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Tufas

Austria2259 Posts

February 29 2012 18:47 GMT

old polls
+ Show Spoiler +

Poll: Should I post stuff even if it is not as good as I want it to be ?

Yes (1)

33%

No (1)

33%

Fuck this, I only watched the pictures anyway. (1)

33%

3 total votes

Your vote: Should I post stuff even if it is not as good as I want it to be ?

(Vote): Yes
(Vote): No
(Vote): Fuck this, I only watched the pictures anyway.

Poll: Was this poll the most wasted poll ever ?

Yes (1)

100%

No (0)

0%

I only watch the polls anyway. (0)

0%

1 total votes

Your vote: Was this poll the most wasted poll ever ?

(Vote): Yes
(Vote): No
(Vote): I only watch the polls anyway.

Normally I do not use WE, THEY, US .. but for the sake of the blog, I will continue to do so. Just note, this is something strangely special. I would not do it otherwise. And if you take everything I say without a grain of salt, well then good luck with your unsalted meal.

And for your own mental safety, please ignore all the grammar mistakes. By now they are uncountable and it infuriates me as much as the next guy but I lack the willpower to change them all.

To be read here in the same order they are to be read in the blog.
PART I : History of Austria
PART II : Beautiful Austria
PART III.I : Vienna, though shall be capital
PART III.II.I Art
PART III.III Museums
PART I.I Historical Interlude, 1804 to 1945 in political detail
PART IV General Information
PART V My education
Part I.II PART I.II South Tyrol In The 20th Century

My first milestone has come and finally I can make a blog that is worth my time.

Before, there was no motivation. A blog was a blog, the BW section was the BW section. Now it is time for more, now I have 4 digits. The boy grew into a man, and hell its about time I learn to fly.

Welcome to my blog about Austria. You will be amazed and shocked, cry and laugh, despair and hope. + Show Spoiler +

If you are, go to a doctor immediately.

Why am I doing this ? Who knows. My hands feel like they are being moved by something higher, something more sophisticated than me. Today I am not a mortal but a writer. My style sucks, but so do my stories.

Uhm well, I better start at the very beginning. And the beginning is going to be very image heavy, dont worry. Less pictures later. And know that I had much more content, but decided to delete a lot of it as nobody is interested in THAT much history. This is the brief look into austrias history with some dates and persons, I tried to leave it at that. If you do not care about history, skip the first part.

So there it was, the Noricum - a loose kingdom of celtic bastards and warriors.

Peaceful, warrior tribe ruled Noricum.

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After the roman warmachine, full of hatred, conquered the peace loving Noricum.

But they were just north of those fabeled romans, and so Augustus came in 15 b.c. and made them pay tributes. Later, those fool-hardy italians made it a complete providence and built roads, passages over the alps and left us funky stones to mark the miles between cities (one of those is still integrated into a church in my hometown).
While all that our ancestors wanted to do was fight and drink, and who can blame them. The fun times were over, now they had to work and were forced to live in big nice cities with canals and such sort of roman sorcery. They did not like it a bit.

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Thats about right, I saw some similar stuff in a museum once.

But those friendly romans always left some legions to play with and so, as it was written in stone (afterwards), our germanic and sarmatian brothers from todays Slovakia, Hungary and Romania helped us fight those silly little dudes with their formations and hygiene. Well no one can tell you the exact date (about 170 a.d.) but the outcome is clearly documented ... those fish loving shiny stuff wearing legions utterly destroyed everything in their path over the period of 2 markoman wars and my bearded manly ancestors had to bow down once more.

From there on, everything went down the danube - germanic tribes from todays Germany fell into the Noricum and those brave big roman soldiers helped us (well actually, they helped themselves as it was part of the Roman empire) and from then on diplomacy was valued over warrior spirit and brawling. They began to trade and flourished in their money and grew fat and bored. The celtic pride was destroyed and the spirit broken, forced to live in stone houses and maintaining peace over many years.
A sad story indeed.

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Compare with the picture above. The humiliation.

With the beginning of the barbarian migration (about 200 a.d.) and the downfall of the roman empire, the Noricum was left alone and the fat bored merchants they were could not stop any invading forces without the roman soldiers and the Noricum was divided between other tribes and kingdoms.

History went on, and so does my biased story of love and betrayal.

By 800 a.d. some part of Austria was in the dukedom of Bavaria, now under the rule of charlemagne (carl the FUNKY great.). For the second time it was part of a "world" empire (east franconian realm, predecessor to the oh so famous holy Roman empire). Followed by 400 years of intrigue, war, broken promises, questionable marriage politics and forged documents, the legendary Habsburg dynasty began their rule in 1278.

By now you might ask yourself: "Do I really want to know the entire history of this stupid country?" - Well I cannot answer that question for you. At some point I will get to modern Austria, my hometowns and the beautiful mountains (oh those mountains, I tell you) but you are certainly allowed to skip the history part. if you made it this far. Damn, I am delusional. Hello my one friend and only reader that made it so far, I really like you. Wanna play something? P.M. me. I hope you enjoy it, this is all for you.

Only about 730 years left, lets kick it into overdrive.

Constant expansion, not so questionable marriage politics and after one or two casual incests, the archduchy Austria grew to be one of the biggest political powerhouses in the holy roman empire and had the king or emperor title in their hands. What did that mean ? That meant power. incredible power. Like unipolar world U.S. power.

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Holy Holy Roman Empire.

Remember our hungarian friends from earlier ? Sadly, they had been integrated into the Osman empire by now and did not fancy us anymore. Well they did not fancy the Osmans either, but that would go too far now.
After the occasional siege of our capital Vienna by our friends from the east, everything went back to normal and Austria "gained" some more influence by "adding" some regions in the east.

By 1713 they signed the pragmatic sanctions which allows the continuous ruling, even if the male line of the Habsburg would die out. Great timing because not thirty years later exactly that happened. After some friendly wars with our neighbours and exchange of mean words soon to be ruler Maria Theresia had enough and founded a new house for the stable ruling of Austria in Habsburg-Lothringen.

After the 8th war with the Osman empire in 1788–1790 (we always wanted to be together, but no one could conquer the other for .. uhm logistic reasons) and the death of Maria Theresia (1780) , Franz II (later Franz I) came to power (well there was someone in between, but who cares). He then went on to create the EMPIRE (of Austria) and ruled for some time.

I do not want to talk about all the fuzz with napoleon and so forth, either you know it already or you don`t care and thus do not care.

Well by now, Austria is one of the most famous multiethnic states and will remain so up to this day (although many austrians will never realize this, but more on that later) - they spoke like twelve to thirteen languages in this conglomerate of artsy and nature loving provinces.

But as any totalitarian leader, they feared the educated (Maria Theresia previously installed one of the most modern school systems in the world that was supposed to make EVERYONE read and write - which was revolutionary at the time) masses and so the soon to be chancellor, foreign minister Metternich built a very large network of spies and snitches to control every public space and it was not allowed to meet up with more than two persons.

In 1848 the austrian people had enough and it was time for a revolution (they wanted democracy and independence from the dictators in Vienna) and after a long and bloody fight, the monarch forces (with aid of the Russians) fought back the people and peace and order was restored to their beloved ~~galactic senate~~ ~~democracy~~ monarchy..

Ah shit. I forgot about the German Confederation ..

Uhm well after the end of the holy Roman empire, some of the leftover parts formed the German Confederation, a political alliance. By 1866, two fractions fought against each other (one lead by Austria, who ruled over the German Confederation for most of the time) and the other one by Prussia (who wanted to rule most of the time) and Prussia, those pricks, won. Bismarck now decided to found Germany without Austria, which he called the lesser German solution. Why is this important ? Because some failed art student from Vienna (he is actually not from Vienna) will later speak of the greater German solution when he "brings" back Austria into the "mother country". Yeah. But I am not going to cover that. It does not only make me sad, but you also should know the II world war by now. If not .. maybe some other day.

Well back to lighter things, such as more intrigues and wars.

Well after the war Austria had to give away Venetia, after previously losing northern Italy in 1859 at the battle of Solferino (red cross and that stuff). A sidenote, Italy begins to form. Thank you, Napoleon III.
The now weak Austria had to make reforms, such as a constitutional monarchy and creating the Hungaro-Austrian double empire as Vienna was too weak to rule over all its inhabitants with an iron fist on their own. Now plagued with constant uprising and the wish for independence in most of their provinces,

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That is the, by now, small Hungaro-Austrian empire. Enlarge for historical fun.

I do not want to go too far into the problems at the meetings in Vienna and the wishes of the slavic countries for their independence, so I make it short. (austrian politicians said that their counterparts of the slavic countries were "fortwursteln" .. well how in hell do I translate that beautiful austrian word..)

Slawic countries want to be independent. They look to Russia for help. Austria already lost the italian provinces and so they focus on the ballkan region as they fear the loss of influence in europe. The relative new aquirement that was Bosnia declares war and you mix in some assassination and you have the first world war.

From 1918-1919, the interrim government tried to sort everything out and make way for the first Austrian republic. Women were allowed to vote, only 8-hours-a-day of work, social networks and the chamber of labour were founded. Pretty neat for the time. And the treaty of Saint-Germain did not allow Austria to join Germany.

But as everyone hates that socialist communist talk, peace was not of the long lasting sort.
In 1929 the world economic crisis hit hard in Austria, as everywhere. Unemployment rate skyrocketed and people were getting kind of angry and with fear in their hearts, they grew uneasy and tender. The Austrian people created two armed organisations (because if you are angry and unemployed, what else is there to do). The so called "Republikanischer Schutzbund", the armed wing of the social democrats and the "Freiheitsbund", armed wing of the cristian party.
Those two could not even drink beer together, which is still considered to be the greatest offense in Austria. Beer or not two beer. And such stuff. You know.

Well I promised not to go to deep into the matter, so here is the short version :

Police shot some dudes, everything that looked like a socialist got harrassed, shot or imprisoned - the "republikanischer schutzbund" was disarmed, everyone who fought for equality,worker ethic, democracy and such fuzz was made silent (well that was the end of the not even beginning of the austromarxism). All that ended in 1933 when the austrofascism began. Because you know, the world did not want more marxists. Fascists were much much cooler back then and so no one cared.

After a short austrian civil war where the last democracy lovin people tried to overthrow the fascist government, everything went back to normal. Dictatorship, that is. Well, then the NSDAP tried to overthrow the austrian government with a coup, but they failed too. Couriously, Austria was considered to be the "mild" fascist country next to Germany and Italy. Many german refugees went to Austria, hoping .. well they were hoping. In the next years Austria made a pact with Mussolini that sates that if Germany were to attack Austria, he would help. Then Hitler and Mussolini made a pact and the rest should be known.

A more detailed version of the political situation between 1804 and 1945 can be found much further down.
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Because a colleague of mine asked me : OF COURSE I WAS BEING HIGHLY SARCASTIC in the last three paragraphs. This, together with the II World War was one of the most horrible times in the history of Austria. I did not try to play down anything. I just wanted to get it over with. Whenever I read, talk or write about the II World War and the events that led to it I get very sad. I did not want to get sad. I did not try to overleap certain parts of the history of Austria because I do not want to "falsify the austrian image I was trying to create". HELL NO. But I hope that you already know what happened and I do not need to tell you why I did not cover all the events that occured. Thank you.

Austria today

So the history lesson finally behind me, we can get to the real part of the blog. Although most likely shorter, more important.

See you in a week or so.

Originally I wanted to release everything at once, but maybe that was too much.

Part II

Austria. Beautiful Austria.

I originally planed to make part II about politics and general informations about my country as you already had the history, but it came out differently then I expected.
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I did not have the copyright for a lot of the pictures in Part II so I decided to only use my own. The quality is worse and I could not use a lot of them because most had my friends on them but I hope they suffice. Also, you can see me 2x. Ignore that. I look totally different now :/

This is a map of Austria.

To be honest, I always feel awkward when I translate original names into other languages. It is New York, not Neu York. My capital is Wien, not Vienna. But of well. I have no problem if you pronounce it differently. German and english speakers say Berlin differently. Thats okay. I will definitely pronounce Salzburg (the town I was born in) differently then you do. Thats okay, why the hell not. German speakers also pronounce London and New York different then people from the U.K., although a lot of them don`t realize that and think that they are saying it correctly.

I have not figured it out yet .. I mean you cannot say it correctly if you do not know the language and sometimes you can not even read it because they have different letters. Well, lets move on.+ Show Spoiler +

We say more like ... Nu Yourk and the second o in London as well

As you might see, Austria is in the middle of europe and surrounded by quite a lot of countries.

Czech Republic (Oh they give us good beer. And if you ever are in Prague, don`t miss out on absint .. and if you can, go to some fucked up bar where they read poetry and everyone is stoned or drunk. One of the best times of my live. Oh and if you never had strong beer, try it. Ohhh yeah.)
Slovakia (The capital, Bratislava, is very close to Vienna - the town I currently reside in - and it has the most awesome open air concerts during the summer)
Hungary (Ah sorry, I have never been there. And I do not want to write general information I find somewhere .. sorry. If I havent been there, I cannot cover it.)
Slovenia (Ljubljana !! A lot of students and young people, I love to hang out on the Ljubljanica ... If you can, go there.)
Italy (Sadly I have only been in Italy with my family, so I can only tell you that there are awesome beaches if you know where to go. Well, that should help, no ?
Switzerland (There is this hugh metal bar in Bern or Zürich, I am not sure anymore ...)
Liechtenstein (Well, its small and I have never been there)
Germany ( I am sorry Germany, but that would need another blog)

As about 65% of austria is covered by the Alps, I believe it to be quite natural that our national sports are everything with either ice or ski`s. We do decently well at icehockey (of course not NHL type of good), but Austria seems to excel at moving down a hill or jumping down a hill on ski`s. Well, that is because we cannot do anything else. Leave me alone.

I have to add that there are quite a lot of people NOT being born within the alps and a bunch of them either have never been skiing or dislike it as something that people from the rural parts of Austria are doing, but not people from the city (Vienna). So I have to say that not all people like it, its not like everyone does it. I do not want to spread wrong stereotypes

I have been born in Salzburg which is about 30-50 kilometers away from the actual alps but ten kilometers away from the next skiable mountains. Guess what I like to do in winter ? I hope you do not mind the images, there are going to be a lot of them.

It was supposed to snow very heavily soon so all of it was in our hands. What a feeling.

A lot of people do not use this one (==tourists) for they are afraid, but we shall not be dictated by fear.

So what do you do at the end of a whole day of skiing ? You guessed it. You skii in the night.

Now follow some pictures of the region with sun and people. Dull.

Of course you can also be trapped in the snow at 1900 meters above see where only 2 very small roads lead into that both go down a mountain. Well, thankfully it did not last long.

We have a excellent public transportation system in Austria (almost all of it is run by a 51% state owned company - the national austrian railway - ÖBB in german) and you can drive by train to almost anywhere in Austria, including all those juicy skiing regions. Well you might have to take a bus somewhere to get to the exact place where you wanted to go, but the train gets you very close.

So. More about the Austria nature you say ? How can I deny that comprehensible wish.
As I said I was born in Salzburg, but I was raised some ten kilometers south of it in a 20.000 citizen town called Hallein. I will save the non-existent bar scene for another time and bring you some pictures. Again? AGAIN ! To the picture mobile !

As I said, I am from Salzburg. This is the river Salzach, it runs through most of Salzburg. SALZBURG. You might remember that name forever now.

In bycicle range of Hallein there are two river/"lakes" : The Königsseer Ache and a very very small lake we are just going to call THE LAKE.

Lets begin with the river...

Well, its a small river. What did you expect.

We even have sand. Take that, beautful countries with gorgeous beaches on the sea.

They had to go ... one of them looked at my beer.

...and continue with the small lake.

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Thats me, on my birthday (march). My friends gave me this boat, and I tossed it into the lake with me, a beer and a cigaret. You might notice the snow on the mountain, it was still some kind of very cold. Also, that was 2 years ago. My hair has grown back since then. And the beard.

A better shot at the lake without the hidious me, and the mountain in the background is in Germany. If I wanted to, I could walk to germany within an hour.

There are a lot of very clean and jaw-dropping lakes and mountains in Austria, I have been told by 2 people that hugh parts of Canada are like Austria, just bigger and less people.

General information at the end.

Do irish people know that in central europe every fifth pub is irish ? I just wanted to ask. And where I am from, most (but one) are run by irish, So ... well yeah.
I was told by a 19 year old female american student in Vienna that she was not sure if we have running water in Austria. I mean what the hell. I am sorry, my knickerbockers were left at my mountain farm.

Okay. In the newest 2011 human development index Austria ranked #19 and the U.S. #4 with 0.025 difference on a scale from 0-1 .. in 2009 it was #19 and #23 for U.S. and Austria. Come on. The income per persona is higher then in germany.
Is that our image in the world ? Mountains and rural outfits ? Each his own, I suppose. I mean we love our mountains (proven in this blog) but I can assure you that we are quite advanced, our education is quite good and we sure do have a lot of stupid politicians. Well, everyone seems to have stupid politicians and people that vote for them in every country of the world ... sigh.

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Part III

Now that we have all the images behind us and in the interest of international relations by not furthering the anger of those who do not have snow, I present you the capital of Austria,
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JUST KIDDING, HEAVY IMAGE BLOG INCOMING. And NOTE : Most of the time I will not give you exact data and 100% correct statistics but more along the line of ~1/3. If I give exact estimates to anything, you can be sure that it was researched and is correct. I mean it.

Vienna, though shall be capital

General information

Everything you need to know to get what I am talking about later on.

There should be enough maps of Austria by now and if you look up you can see that our capital is in the north east of the country and not in the far west (from our most western state it is closer to Paris then it is to Vienna, just saying).
From now on I will just call Vienna V. I hope that is okay. And I will only feed you as much facts and overall information as I need to - I do not like to write about anything that can be easily looked up on wikipedia.

V is divided into 23 districts, beginning with 1 in the middle and continuing in circles untill you hit 23. For your convenience and to make my future references easier, here is a map. (I know that by now you like maps as much as the words Austria, Sbg and V)

So far I have lived in 20,15,12 and 10. Never made it into the inner circle. The straight blue line is the Danube, the not so straight line next to it is the so called Danube channel.

District 1-9 + 20 form the inner city, only important because you have to pay parking tickets for your car in those. Well and everything important is in there as well.

1,7 million people live in the 23 districts, and ~2.5 million if you count everything in the federal state of V .. which is about 1/3 of the austrian population.

V has been voted to be the most worth-living-in city of the world for 2 times now, once losing to Melbourne or it would have been three

. But as those were all made by private institutes, its not that big of a deal. Maybe we paid them, maybe we did not.

Wikipedia tells me that V is "twin city" with all those cities. I have no idea if that just means that there is a lot of city whoring going around or if those partnerships actually mean something. Well I searched for anything interesting and this was the only thing I could find. Move along. Twin cities in spoiler.

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Belgrade
Bratislava
Brno
Budapest
Istanbul
Kiev
Ljubljana
Moscow
Tabriz
Tel Aviv
Tunis
Warsaw
Zagreb

In the 70`s under chancellor Kreisky ...(social democrat, the 70`s were red years. Oh and V is called the "red" city btw, because there have always been lousy communist and bearded socialists. You know, like almost all of the important persons from V)... he established the city to be a neutral ground for international conflicts and such sort, and just a short list with the more important organizations that either reside or are based here :
IAEA, UNIDO, UNODC, OPEC, OSCE, UNCITRAL
This neutral ground also ment that a lot of dictators and their sons/daughters studied in V if they did not go to Switzerland or at least have good relationships with austrian politicians and or businessman. But I suppose that would go too far

V has a very dense subway and tram network, which will only be shown here for future reference and .. to show you that nobody needs a car in V, at least not on a daily basis.. Stay with me, only a few images left until we get to the part where I actually talk about V.

Subway and fast train network

Tram network in-between. Tram sub fast train all accessible with one ticket. For european students, 110 € per semester, for me 60 €. Everyone who lives there can buy a one year ticket for 365 €.

There are two big streets in V that go in circles to help everyone reach his or her destination. You can see the "ring" on the last picture in the center of V moving around the 1. district (just called "inner city"). Its a almost ring formed street for cars and trams, very handy for tourists as most of our old buildings are either near or very close to the "ring". The "belt" is the other one, indicated by the turquoise,green and brown tram lines on the pictures. It kind of nearly marks the end of the "inner circle", district 1-9 but this time without 20 and only a bit of 2 if you remember. If you do not, you have to read everything again.

Now we should have established the base for the next part, most importantly STUDENT LIFE.

Vienna and students

Or how it came to happen that in a town of 1,7 million people there are 250.000 students and 15.000 of those study political science together with me.

Most of the universities are state funded and who cares about those who aren`t. In Austria it is more of a shame if your father/mother pays a private university and I have met only two people so far and they admitted that they would prefer to study in a regular university. Why ? Well because we are awesome. Or not. Maybe that was a lie.

The european average on 3rd grade education is 2% of the annual real GDP. Austria spends 1% and our universities are heavily underfunded and had problems with their resources since I care about it.
Fun story. When I was in school, lets say when I was 15 so 2005, I was told that Austria has a very low academic rate and we need to have more people at the universities. I get to the university and there are way too much people to get handled by the administration and I get told that there are too many students in Austria. Meanwhile, from 2005-2009 (when I started), newly inscribed students have gone up by 5%. So from the time I was in middle-school to be being at the university something drastic must have happened. Right ? RIGHT ? No. We just do not fund our universities. Well, now you know that.

There are more small and big universities then I want to mention, so I will just give you a few of them with pictures of their buildings in a spoiler so that the already image heavy blog might be less image heavy. Open if you want to see a bunch of old buildings. Oh and important, there is no campus in V like lets say the complutensa in Madrid. The universities are all over the town and heavily integrated into the city as they were naturally added when another one was needed and they were not planned out like in other cities.

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Main University of Vienna (my university)

There are about 220 BA,MA and post-grade (and Dr.) studies although mostly humanitarian studies and languages, also biology chemisty economy metereology and many many more. It is to be noted here that the bachelor master system has been integrated in 07/08 and almost everyone who studies finishes his or her master as there is no market for bachelor yet and only 3 years of studying ? What the hell, man. i study political science and it will most likely take me 6 years altogether (I am allowed to study 6 1/2 without paying for it, 5 years is the minimal time for normal persons). If I have to pay, that would be 300 € a semester. And, the state pays me to study. Gotta love it, no ? I can live without having a job. Of course if you want to have some money to spend, you need a job.

The main university is located in the 1. district, next to the parliament, main theater, vienna city hall and museums. The main university has many parts as well, some bigger then the main building, for example the "uni campus". I would say 2/3 km² of buildings and courtyards.

TU (Vienna University of Technology - Technische Universität)

Main building. Altough there are more then 10 buildings around the city, this is where most of the tutoring is at and most of the other more then 10 are for experiments, building stuff e.t.c..

The library is to the left of the main building, and both of those are located south of the 1. district at subway station Karlsplatz, very close to the opera and many museums as well.

In between of those two universities is the

Academy of fine arts Vienna (Akademie der feinen Künste)

I believe this to be pretty much self explanatory. Beautiful building and best location for parties. Enough said.

University of Law, Vienna (Die Rechtswissenschaftliche Fakultät)

The so called "Juridicum" had to move from their beautiful old building because they were getting too big. Those lucky bastards, we cannot move because we already have the biggest buildings. It resides in the 1. district as well, 1-2 minutes away from the main university.

University of Economics (WU, WirtschaftsUniversität)

Snobs and Bobos. Nah. Everyone is friendly, our universities just hate each other, thats all. GO TO HELL. Just kidding.

$%!"§%/&$%/!

It is located in the north of the inner districts, so we do not like them because they are not part of our inner university circle.

That are five of the main universities, that should be enough for now.

Political Science at the main university is the self proclaimed "most leftist" university in the world. Go figure how I look like, and how the rest of my 15.000 PS behave and think. I love it. Nothing like reading the critique of pure reason in the park next to our buildings. Fun times, fun times indeed.

So now that I have the boring buildings and some information about the universities in V, lets get to the fun part.

Bars, drinking and pubs where you get a 1,6 liter beer glass if you give away a shoe as security to the bartender.

I prefer pubs and bars over discos and such nonsense so I am sorry if you are looking for something different, then you might not like the next part. Oh and I also listen to metal/rock/punk.

Lets begin with winter. There are many christmas markets in the inner city but most of them are heavily overpriced and only visited my american students and japanese tourists (well I am sorry I had to use those two but they are EVERYWHERE.)
But there is one very close to the main universities that is hidden and cheaper, but I hope I can trust you so I will give you the exact location of our secret.

7th district (in Vienna the districts are added to the postal code after a 1 and ended by a 0. So the 7th district would be 1070, the 12th would be 1120 and so forth. 1070 between "Stiftgasse" and "Breite Gasse", open from 14:00-21:00 (all of them close that soon) and normally runs from ~15th of november to 23rd of december. Order "Glühwein" and gorge in decently priced awesomeness.

You are now north of the "Peoples theater" and the MQ (MuseumsQuartier, lets just translate that to .. museum quarters. super hard translation. Just say MQ and everyone will know what you mean. There are 3-4 bars always full of students and pretentious and non pretentious artsy people but it is overpriced for the normal student.
And if you get there in the summer you might catch a free concert or just sit outside on those :
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Bring your friends and beer/wine e.t.c. They are much more awesome then they look !

Very close you have the "Kaeuzchen", a almost pure student bar/pub with cheap and awesome meals plus cheap beer. How cheap ? There is one for 2,3 € that is defenitely drinkable. The rest costs around 3.2 €, which is sadly far from overpriced in V. If you ever want to find the homepage and address (also in english), go to kaeuzchen.at.

In near proximity, but closer to "Karlsplatz" (you might remember, that is where the Tecnical University resides) you can find the Top Kino (Top Cinema) (http://www.topkino.at/) which has a lot of english and non-german movies and ... it is a bar as well. It is cheap, and you can take your beer into the cinema - when you finish that beer, get out and buy a new one .. return and enjoy.

Our walk has brought us to "Karlsplatz" now, and we are at the south side of the 1. district. We follow the "Kärtner Strasse" (one of THE main shopping streets in Vienna) to our next stop (like the 2nd or 3rd street to the right, a metal/rock bar called Graffity (http://www.graffiti-hardrock.com/) where you can talk to friendly unwashed long haired metal heads and most of them talk english and MOST of the time, native english speakers are there as well as there are only two metal bars in V and the other one is a death/black bar.

If we follow the "Kärntner Strasse" to its end, the Steffansdom (Stehphen`s Cathedral I would assume) we can find a very small pub where no tourists ever find their way in altough it is so close to the very center of the hordes of Genghis Tourist.
Bockshorn Bier Pub
Naglergasse 7, 1010 Wien, Austria
It is awesome, small and full of drunken people.

BARCRAFT VIENNA
Always in a bar called "replugged", to be found at
Lerchenfelderstrasse 23 1070 Wien
Barcraft with two monitors at the top and big room for live concerts if you move your ass down the stairs.

At the subway-station "Schwedenplatz" you can find the biggest conglomerate of bars,pubs and discos in V and if you go there, you will surely find a bar you like. I will just mention a few if you ever find yourself there and want to visit the most Tufas approved places (I rarely go there):

"Philosph"
Finally. Here you can get a 1,6 l beer if you give them your shoe. Just remember to get it back after you had a few. Very cozy and rather small, more for drinking and talking with friends in a friendly athmosphere then anything.

There are three irish pubs -
(two of them are called Waxy`s and Paddy`s. They are not real irish pubs, they are tourist irish pubs.)
- where you get the cheapest beer in V. I believe they raised the price from 2 € to 2 € and something, still very cheap. Do not drink the guinness though, it gets poured in 5 seconds and is only to be consumed when drunk. Incredible cheap though. Go figure out why.
They also have cider for 2 € something, which is cheap and good.

Closer to my university :

Währinger Strasse 3
1090 Vienna. Austria
Charlie P's Irish Pub
Cheap drinking and eating, mostly populated by poor students

That is the only real pub in close proximity to my university, the rest are awesome cafe`s with wifi and newspaper to learn and read.

Art Part I

I still have no idea where to BEGIN ....
.... so I will use my already proven concept of beginning at the beginning.

There was a man, so fun and tall
They did not take him serious, at all
He sang in twelve hundred twenty three
What a famous man he was going to be

+ Show Spoiler +

I might have gone mad with power. YOU HAVE TO STOP ME.

Walther von der Vogelweide was the first partially austrian artist that came to my mind. Now he lived from about 1170 - 1230 but that is not the interesting part. He most likely was a knight, and began his traveling career as a bard when his mentor died. We have some of his first love songs (cheesy if you ask me) but as he grew older, his songs became political and mocking. He sang for the independence of Germany (Holy Roman Empire back at the time, you might remember) against the rule of the catholic church. People liked him, I sure would have liked to meet him. Just need to polish my middle high german, should not be that hard.
+ Show Spoiler +

Now if you actually remember what you read befor, you might notice that Austria was created after his death. Yes, that is true. Thats why I said partially austrian. You might say not at all, but hey. I had to begin somewhere, every story has its beginning. Are you always that picky ? Shut up and take my story.

I have no idea yet if I am going to distinguish between epochs or crafts but you will see what I am going to make up on the fly.

Okay, selection at its finest. I will let our brilliant austrian writers and sculptors reside in their caves for now, they might be added .. in one year. This is going to be a disaster. And no artists from my time either. Can you feel how nervous I am, talking about art ? Like I have any clue. Well, here we go. If I am fundamentally wrong, tell me. As far as I can say this is the part I spent most of my time with - so I should be fine.

Ah well, a small list of authors - I could not resist.
+ Show Spoiler +

In no particular order - let chaos roam free.
And for your future life, know that many austrian writers either have a strange humour, very dark sense for normality or just regular good old satyrical nature. It seems to me that this is the best compromise between not being comform and not actually having to do anything. Perfect.
Karl Kraus, Thomas Bernhard, Stefan Zweig, Johann Nestroy, Ernst Jandl, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach ,Gerhard Roth, Elfriede Jelinek, Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Ödön von Horváth, Franz Kafka, ..untill I remember more, they are everyone you know.

THEATER/PAINTING/MUSIC

THEATER

It began overshadowed by its bigger sibling the opera and was only consumed by the "average" people who wanted to be entertained. Nothing more, nothing less. As its popularity grew and began to climax in the times of the "Biedermeier? Is there a proper english word for that?" it had already grown into a play with words and full of hidden criticism and ambiguous meanings. If you remember Metternich, our friend from the historic part, well lets say he was not the biggest fan of enlightenment and education of the masses. They shall be entertained, bread and games, you should know the drill of mass suppression by now. Or you can call it entertainment. Your choice.

So the dance began. If you were known (like Nestroy) you could afford to break some rules and only pay a small fine or go to prison for a small amount of time - or they could not let you play again. Some chose to do as they were told, some tried everything they could with all rhetorical aids possible to hide and mask the true meaning of their words.

Then there was a revolution in 1848/49 .( I have heard that one should always read information more then once or it will not stick). Well, thats it. if you actually want to know more, go read a book. Do I look like I know all that stuff ?

So we still have to get to the most important authors (no particular order). If I forget your favorite one, do not be angry. Be chill.

Peter Handke
Wolfgang Bauer
Fritz Hochwälder
Thomas Bernhard
Gottfried Prehauser
Robert Musil
Hermann Broch
Friedrich Halm
Franz Kafka
Rainer Maria Rilke
Franz Grillparzer
Josef Stranitzky

If you want to watch and hear a theater in Vienna, visit any of those four. Burgtheater, Volkstheater, Akademietheater, Schauspielhaus. Ordered by grade of famousness but I can guarantee you that all of them are good. Granted, I have not been in the Schauspielhaus yet, but my non pretentious artsy friends have and they say it is awesome, or maybe even better then the Burgtheater. And there are many many many more theaters, but you can start with those.

Cabaret

I am truly sorry that so many of you will never understand austrian cabaret. I would not trade it for most things. For everyone who speaks german, here are some of the better ones I found on youtube. As I cannot present you with a live performance, this will do.
+ Show Spoiler +

If you are going to watch the first one and speak german, give it a chance. Watch the whole clip.

PAINTING

I have to be perfectly honest here. I pulled the history of theater out of the last synapses in my brain that remembered such knowledge from my time in school and I am empty on painters and art in general. I even had to look up some of the writers I was sure about to never forget. If I have ever known it, art has been lost in the great vast space that is my brain.

As I do not like to use wikipedia for anything that I am serious about and like to be good and interesting and reading a book about this matter is not an option right now, you might have to do without the history and value evaluation of the art I am going to present. If I do not know or know that I have known once, I will not pretend to know now.
Names and most known paintings it is, I hope that is enough. if nothing else, you see some awesome pictures. If I know something about art or not, most awesome pictures are awesome. You know.

Egon Schiele

As always, no particular order. But we are going to begin this with a classy piece of art. It may or may not be SFW, though it is definitely safe for soul and life.

Oskar Kokoschka

I would be lying when I said that I knew about his paintings befor I did this. He made some very dark paintings, I like those.

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Gustav Klimt

Already requested in the first post of this blog, here he comes. Sadly my favorite one has been destroyed, I really would have liked to see her eyes on the real painting ("Philosophie").

PART III.III Museums

MUSEUMS IN VIENNA

So you might remember the map from Vienna, I am going to include the addresses and you might actually find them. For example, 1070 means 7th district. 1120 means 12th district.

As the exhibits change all the time and might be outdated very soon, there will be general information. And this are the "important", "known" or "great" one`s, as soon as I have more time I will add some of the awesome independent/small. We be indy after all. NOT COMPLETE. Also, pictures. And this time, none of them are mine. Do not tell my real name to anyone, please.

Albertina
Albertinaplatz 1,
1010 Wien

Maybe the most famous one in V and very close to the State Opera at Karlsplatz, in the 1st district. The permanent exhibits are set with mostly classical modern painters from impressionism to Bauhaus, includes Monet and Picasso.
11 € for adults, 8 € for students and nothing if you are still blessed with youth below 19.

Architekturzentrum Wien (Architecture Center Vienna)
Museumsplatz 1, im MQ
1070 Wien

It resides at the MQ (already mentioned above) thus being at the western end of the 1st district, 10 very slow minutes of walking away from the Albertina. Well it showcases austrian architecture (wow, you don`t say) but building stuff seems to be on of the things many austrians excell at, so it is actually very good. For me it is more famous for its changing exhibits and the architectural library next to it. I have no idea how much you have to pay for it as I paid nothing a couple of times but that could be .. my fault.

Filmmuseum (I believe that I do not have to translate that)
Augustinerstrasse 1,
1010 Wien

When I first came to V I went there a lot, as we did not really have much cinemas in Sbg (remember, V for Vienna and Sbg for Salzburg) and this is a really good one. If you purchase a member card, every movie for 5 ·€. Otherwise, it should be 7 or 7.50 € if I remember correctly. Saw Chaplin, german movies from the 20`s, soviet Science Fiction, Robert Siodmak, Joseph Cornell and many many others there. A must go for classical movie lovers. Always in original language with subtitles, so just watch out for movies from your region if you cannot read german. Also, a hugh movie/magazine library for everyone to bask in long gone movie glory. And it is inside the Albertina, see above.

Haus der Musik (House of Music)
Seilerstätte 30
1010 Wien

Its very modern, this one. Always trying to get people to experience sound differently and understand the fascination with music. You have to pay attention though, a lot of time they have days and exhibits designed for kids, they might not excite you that much. As any other homepage of the museums I present, this one can also transform into english for your viewing pleasure and you should be able to navigate through. A lot of times there are musicians speaking in the evening too, just watch out for their names and pray that they speak english. It happens, but most of them are german speakers.

Jüdisches Museum Wien (Jewish Museum Vienna)
Palais Eskeles
Dorotheergasse 11,
1010 Wien

Its main exhibition is structured into two main components, at one hand over 9000 (2000) postcards from 1900-1950 showing the struggle and hopes and the hopes given to a jewish state which was not here yet. The other part is made up of objects that stereotype and were mostly considered anti-semitic, some even no-doubt anti-semitic with the intention to deal with the subject of jewish cliché. The active exhibitions are mostly awesome (as far as I have seen them), I did not visit the current ones (100 years of hollywood, a jewish experience - jewish geniuses, Warhols Jews / at least that would be my translation ) but they seem interesting.

Kunsthaus Wien (Art House Vienna)
Untere Weissgerberstrasse 13
1030 Wien

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It includes a museum of Hundertwasser ( I mentioned him above in ARTS, but maybe I did not give him enough credit. He was some sort of genius after all) and changing exhibitions, currently they have "Head 2 Head, Politics and the Public Image" about the changing of power in our recent time, politicians having to represent themselves effectively in public while CEO`s of sometimes even more powerful corporations have almost no public profile, crossing ideologies and historic times. As soon as I can I will visit this one, and if you are there - so should you.

Kunsthistorisches Museum (Historic Art Museum)
Hauptgebäude
Maria Theresien-Platz
1010 Wien

Directly at the east of the MQ, it is one of the "old" museums in V and has no eyes for contemporary art, filling its halls with older paintings and long faded times. Renaissance, 19th century, 18th century, you name it. Maybe they even have 13th century. No idea. Go ask them. Also egyptian sarcophagi , busts from the classical antique, many coins, venecian and flemish painters from the 17th century and so on. You get the idea, its old and good and someone needs to show it.

Naturhistorisches Museum Wien (Natural Historic Museum)
Burgring 7,
1014 Wien

Although the strange address might not seem like it, it is only separated from the Historic Art Museum by a square and they directly face each other next to the MQ. Again - repeat information, It might actually stick.
Well, what should I say. Its plants and animals, and most of it is old and some of it can only been seen there. I always favored the Historic Art Museum, but hey. If you want to go there try to find some of the models they used for pokemons, go for it. Also dinosaurs, stuff in salt and amber that prevailed, maybe even some crazy scientists. No promise though.

MUMOK (Museum of Modern Art, MUMOK is the short handle for the german name)
Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien
Museumsplatz 1
1070 Wien

Well, its also inside the MQ. Maybe thats why it is called ... Museums Quarters. Or it isn`t, its my translation after all.
Okay, its modern art. If you like nouveau réalisme and popart and other flashy stuff from the 60`s, this is where its at.

Technisches Museum (Technical Museum)
Mariahilfer Straße 212
1140 Wien

Well, you may have one of those where you are from, but still. I am sure you did not visit it, did you ?
It ranges from musical instruments, energy, history of heavy industry, traffic over the ages to nature and engineering.
They also work with technical art and the fun of science, you know. And how to build this and that, nuclear fusion and the theory of interstellar traveling. Also for adults, can be very fun if you actually let yourself try. If you have kids that do not toddle around, this and the music museum might interest them most. Boring paintings be boring.

Part I.I HISTORICAL INTERLUDE

Political History, 1804 - 1945

Because some always want it in more detail.

In 1804 all the countries under the rule of the Habsburg were forged into the Austrian Empire. This Austria, a huge part of what is going to be called central and middle Europe in our time, was ruled absolutistic without any sort of constitution or parliament. In 1848, as a result of the civil revolution at the time, a convention was called to create a constitution, and finished it in 1849 with the goal of transforming the country into a constitutional monarchy. By 1849 though the revolution was already crushed, the "really-would-like-to-be-independent" Hungary was brought to sense (euphemism) and so the Austrian Emperor deemed himself strong enough again to deny the already decided constitution.
Two lost wars will be necessary to bring it into power.
+ Show Spoiler +

This set a sad trend, from now on Austria will only further democracy and parliamental power after a military defeat, in 1918 and 1945. A Austrian revolution never succeeded as it did in other countries and thus democracy and progress only came from foreign powers after a major defeat.

One lost against Piedmont and France in 1859 (lost the Lombardy) and the other one against Prussia and Italy in 1866 (lost Venetia) and so weakened emperor had to give in. In 1867 the empire was split into Hungary (mostly todays Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia and parts of Romania) and Austria, the rest. Both parts were independent besides questions of foreign, military and financial politics. The austrian part of the empire finally got a constitution, the "Staatsgrundgesetz" (the translator says ... constitution. well, moving on) that will be in power until 1918.

Let us talk about the actual piece of paper, I am sure some obscure european history student will like it. Its my blog, deal with it.

It was what we now call a half, or pseudo parliamentarism. The emperor appointed a cabinet (at its head a prime minister), opposed to the parliament ("Reichsrat"). The "Reichsrat" was divided into two chambers, The "Herrenrat", the counterpart of the house of lords in England (at the time). The other chamber was voted in "democratically". All men were able to vote but the more wealth and income someone had, the more important the voice was counted as. (from 1907 onwards, every vote counted the same. male that is)
The cabinet was not politically responsible towards the parliament and there was no way to overrule a decision by the Emperor. So called emergency decrees could circumvent the parliament at any time thus limiting the actual power of the parliament to almost zero until 1918.
As you might or might not know, this meant that Austria had a very late and underdeveloped political system. For example, political power was already to given to a parliament in this countries :
1833 Belgium
1834 Great Britain
1861 Italy
1875 France
1901 Denmark
1911 Portugal
1917 Sweden

This late development contradicts the early development of a modern party system.
1867-1879 in the first phase of the constitutional monarchy it was considered to be a "liberal" era, with unrestrained capitalism and everything that came with it. After the liberal era, two clubs emerge with two strong programmatic views of their own "world order". Those, about 120 years later, are still the biggest partys in Austria.

"Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei" (social democratic workers party) short SDAP was founded in 1889 and if you know about the history of your local socialist party, the rest should not be news for you. And if you are from England and want to read about that time, I can only tell you to read "The Making Of Modern Britain" from Andrew Marr. Very good book.
It was the political wing of the worker movement which included the party (haha, oh really), labour unions, proletariat women movements and cultural organisations.As it was understood, society was separated between the conflict line of "class, bourgeoisie and proletariat. This programmatic of the SDAP and the general socialistic movement transformed into the austromarxism - which means, the basics of marxist politics and views on the general society should create a socialist order for society and economics with the help of the instruments given to the parliament.

"Christsoziale Partei" (christian-social party) was created out of clubs that propagated social reforms based on the teachings of the catholic church. Their line of conflics was between catholicism and secularism and the political representatives were working close wit the church and were mostly considered catholic-conservative.
Leading up to the elections in 1907 they forged a coalition between all their wings to defend the connection of church and state.

A lot of smaller german-nationalistic clubs formed as well, working with the still known concept of imagined or real conflict between nationality and difference between the german (minority) and rest (well, majority). As if it mattered (history), they never forged a great alliance as 3rd party.

This made for an interesting situation. The political loyalties were given to clubs and partys, not Austria-Hungary. Austro-Hungarian patriotism did not exist, for example only German, Italian, Czech or Polish nationalism and worked against the existence of the state. This mult-ethnicity traveled into the austrian state of today, with many linguistic minorities all around the country.
As the pseudo parliamentarism never had any real political power, they "withdrew" as a role in real politics and that iw shy, after the "implosion" of the monarchy in 1918, they were free to proclaim the republic.

The last 1911 elected german delegates of the social democrats, christian-social and german-national partys proclaimed the republic of Austro-Germany and the attachment to the new democratic Germany. The name and the wish for attachment to Germany made clear that the supranational Austria was gone with the end of the Habsburg. Most of the Austro-Hungarian delegates did not care about "Austro-Germany" (as I said the majority was non-german) and were busy founding or helping Czechoslovakia, Poland or Yugoslavia for example. Austria was the german speaking rest but the treaty of St. Germain forbid the attachment and Austria had to accept this forced autonomy (austrian nationality did not exist back then).

For the voting of the members in the national gathering to create a constitution, women were also allowed to vote for the first time. As the german-nationals left in 1920 as a protest to the denying of the melting with Germany, only the two great parties remained.
The beginnings were marked with a great deal of consensus between them, hinting at the social partnership, later to come.
The constitution ("Bundes-Verfassungsgesetz" also shows the readiness for compromise :

Social Democrats : (let me call them SDAP please)
One state, no independent federal states with their own chamber.
No strong head of state, best no head of state.

Christ-Socialists : (and CS, if you allow)
State with as much autonomy for federal states as possible and a real two chamber system (don`t make me say what that means, I will).
Strong leader with as many power as possible.

The constitution creates relatively low powers for the federal states and a federal council with little authority. The federal president only gets moderate to small possibilities.
After the national gathering to create a constitution ended and the first real election happened, the CS ruled in different variations with different newly formed small german-national partys from 1920 to 1933. This "bourgeois bloc administration" (I hope you are right, translator) was opposed by the SDAP. The CS wanted to rewrite the constitution to their liking, but they needed a 2/3 majority that they did not get and so those two partys worked on another compromise by 1929.

The CS could strengthen the federal president. He, other then in 1920, should not be named by the parliament but by the people. Also, he was now able (or forced) to form a government after elections, both done by the parliament before.
But the SD could avoid the weakening of the national assembly and the federal government was still politically responsible towards the national assembly. They could issue a vote of non-confidence thus ensuring that the government could not rule against the will of the national assembly.
If you really want to know the other changes and you speak german (I really do not want to translate this words), here they are. Or at least the most important changes from that time, still active in 2012.
+ Show Spoiler +

parlamentarische demokratie
präsidentielle elemente
zentralistischer bundesstaat
unechtes zweikammernsystem

This political compromise could not stop the development into different directions of the SDAP and the CS. The camps strengthened themselves in form of military armament.
SD : "Republikanischer Schutzbund"
CS : the very close "Heimwehren"

As the NSDAP began to replace the german-national partys in 1930, the SA was also added to the mix.
The general consensus at the beginning of the republic was gone, SDAP and CS found less and less to work with and the conflict developed into the beginning of what could be a civil war.
The CS saw themselves impossible to win a democratic election next to SDAP and NSDAP and wanted to pressure away from parliament and the constitution. the SDAP saw themselves as defenders of the constitution and the republic. By 1933 the NSDAP became more power with Hitlers rise to power and worked on the alignment with Germany. For that exact reason SDAP and CS did not want to join Germany anymore - it was not the democratic Germany they wanted to join in 1918-1919.

In March 1933 the cabinet of CS federal chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß took a parliamentarian rule of order to declare the national assembly as dissolved and the police was told to prevent it from gathering again. He used a law from the first world war (the enabling act) to give the power to work around the parliament. By February of 1934 civil war broke out between Army, Police and CS close armed unions against the armed wing of the SDAP, the "Republikanischer Schutzbund". The government could fight the SDAP back and they banned the party and social democratic labour unions.

First May 1934, Dollfuß and his government (by now they renamed the CS to "Vaterländische Front - fatherland front - VF) decided that it was time for their new constitution. The concept of the "authoritarian corporate state" is, historically, interesting .. but that would really go too far now. Read up on it if you want to. The original is called "der autoritäre Ständestaat".
In July 1934 the NSDAP, with help of the SS, tried to overthrow the government with military power and Engelbert Dollfuß was shot during the conflict but they could be fought back. The demonstrative help of the Italian fascists kept the national socialistic Germany from intervening, as the axis Rome-Berlin was not forged yet.

Austria now lives through two dictatorship, one authoritarian and the other one totalitarian.
Between February 1934 and March 1938 the as VF newly organised catholic-conservative camp ruled opposed to the socialists and now completely in the hands of the NSDAP German-Nationalists (who propagated, you guessed it, the attachment to Germany). The autoritarian corporative state suppressed every opposition and basic political rights but as a distinction to the ruling party in Germany, it was not totalitarian and did not pursuit its Jewish citizens yet although antisemitism undeniably existed in large parts of the Austrian society.
By March 1938 Austria lost its autonomy. As a result of the illegal (every other party was banned besides FV) NS activities and massive pressure through the NS regime, Kurt Schuschnigg (Dollfuß`s successor) resigned. German troops "invade" Austria and it is now part of the Great German Empire. A lot of Austrian citizens, not just the members of the NSDAP, welcomed this change even though it could be immediately seen that the dictatorship was strengthened and the "racial laws" came into effect.
Well, if you are able to read between the lines ... Austria was not the first victim of the war as it was stated in Moscow in 1943 by the allies. This fact will be used later after the end of the second world war to accelerate the independence of Austria but also lead to a very slow and weak process of coming to terms with the past.
There was organised resistance though mainly communist and monarchist, but also socialist-democratic and christian-social. The autoritarian corporative state isolated its self too much to fight against the pressure from outside and inside. The socialist were hammered during the last four years and after the pact between Hitler and Mussolini the most important foreign backup was gone.
The corporate state ( I like to repeat information, you may actually learn something) was the autoritarian rule of the catholic-conservative over the other two "illegal" partys and in 1938 one of them formed a totalitarian dictatorship. If you have read it that far, you should be able to tell yourself which one it was.
The catholic church welcomed the annexation through Germany but soon saw themselves restrained to the churches and everything else, such as catholic schools, were forbidden.
Now of course those strongest affected by the NS regime were the Jewish Austrians. Stolen from, stripped of any rights, sent off to working and concentration camps about 1/3 of the 200.000 Jewish citizens that lived here before 1938 will die during the Shoah. The same way, Roma and Sinti fell victim to the NS.

The political suppression (I assume that most people know about the second world war. I try to bring you information you may not have known yet, what is the sense of repeating facts that everybody has already heard of ?) mainly focused on this groups :

Members of the autoritarian government, if the were against the new regime.
Activists of the socialist camp, already well documented through the old regime from 1934-1938.
Those two were the first political group to be sent to KZ Dachau,

Comunists. Their membership increased drastically during 1934 to 1938 and they actively fought the NS but during the pact with Stalin (lasted from August 1939 to June 1941) the Soviet Union gave away their names to the Gestapo.
Monarchists : Small in number but against the NS out of principles and also hunted by the Nazis.

As well as in Germany (well it was now Germany), pacifists, homosexuals and "anti-socials" (everyone who behaved socially different then the NS "norm") were also systematically persecuted. But you should already know all that.
This dictatorship, mainly a dictatorship from Austrians against Austrians, had the same percentage of members in various NS organisations as Germany.

All of this still has importance, if not alone for the fact that in 2012 (although there was some success after it only really started in 2000) Austrian politicians still debate about restitution of wealth and objects such as paintings, sculptures, watches e.t.c. .

For you, my one lonely TL reader, I will emphasise that Austria never had the same type of coming to terms with the past as Germany. No one talked about it for a long time and other then small events such as Kurt Waldheim`s election in 1986 (he was in the SS), nothing ever inflamed a real debate. And opposed to Germany Austria does not have the unconditional defense of Israel in its constitution in case you did not know that. Well, I hope that is enough for now.

Part IV, General Information

+ Show Spoiler +

As always, I try to do it without WIkipedia for as long as I can. Also, most of the stats will be from 2010. If not, I will say so.

Let us begin with me, Tufas, throwing some numbers and facts at you.

In case you do not read spoilers, most stats from 2010.
Also, you missed out on a great deal of things
if you never opened the spoilers. Read again.

There are 8.440.465* (01.2012) people in Austria and combined with our small size that makes for roughly 100 humans per km². Out of those we have 350.247 students.I also read that Austria is one of the most distributed countries in the world (meaning in every valley you can find a village and you never have a great region where nobody lives) but I cannot find the source so you have to believe me another time when I edit in the source.

Our average income for 2011 was 32.783 € and for dependent gainfully employed the distribution is as following :
Women 18.270
Man 30.316
Good job with all the promises for gender equality.

The average rent is 445 €/ month and we have very costly cities in Vienna and Salzburg. The rent also consistently went up in the last 30 years.

We have a decently low 4,4 % unemployment rate and a decently low average child per woman as well, 1,44.
Distribution of the general public:

0-14 year old 14,8 %
15 - 59 62,1 %
60 + 23,1 %

We reside in CET (as all the cool cats do) and add/subtract one hour for daylight saving.

As I have visited countries where this is not the fact, well, let me introduce you to a concept of four seasons (imagine Vivaldi being born in .. Australia** ?

You have winter, where it is cold and there is snow. Trees lose their leaves and rivers freeze (ice skating yeyy). You cannot leave the house without 5 layers of clothing and the only skin you are going to see is the one of your loved one`s. You already begin to remember why you love summer and the delight of the first snow slowly begins to fade.

In spring, everyone already hates the snow anyway and the sun is beginning to warm your skin again and you can sit in the grass, lie in the park, ride your bike and do other things that require open space that is not covered in white freezing death. But before that can happen, there is everyone`s favorite time of the year. Mud. MUD. MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUD EVERYWHERE.

Allegedly there is also summer but heavy rain can really blur that fact (haha hah ha ...). It can get hot during peak days (especially in the east) and students are university-free from about somewhere at the beginning/mid of june to the beginning of october (up to 4 months ! HELL YES) while pupils get about 9 weeks.

Our autumns can already be pretty chill and windy and during your last bicycle tour when the leaves wither and heavy rain/wind comes into play, you sometimes wish for the snow as it is already cold and wet and muddy and snow is white and clean and dry. Also, mulled wine. Cycle, eh ?

The Alps have a average precipitation of 3.000 mm while the eastern regions may only get 400-500 so my next statement might not be true for a great bunch of Austria, but where I am from it rains a lot. I tell you there can be two weeks of constant rain. In Salzburg we have a phenomenon us locals like to call Schnürlregen (heavy constant rain) where it can actually happen that you can only see the sun five times in a month. Sup sun.

But I know that you love senseless facts and statistics as much as the next one so I will present you some more in case you are ever going to be on Who Dares To Be A Millionaire!

Austria has the highest rate of smokers in the world, 36,3 % (take that Greece with your lousy 35%). We do not smoke most cigarets (thank you China and certain eastern European countries) but there is the highest density of smokers. And we are #1 on smoking 15 year olds in the EU. Great, is it not ? Also, more women than men smokers in case you did not know.

You are allowed to drink beer and wine when you are 16 years old (I look at you drunken teenagers from the U.S. I have met when I was a teenager .. could not hold their liquor. Tz tz) and the rest with 18 (in Vienna, Burgenland and Lower Austria it states that you can drink everything when you are 16). You can make a special drivers licence when you are 17 years old but the normal one would be with 18. Thus we drink and then we drive, although I have no idea if that increases or decreases our drunken drivers. Most likely they still drive drunkenly but they are already used to the alcohol by then. Don`t know.

Every male "abled" citizen can choose between 9 months of civil service or 6 months of military service for next to no salary (both). To prepare us for life, teach us discipline, fight the red threat in the east and so forth. Most of us believe this to be non-sensical, although it might be argued that the nursing practice might be out of underpaid helpers without this system and it would collapse. Well, you could always pay your employees and make them stay. Or not.

In the EU per-person consumption of beer Austria ranks #3 with 106 liters only defeated by #2 Germany 110 liters and #1 Czech Republic, about 160 liters. Damn, that is 54 more liters of beer. Holy Brew. In Austria, as in many other civilized countries, the German purity law is in action and those sissy beers from Belgium and so forth are not beer but beer-mix and so on..

There are certain regulations for smoking in pubs and restaurants (not long ago, I dunno, like 2-3 years ?) and if your establishment is not bigger then a certain amount of m², you can decide yourself if people are allowed to smoke or not.
Drinking is allowed everywhere, as far as I know the only place where it is not allowed is the Vienna subway (well and court and so forth) but they have it in their official policy to only bother with obviously drunken guests. I have never had any problems with drinking beer in the subway, even when passing employees they never say anything.

Also, we suck at soccer.

*They did not write if this number includes foreigners currently residing in Austria or not .. but I assume it does ?
**I had to use something, do not be angry please.

After the general general information, there comes the bad stuff for once. There you have it, lets do this.

Also, I have no idea how this is going to work out. I have one and a half hours left to write this part,
I will see what I can think of.

Okay. So we have one of the strongest nationalistic partys in europe, called the FPÖ (translated : Freedom Party of Austria). A party which mostly works with populism and fear mongering tactics. It is always "us Austrians" against "those foreigners". You know, they have different cultures, languages, might even look different and because of that, they are bad. You know how this works. It is the same in every country of the world. But in Austria, up to a staggering 30 % can vote for this party who wants to leave the EU and ban everyone who is not "austrian". The FPÖ directly evolved out of the german-nationalists and well... our beloved Nazis. In the european parliament they are represented together with good friends from Vlaams Belang from Belgium, National Front from France, Order and Justice from Lithuania, Sweden Democrats from .. Sweden and UK Independence Party among others.

They still propagate, and it seems that a lot of people believe it, that "foreigners" are principally bad and only Austrians are worth anything. I have always wondered if Austrians become bad people when they move to a foreign country ....
They hold public hate speeches against every other religion than Christianity (especially Islam in Austria).
Well as I said, up to 30% of the Austrian people vote for them. And for some reason, also a lot of young "foreigners".

In 2001 about 16% of the in Austria living inhabitants were born outside of Austria and 9% were still without Austrian citizenship (710.926). Austria does not allow two citizenships after you turn 18 years old and has one of the hardest restrictions to become a Austrian citizen. These two factors make for a relative low naturalisation in relation to the european average. If you know about the issue, Austria might even be known to you as one of the hardest and most un-welcoming countries in Europe. Although many people came to Austria because of war and the breakdown of the iron curtain, many came through projects that were designed to get "foreign worker" into the country from the 60`s to the 80`s. So Austrian needed those workers, a fact many seem to forget or ignore.

Some politicians nowadays always talk about the fact that "foreigners" have to integrate themselves. Do you want to see a small glimpse into Austrian integration politics ? Worse political rights, worse economic chances (some are not even allowed to work, go figure how that ends ... exactly like that : Those foreigners don`t even work ! They came from other countries and now WE pay for THEM ! And if the person is sub-Saharan African, then "those black people" never work. I hear it in the subway or the tram every day and all I can do is tell them to be ashamed of themselves. I doubt that it ever worked. In german there is this word called "fremdschämen" .. it is to be ashamed for somebody else. In Austria, we voted it word of the year 2010. Why ? Because that is what most of us do. We are ashamed for other Austrians. Oh, rant over.)
Uhm ... ah yes. They also have it hardened to get third grade education (they have to pay to study, Austrian citizens do not. They have to have 3000 € on their account (controlled once a year) .. how many students have 3000 € ? Trolo.
The government also works on so called "integration measures" (1997,2002) that never make it easier, only harden the path for real integration.

POLITICS from 1945 to 2012
not now ..... just not .. now.

PART V My Education

Well I am running out of ideas and I do not know the whole educational system,
so I will simply tell you about my school path.

You know, because I am smart and all.

I went to the "kindergarten" from 3-6. Party all the time, no homework, you do not know how to write yet and just have fun while your parents are happy that you are not home 24/7.

From 6-10 I had to go to the elementary school, learning the basics to get me started. This step is required for all pupils while the by now the last year of kindergarden is mandatory for everyone and was completely optional when I went there.

From 10 onwards there are different paths you can take. As I had "good" grades, I went to a "AHS" - structured into 10-14 "lower grade" and 14-18 "upper grade". This makes for 8 years. Everyone in Austria has to go to school for 9 years, so at least untill you are 15 (4 years of elementary school). There are many many different paths, so I will really stick to mine.

The first two years were the same for everyone in my school but from the beginning we were arranged into those who will walk the "language" and those who will walk the "scientific" path. As I did, you can still switch between those two in your first years. I thought that I was going for the "language" but decided to switch to the "scientific" lane. (So I did not have to learn a 3rd language when I was 13, hehe). My old classmates had to either learn latin/spanish/french with 13 or latin with 15 if they did not choose it before. There was no way around it.

In your main subjects you have to write big 1-3 hour long tests (4-6 times a year) while your small objects only have shorter tests every .. 4-6 weeks or so.
This main subjects were
1-8th grade math, german, english
5-8th grade spanish (this or french or latin)
7-8th grade descriptive geometry (this or biology)

Everyone had a very very basic english in the last two years of elementary school but the real class from 10-18.
But unlike other countries, our class schedule looked like this (I am going to pick my 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th year), always per week.

2nd year (30 hours)

3 hours of english
3 hours of math
3 hours of german

2 hours of biology
2 hour of physics
2 hours of economical and geographical education
2 hours of history
2 hours of BE (I dunno, uhm, "art of creating". Yeah. So painting, coloring, drawing, all that fun stuff - later on you have to choose between this and musical education)
2 hours of musical education
2 hours of TW (to work with fabrics like wood, wool, what ever - this will be dropped after the 3rd or 4th year I think)
4 hours of sport
1 hour of computer science
2 hours of your religion (it was awesome ... two hours of doing nothing.)

4th year (33 hours)

3 hours of math
4 hours of german
3 hours of english

2 hours of history
2 hours of economical and geographical education
2 hours of computer science
2 hours of BE
2 hours of physics
2 hours of biology
2 hours of chemistry
3 hours of sport
2 hours of your religion
2 hours of linear drawing
2 hours of musical education

6th year (30 hours.Only 30 because from 6th to 8th grade you have to choose elective subjects and I put all of mine into 7th and 8th grade)

4 hours of math
3 hours of german
3 hours of spanish (I had spanish from 5th to 8th grade)
3 hours of english

2 hours of history
3 hours of biology
2 hour of economical and geopraphical education
2 hours of physics
2 hours of your religion
2 hours of sport
2 hours of computer science
2 hours of musical education

Now we get to the fun year where by now you have chosen most of your subjects and have to live with them, errupting in the climatic final exams to be allowed to study.

8th year (finally rid of biology) 35 hours

4 hours of math
2 hours of descriptive geometry
3 hours of english
3 hours of spanish
3 hours of german

2 hours of history
2 hours of economical and geopraphical education
2 hours of musical education
2 hours of your religion
2 hours of political science
2 hours of computer science
2 hours of physics
2 hours of chemistry (it was added again for 7th and 8th grade, I did not have it in 6th grade)
2 hours of psychology and philosophy
2 hours of sport

Our 8th year works like this. You have a normal year and somewhere around christmas/january you have to decide what sucjects you are going to graduate in. There are oral and a written exams and some rules about what you can graduate in and what not, but that would go too far. By march/april you finish your normal 8th grade (still with tests and everything) and the "matriculation" begins.

oral

spanish
english
chemistry
history/political science
economical and geopraphical education

written

spanish
english
german
math

The written one`s are pretty normal, you just learn everything from 4th to 8th grade, go there, and ace it.
The oral exams are a little bit different. 50% of your score are one random question from your teacher and the other 50% are about a subject you had to write a small paper on (about 10 pages). For example, those were my works :

english, IRA
spanish, nothing - it was added for failing the spanish tests in 8th grade and I just got two random questions from my teacher
history, knights templar
chemistry, beer
economical and geographical education, United Nations Climate Change Conferences and the actual changes they brought (practically none, :D )

For your oral exams you sit there with your teacher and five teachers from other schools rate your performance. None of those five spoke spanish for example. But hey, thats life. And it is public, so everyone can come and watch. Mostly students from 7th grade, but also your parents and friends e.t.c. .

PART I.II South Tyrol In The 20th Century

After the first world war in the treaty of Saint-Germain Tyrol, a federal state, was divided along the "Brenner", a mountain in the region. Everything south of it was going to be part of Italy from now on. With the takeover of Italy through the fascists and Mussolini they began to italianize South Tyrol such as replacing the german names of town with italian ones and banning german for the official administration.. This did not prove to be effective and in the mid 30s they began the "majorisation", meaning to resettle italians to South Tyrol. Hitler did not prove to be of much help as well as he never could "bring back" South Tyrol to Germany but offered every german speaking citizen the right to resettle into Germany. 86% of those alleged said that they wanted to move but in the end (with the war and all) only about 1/3 actually got to Germany.

After the II World War in September 1946 Austria and Italy sign the Gruber-De-Gasperi treaty which proclaims that South Tyrol shall be autonomic in certain regards, german and italian language shall be treated equally and Austria will be the protecting power of South Tyrol.

Meanwhile in the real world, many of those issues talked about in the treaty were never realized and there was still resistance from some of the german speaking South Tyrolian. Finally in 1972 they (South Tyrol and Italy) could agree on certain special statutes that would give South Tyrol a broader amount of autonomy. It took 20 years to bring all them into place but by 1992 Austria and Italy resided every argument and after Austria also joined the EU (Italy obviously was already in it and the Schengen agreement) people could happily move over the boarder.

South Tyrol now is one of the wealthiest regions of Italy and with a high living standard and wealth and one of the lowest unemployment rates in the EU and everybody seems to be quite happy there.

In 2008 Martin Graf, third president of the austrian national council, proposed a referendum for the South Tyroleans about them joining back with Austria. Now almost all of the austrian and italian politicians (including most of South Tyrolian) do not take this seriously and do not try to make South Tyrol get back together with Austria.

Somehow though in Austria people seem to fight for the right of South Tyrol and somehow have started a small campaign that again, nobody takes serious.

But somehow it is still going on :/

Sorry mate, not going to happen.

Now I wouldnt be me if there was not going to be a map. And I am not going to include this into my blog. With help of those three maps everyone should know what region I just talked about.

[image loading]

edit : And people wonder why I did not write more about the history of my country .. that were 90 years about one region.

And if anyone actually wanted to read about that stuff... well yeah. I do not know what I should write about anymore, I think this is the end

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I find typos and bad grammar all the time and I am very sorry, at some point I just lost my motivation to fix it.

forgottendreams

United States1771 Posts

February 29 2012 19:26 GMT

You wrote a short summary on Austria and not a SINGLE word on the great Gustav Klimt? Son I am most disappointed. Seriously though thanks for the write up.

Tufas

Austria2259 Posts

February 29 2012 19:58 GMT

I thought about the art in austria, maybe that is going to be Part III. I mean all fun aside, thats out main export. (or was) I would have to read into the matter though, and history did just crawl out of my fingertips.

Maybe in 6 months. (laugh)

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oh how I hate (laugh) in interviews

edit : It is good to be a vulture, is it not ?

aqui

Germany1023 Posts

February 29 2012 22:25 GMT

quality post, gj

Tufas

Austria2259 Posts

March 01 2012 01:03 GMT

Well one can always hope for more than two people, but thank you for your appreciation. I hope you liked it. Of course it was no actual history book and it may have been biased, but where is the fun in sour lecture

Probulous

Australia3894 Posts

March 01 2012 01:49 GMT

That was really interesting, and amusing. Thanks!

"To beer or not to beer?"

Tufas

Austria2259 Posts

March 01 2012 03:03 GMT

Well I figured more people might actually read it that way.

Tufas

Austria2259 Posts

March 01 2012 20:59 GMT

Well I kind of .. had to bump, because Part II is finished. If you like mountains and nature, look through it.

Well you bastards, no one is going to read it. AS YOU WISH. The rest will be added in silence and whenever I need, I will look up this blog for personal recreation.

Atom Cannister

Germany380 Posts

March 01 2012 22:29 GMT

RE: The Irish question.

I recently moved to Germany and didn't expect this to be the case. I knew that it was common in sunny, touristy places but it's very common here. Although, I don't think any of them are run by Irish people. I think it's more of a gimmick.

Nice blog. I knew of Salzburg before hand.

Tufas

Austria2259 Posts

March 01 2012 22:46 GMT

#10

There are four in Salzburg and 3 of them are run by irish, one by a limey. The two in Vienna are run by irish too. So they might be a gimmick, but they are run by irish

And two of the ones in Sbg (screw Salzburg) are more for tourists/people who want to seem cool, the other ones are for drinking and having fun while talking english with a stranger.

Probulous

Australia3894 Posts

March 01 2012 23:22 GMT

#11

Snow, beautiful snow. That's the one problem with Aus, we get shitty snow. I've been to Japan twice but I have never been boarding in the Alps. Way to make me jealous

Tufas

Austria2259 Posts

March 01 2012 23:29 GMT

#12

Well at least in 2011 the Institut Economist Intelligence Unit made Vienna city with the highest living quality after melbourne

And I am serious about this part : Those photos were taken at "Obertauern", one of the most awesome skiing regions in Austria. How could I, I farely poor student affort such a thing ? My father is in charge of the road maintenance staff in that area of Salzburg and we could sleep at their depot for 7 € a night, and that includes a kitchen as long as you clean up yourself. Technically that service is open for everyone, if you know that it exists.

if you ever find yourself there, pm me :D

Probulous

Australia3894 Posts

March 01 2012 23:37 GMT

#13

On March 02 2012 08:29 Tufas wrote:
Well at least in 2011 the Institut Economist Intelligence Unit made Vienna city with the highest living quality after melbourne

Will do matey, will do. On a general note I really enjoyed this blog. You put a lot of effort in and it shows. Enjoy the snow you lucky bastard

Tufas

Austria2259 Posts

March 01 2012 23:43 GMT

#14

Enjoy your beach, fine Sir.
And I thought what else to do for my 1000th post, it better be something good. Oh and a friend from Bulgaria read it through for me and his comment was, and I quote :"Fucking commas, I hate you german fuckers."
I am not even german

And a rating of 4.7, that is a first

Tufas

Austria2259 Posts

March 02 2012 16:59 GMT

#15

Well Part III.I has been added, only Part III.II and Part IV missing.
Thank you to everyone who reads it.

Edit : Well yeah maybe it has gotten too big by now but this is a blog for the ages, you can read it another time :D

Tufas

Austria2259 Posts

March 02 2012 17:36 GMT

#16

Oh and uh should I add more to it ? If not a single person will respond, I take it as a no. I will finish Part III Vienna anyway, but part IV will be put on ice then as I have no idea where I should even BEGIN with art.

EDIT : Those last 3 comments were mine. Nobody wants to talk to me

EDIT 2 : What, I am featured.

Well that is that, Part IV has to be made now.

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WOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHHOHO YES

Kairo

Sweden184 Posts

March 02 2012 18:08 GMT

#17

Nice crash course on Austria. Btw, even if people do not post in your blog there is always a fair amount of lurkers reading.

Shirow

Austria70 Posts

March 02 2012 18:12 GMT

#18

spotlighted! really great blog!
im looking forward to more parts of this, maybe one about graz and the area of "aichfeld/murtal"? you know, the thing where AIRPOWER and Bull's Lane is going on!

Tufas

Austria2259 Posts

March 02 2012 18:18 GMT

#19

I am afraid you might have to write that one yourself

What do I know about Graz ...
And I am not even finished with everything I want to write hehe.
And those lurkers, I remember that time. You are right of course !

Master_of_adune

Austria8 Posts

March 02 2012 19:06 GMT

#20

Great write-up, some of your jokes made me lol.
I have to agree, Austria is a beautiful country, especially the countryside.

The "screw Salzburg" line made me sad though

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