Nibelungenviertel: Walk of The Valkyries
Just behind the pomposity of the Wiener Stadthalle, sandwiched between Hütteldorfer Straße, Gablenzgasse, the Schmelz with its Schrebergärten (small inner city gardening plots), and the famous Viennese Gasthaus Schutzhaus Zukunft, a tiny Grätzl is slowly waking from its beauty sleep: the Nibelungenviertel. Until recently, the neighbourhood seemed to follow a different pace than the bustling [...]
Failing at Sailing
For a start, I thought I was pretty cool to be competing at all in a sporting event like this. The fact that I knew nothing at all about the sport, made me, well, badass. My friend Elisabeth, on the other hand, was a pro and had convinced me to accompany her on a regatta. [...]
Being Austrian
“To be honest, I think Austrians are quite lazy. Lazy and unfriendly,” said Clemens L., lounging on the Donauinsel on a mid-week holiday afternoon. “At the same time they always believe that they are oh-so-great, which they are not.” Born in Tyrol, the 21-year-old student’s judgment about his fellow citizens can be construed as harsh. [...]
Experiencing Gemütlichkeit at Sirbu
Austrians are known to be gemütlich. At least that’s what we say about ourselves and how we would like to be perceived. Whether or not this is true should be left for others to judge. But if this Gemütlichkeit does in fact exist, it is most likely to be found at one of Vienna’s Heuriger. [...]
A Little Village for a Big, Historic Meeting
In the night of 8 and 9 May, 1945, the American General Stanley E. Reinhart and his Soviet counterpart Dimitri A. Dritschkin met in a private house in the Lower Austrian village of Erlauf to celebrate the victory over Hilter’s army. This historic moment became the starting point for a long and intensive critical engagement with war [...]
Higher Education in English
Ten years ago, there were few opportunities for college students to study in English at an Austrian university in Vienna. There were some exchange programmes for foreign students, like the Institute for European Studies (IES), and branch campuses of foreign institutions, like Webster University Vienna. But now, following the agreements in the “Bologna Process”, a [...]
Those Who Can’t Shoot, Tase
Harald Vilimsky, Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) leader, writhed on the ground, screaming and wincing in pain, as two police officers towered over him. “The whole body is in a state of ‘hypertension’. You can’t move. You’re no longer in control of yourself. You are in fact paralysed for five seconds,” he reported after experiencing 50,000 [...]
CommentarySeptember 17, 2012No CommentRead More