.

So we sipped on our aperitive and examined the menus while picking at the best Wurzelspeck (a lard that's been smoked and dried) I've ever had! A waiter took our orders and look at just a few of the goodies he brought. I had to be quick with the camera to get these pictures before everybody finished. Of course, I didn't want to eat cold either!

Another thing that fascinated me was one of the waiters, Mario. I can't help it but I have this affinity to gay men. No offence to to you heterosexual "real men" out there. But gays are funny, usually very witty, gallant, warm and those I have known, very intelligent. Plus, as a woman, you never have to worry about being groped. That's only my personal view and experience, but I'm sure that many women out there will agree with me. I must say that I am blessed with my darling (hetero) Orange-X. He's got all that too :)

What was in that wine!??! O-Oh. Look Orange-X grew an antler!


The deserts were also excellent. We ordered 3 for the six of us and it was more than enough. Pinki just couldn't decide where to start! The bowl in the middle is chocolate mousse for two. Believe me, after a dinner like that, we were glad that we didn't order more deserts.



Ah yes, I did say that a couple of things fascinated me in this restaurant. The other thing was the toilets. I don't want to know what you're thinking, just look at these pictures. Here's the men's' room (Before you ask: Orange took the pics)

The "pissoir": a glass plate over the stoned foundation of the Inn with a water fall running over it.



And the ladies': Women, stand up for your rights! "Nur lulu"= pee only.



And to end the evening, I just had to have a picture of my favorite waiter: Mario. Isn't he cute ??! (Yes, he is wearing make-up) Somehow, I'm looking forward to Michael's comments on this one ;)



And he took the final pictures. (from left to right: Andrea, Pinki, Orange-X, myself, Gerhard and Brigitte.

We had a wonderful evening and lot's of fun, great food and fabulous memories with new friends. Thanks to Gerhard, our designated driver, we got home safely and fell in a deep slumber. Steirereck, we'll be back. That's a promise!

Later this week, Pinki and Andrea's birthdays and New Year's eve party!

PS: TBF: As additional info, they have over 130 schnaps and about 75 cigars to offer. - Sorry for the cigar bit, Mrs. TBF!

Vienna Part 3A

Before I start this post a small remark from Mrs. C-S. She claims she is the better author amongst us so I have to take the challenge! Luckily we didn't bet. Betting with Mrs. C-S come expensive. I can remember one time, shortly after I moved to Switzerland, when we still lived in Basel. With Basel I mean down town Basel, close to the Rhine, opposite of Manor. As we both have a car and only Mrs. C-S had an unlimited parking permit for our ZIP code area we decided to take her car to drive to the office in the morning. When we came back home in the evening we had to drive around in order to find a parking space. We found a pretty narrow space which I thought would be too small. Mrs. C-S claimed she could fit her car in there. I told her. "No way you get your car in that space". Then it happened. She betted a case of Moët and stupidly enough I accepted. I should have known better. She will never bet unless she is 110% sure of winning the bet. You got it! I lost and it cost me a case of Moët. Not the first case I lost betting with Mrs. C-S. I'm still paying off my losses....

Anyway, back to Vienna! Our 3rd day in Austria we started out with breakfast with Pinki and Andrea. As it had been snowing over night we decided to take Embers for a nice stroll. Andrea proposed to go for a walk in the regional vinyards to allow Embers some exercise. After a hot shower we got out and drove for about 10 minutes. Unbelievable! We were in the middle of nowhere. We viewed a landscape covered with snow and stretched as far as the eye could see.

It was darn cold but that didn't keep us from getting out of the car and confronting the cold wind.




In a positive moment I made the remark:"Luckily we have the wind in our faces now, so we'll be better off when walking back". Ooops! Winds change. (remark from Mrs. C-S :-)) We walked for quite a while and had a big surprise. Have you ever seen a schyzophrenic dog? Embers had such a moment and thought he was a cat! Believe it or not, he caught a mouse! Can't show you the proof with a picture, except for one with the blood he left....

Andrea, Mrs-C-S and I went on walking and chatting while freezing our butts off (another Mrs-C-S comment). Embers rolled in the snow, chased sticks we threw and even took the time to go belly down in the snow and litterally chew the sticks to tooth picks.


After a certain moment we had to return as Embers, fanatic as he is when being outside, suffered from the cold. Being a Golden Retriever his paws are webbed (like a duck) so snow sticks between his toes causing lumps of ice and pain. So, time to turn around and go home to "defrost" Embers' paws.





In the afternoon Mrs.C-S and I went to the "SCS". The SCS is short for Shopping City Süd . My God, this is the largest mall I have ever seen in Europe and I thought the Centro in Oberhausen was big! Just take a look yourself if you're interested in seeing what the SCS has to offer. Main reason for me to go to SCS was a nice orange Boss coat I had already seen in Vienna (After all, I am Orange-X). Vienna has 3 rather big Boss stores and I saw this nice coat at he first Boss store but decided to not buy this coat. Afterwards I regretted not buying this coat and tried my luck at the 2 other Boss stores. But here, no luck at all. The coat wasn't sold in the other 2 stores. So I had to be lucky in the SCS. After arriving at the SCS we just looked around a bit and realised we couldn't cross the whole SCS in just one hour so we decided to just shop around a bit close where we parked. We entered the Stiefelkönig, a large shoe store which has an amazing assortment of shoes. We both got lucky there. Mrs.C-S bought a pair of boots and a pair of warm Timberlands and I found a nice pair of Boss shoes (see pics below). After that we crossed the SCS to the next hall to see the Boss store to check if they had the orange coat there. But again, no luck. Nevertheless, seeing the SCS was something amazing. 270.000 sqm of shopping space is quite impressive to European standards. I bet my sweet sister would love to see it...







We drove back to Bad Fischau-Brunn as we had to go out for dinner with Pinki, Andrea and Pinki's sister and brother in law this evening. We had a booked dinner at the Steirereck. Maybe you have read the blog of The Big Finn about the Steirereck. He went for dinner in Vienna, we went for dinner in their other restaurant in the "Steiermark" (one of Austria's federal sates). An experience we will never forget, but you get more to read about it in the next blog which will come from the "better author" again... :-)

New pics from Vienna

I've updated my last blog with additional pictures. Somehow, I couldn't upload them yesterday. you can read more about our Vienna trip this weekend. (TBF, you'll be happy to see some pics of Orange, too. I wasn't alone there.)

Have a good one!

Vienna Part 2 B

So! Where was I? Ah yes.

After having had some of those wonderful sandwiches, we carried on walking through the streets and small alleys of Vienna and came to a really nice passage called the Palais Ferstel with all these small shops, and at the end, I was told, you could rent a ballroom, f.e. for weddings. Pinki and Andrea were invited to one and they were absolutely flabbergasted! I was even more amazed when I discovered... Look what I found: A totally lost Expat!

After that we made our way - zig-zagging through the small streets - towards the Hofburg again, then through the Heldenplatz and reached the Maria-Therisien Platz. To our right and left, there were two identical buildings made of sandstone: The Museum of Natural History and The Museum of Art History. Breathtaking! The only thing differenciating them from the exterior were the statues on top. We walked on the the Museumquartier. Now if you want to see different and controversy in architecture, you've gotta go there! They actually "dumped" an white and anthracite grey block on each side of a classical building. But I'll let you read the details from Wikipedia.

By that time, we needed a break and a drink, so Andrea lead us to a bar that had just opened and we had a drink (or two) at the lutz. Nice by/cafe, but a little slow in serving a simple Irish coffee for Orange-X. Oh well, he got an extra glass of champagne for the long wait - free of charge- that I ended up drinking... But who's complaining!???!

I swore to myself that I'd keep this one short. For goodness sake, it was just a few hours. Tssk!

Anyway, we took the train to Pinki's house, had a drink and then left for probably the sweetest, warmest local restaurant I had ever been to called the Kost & Bar. The lighting was cozy and inviting, the service was very pleasant, the menu card Italian dishes) was kept quite short, but still offers a good variety of dishes and the food was excellent. They had quite an impressive wine card, many of them being Austrian wines. Of course, Embers joined us and stayed quietly under the table or then stuck his nose up after dinner to socialize a little. For those of you who don't know,Austrian drink more wine that beer, unlike their German neighbors, so believe me, they know what good wine is. We were pretty tired after those ??-kilometers of walking and just relaxed.

More to come this weekend.

Vienna - Part 2 A

Thursday, December 28

We got up fairly early that morning as we had planned to got to Vienna with our personnal guide, Andrea. After having had a few coffees in Bad Fischau - you'll read why "only coffee" a bit later - Pinki drove us into town and dropped us off - poor guy had to work - at the Staatsoper. The weather was a bit grim and quite cold, but we didn't care. At least, it wasn't raining! From there, we went down the Kärntnerstrasse (Vienna's Champs Elysées) and stopped by the Sky Café (evenings, also an excellent restaurant and bar) for a nice, warm Apfelstrudel and coffee, which by the way is why we had postponed breakfast. We had a nice chat and enjoyed the view over the roofs of Vienna.


Then we strolled up towards the Stephansdom savouring the beauty of the architecture along the way.


Quite amazing building that Stephansdom. I've seen many cathedrals and must admit that it was really one worth seeing. Unfortunately, we came in just as a Mess began, and had to stay at the back.
















We then walked along the Graben , stopped by Julius Meinl, a grocery store of the superlative where you can buy their own roasted coffee and other delicatessen. I couldn't resist and dragged Orange-X and Andrea in. My mouth watered while going through the well kept and groomed store, but I could hardly get a grip on Orange when we passed the meat department. He almost fainted! Even though I had a bit of resistance from Orange's part - I managed to pay for the few "food souvenirs" we had bought and get out of the shop again. We walked throught the small alleys and ended up in front of the Hofburg Imperial palace, which has housed some of the most powerful people in Austrian history, including the Habsburg dynasty, and currently serves as the official residence of the President of Austria.

I guess it was at that poit that we got hungry and instead of a fancy restaurant, opted for something you can't just get anywhere: Trzesniewski's (pronounced Tschesnjevski)-the best small open-face sandwiches I ever had in my life! They're a bit more than twice the size of canapés, but make a great fingerfood. Their recipe goes back to 1902, and I noticed that they use a touch of horseradish in there. Ususally, one drinks a so called "Pfiff", an eighth of a beer. Nice for women who enjoy just a sip and not a whole glass. See the comparison yourself.



Isn't that a cute little beer Andrea is holding? Yummy!!!

Well folks, having written about all this wonderful food... I'm starving and will tell you more tomorrow.

PS: Too hungry to do a spell check. Hope I don't have too many typos in there! ;)

Vienna - Part 1

Okay, it's certainly good to be back home and have our cuddly four legged friend greet us at the door, but if it hadn't been for him, we would have stayed eee-a-sily another week with our friends, Pinky and Andrea.

After that Christmas spent with Ingo and Silvia, we took it real easy. I had planned to go to the office on the 27th, but then that morning, I decided - last minute - to take a day off after all. What's a one day week worth after all?!! So at 7.45 am or so, I called Nelli, one of our receptionists, and asked her to switch on my "out of office" message. And I took the right decision! I threw in a couple of washes so that Orange and I could bring our favorite clothes with us, went to the gym and then prepared dinner - a.k.a. call the pizza delivery ;) . We were really looking forward to this trip and went to bed at a decent time.

The alarm rang at 6.30 am and we snoozed until 7 am (the usual), had breakfast (2 coffees), showered and packed. Orange started getting nervous at 9 - our flight was at 10.50 and I still had to dry my hair and do a 4.5 minute make-up and we left at 9.30 sharp for the Basel Airport.
Orange-X had received a message - a picture - on his cell phone from Pinki, our host for the coming days, but couldn't read it. Once we got to the airport, .... BIG surprise! The flight was cancelled. 30 cm of snow had fallen in Vienna during the night and no flight was going in or out at that moment. We ran to the ticket counter and they offered us a flight via Frankfurt to Vienna. By that time, and with maybe a bit of delay, the flights should be running again. Whew! We finally got to Vienna around 3.30pm and Pinki and Andrea were there to welcome us. Since it was still snowing, Pinki decided to take B-roads instead of the motorway. It took a bit longer, but we arrived at our destination - Bad Fischau (about 45 km south of Vienna - safe and sound.

We had a drink or two before Pinki's ex-wife brought their dog Embers, a beautiful, sweet golden retriever, and then we went out for dinner at hobl und scher (sorry, website in German only) , a very nice restaurant and wine bar in Wiener Neustadt. The food was great, Orange-X and I were tired - that's an understatement! - but so-o-o happy to be there.

Meet Embers (photos of our two legged friends to follow in my next post)



Once we got home, Andrea, Orange and I went for a short walk with Embers in the snow. He just loves it! Once we got to the front entrance - which hadn't been cleared from the 10-15cm of snow that had fallen, I took a step on what I thought was stairs (just 2-3-steps) to the front door. To my surprise, it was Pinki's ramp - I must add that Pinki's in a wheelchair - so I slipped as if I had stepped on butter. No injuries at all - just good fun. Then Embers joined in for a snow fight.

Stay tuned for my next blog - Vienna part 2 - ... Sorry guys, I do work during the day, so bare with me ;)