Easter Holidays!!!!!! Yippie :)

Since Easter-holidays just started and I’m thinking about the crapulence, that goes along with Easter, all the time, I decided to do a little research on how Americans celebrate Easter and compare the results with what Austrians do on Easter-Saturday and Easter-Sunday.

Austria	USA
Traditionally, Austrians eat lots of ham during Eastertime. Along with it, eggs, horseradish and special Easter-bread are served. Family gatherings are very characteristic for Easter-Saturday and Easter-Sunday as well.	Of course, there is a special meal for Easter, containing ham, unlike Austria. Baked ham, potatoes and vegetables is what American families traditionally eat on Easter-Sunday. Hot cross buns (sweetened cinnamon yeast buns with a cross on them) are a speciality. The meals are eaten on Easter-Sunday when families meet to celebrate together.
Kids love Easter because of the presents and the egg hunt game I’ll talk about lateron.	Apart from getting presents, there’s another feature that makes children like Easter: the egg roll game on the lawn of the White House. TheEgg Roll itself is a race, where children run in parallel lanes, pushing an eggthrough the grass with a long-handled spoon.
Many, many Austrians go to church early in the morning to attend the sunrise services.	Sunrise services are held in the US as well.
Austrian kids love the egg hunting game, they look for painted eggs that the Easter Bunny hid for them in the garden.	Painted Easter-eggs seem to belong to Easter in many places around the world, and so does the Easter egg hunt game. Children believe that the Easter Bunny hid the eggs for them during night.
The Easter Fire is a tradition in Austria. It used to be a religious thing, a fire was lit in front of the church, and people lit their Easter Candles in it, carried it into the dark church. Austrians still do it, but young people use the opportunity to get drunk ;) Often there are large Easter Fires with music and alcohol, commonly on Easter-Saturday.	It is an American tradition to conduct special Easter parades. Men and women dress up in colourful costumes, carryEaster candles, etc.

One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.

Agatha Christie (1890-1976)

This quote summarises everything I read in a shocking Newsweek-article today.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17773294/site/newsweek/

The article is called "The war in the words of the dead" and is part of a series called "Voices of the Fallen" published by Newsweek.
The shocking thing about this article is that it's not about the Iraq-war in general, but about individuals.
The families of those who died in the war work together with Newsweek, allow them to publish letters, e-mails etc.
I only started reading the whole thing, I've only read the introduction, but I found it very touching and moving.
This sad topic also has a language-learning side: Newsweek offers recordings one can listen to and videos one can watch, soldiers talking about life in Iraq.
The series isn't yet finished, more letters and videos will be added, and I think it's really worth a look because it just makes you think. We all have a image in our head, we all think we know what war is like, but the truth is: We don't even have an idea of what it's like, and we really should be glad about that.

I would like to finish with what a soldier said:

"It's a fight of 10 man squads in the dark, of ambushes and snipers and IEDs. When I go out to fight, it's usually with less than 20 men ... And I go out to fight almost every day."

Funny Blog

What a rainy day... Now, that's what I call bad weather...

Therefore I spent most of my day in front of my computer, looking for an interesting blog to read. I finally found a really funny one, it's not an expat-blog, but I love it. It's written by Zach Braff (the funny guy from Scrubs), and his posts really made me laugh. He writes about not winnig a Golden Globe, meeting P. Diddy, all his projects...

So, if you like Scrubs, you will certainly like this blog :)

It's quite easy to read and incredibly funny (can't say it too often ;))

http://www.zachbraff.com/

Enjoy it ;)

Any books to recommend?

Talking about books, I want to ask you something...

If you have any books you can recommend, just leave a comment... There are so many books I want to read and so little time ;) So please, help me make a decision :)

My favourite book

Today I would like to tell you about my favourite book. I don't know the English title and couldn't find it anywhere on the internet, but it's called " Hector et les secrets de l'amour" in French and "Hector und das Geheimnis der Liebe" in German. The author of the book is Francois Lelord, and he wrote many other amazing books as well, i.e. "Hectors Reise oder die Suche nach dem Glück" or "Hector und die Entdeckung der Zeit", but I loved the one about love most (typical for a girl, isn't it ;)).



It's about a psychiatrist whose patients are, in most cases, unhappy because of love. To little love, unrequited love etc. That's why Hector starts to believe that there are no happy relationships, he wonders why we love who we love, and why love leaves after a while.

One day, a big concern asks Hector to produce a medication that heals people from the sickness of being in love with the help of a professor. But this professor, who already managed to produce such a medication fled because he didn't want anybody to make use of it.



What follows is a long, long journey on which Hector tries to find the professor and realises numerous things. Although the medication could make many people happy, it would also cause a lot of harm. Love would lose it's appeal, it would be totally calculabe, would lose it's fascination.



I don't want to tell you the end, maybe one of you will now want to read the book as well- i can only recommend it. It's such a touching, moving and at the same time real story and conquered my heart in a matter of seconds...

Well, one more thing I need to complain about...

WINTER

I really don't know what happened to yesterdays twenty degree... Waking up today made me feel like someone who turned crazy over night, because I really couldn't believe that there's snow on 19th of March... I tried to not leave my flat throughout the day, which turned out to be a mistake... My flatmates as well as I were extremely upset about the weather, so there were quite some tensions. I guess everyone knows what I'm talking about :)

And then there's this question in my head: Where the hell was all the snow when I wanted it?

Too many parties...

To be honest... I was a bit lazy in the past two weeks... Well, lazy... Too many parties to celebrate, BUT: Things will change from now on. I know that there will be more work to do from now on, so I assume I should rather use my time to study and reduce the amount of parties ;))

That's it for today :))

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
Eleanor Roosevelt

I came across this quote today and didn't want to deprive it of you :)

Furthermore, I started reading a book today. It's called "I know why the caged bird sings" and is written by Maya Angelou. I've only read twenty pages so far, but I quite like her writing style. The book is an autobiographical novel telling the story of a small black girl living in the racist south. Maya and her brother live with their grandmother "Momma" and are often faced with prejudices.






The title of the book derives from a beautiful poem:

"I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,
When he beats his bars and would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings -
I know why the caged bird sings.

Shocking...

I just had a quick glance at Pam Mandels blog, and since I didn't know where to start, I just entered Nazi into the search-box (just like FN suggested it ;)) and chose an article... And guess what it was all about? Carinthia, my beloved province :)) And I was shocked. But was it unexpected? Not really... Entire Austria is making fun of us if we're perfectly honest...



http://www.nerdseyeview.com/blog/?p=245



No need to discuss the road-sign thing, I just wanted to mention it ;)

The Maiden Trip...

Just like Emily, I wasn't lazy today... I was just happy doing nothing ;)

Well, nothing is not the right term, I finally started the blog and had a look around, trying to figure out how the whole thing works.

Ok... What will this blog be about, what will be in it? In short: Everything I do concerning English. I will tell you about books I'm reading, movies I saw, articles that could be of interest to you...

What more can I say? I hope this blog will help you, help me...