Studying, Election Day, Austrian Cuisine.....

It was a lovely Wednesday when I received a note from the University that a parcel for me arrived. The procedure to pick it up is a bit different. First you have to go the University and get a “pick up ticket” which you need to get the parcel at the post office. Not only the pick up ticket is a constraint to get the parcel, you also have to find the post office.…. I thought that I know where the post office is but it turned out that I just knew the building where it should be. I went to the wrong wing of the building, where all P.O. Boxes are. As mentioned in previous posts Bulgarian as not likely to speak English. Surprisingly an nearly 70 year old lady was “able” to communicate in English (a few phrases) and was so kind to guide me to the post office…..

Some might say that you are not learning/studying while being abroad. To my regrets this is not true for Christopher and me e.g. on Thursday I finished my homework for Accounting, which took me 10 hours or 34 pages as well as a lot of other assignments and pre-readings. It seems more likely that we have more to do for our courses than people who are permanently studying at AUBG. Normally it is and should be inverse. In my humble opinion we are not only here to spend 10 hours per day studying in our room and just to leave it for classes. In this case would it really make sense to go abroad? I venture to doubt that…

Earlier as expected a letter arrived....(last Friday)

In order to carry out my duties as an Austrian citizen, I received a letter from the municipal office of my hometown. I requested this letter to be able to take part in the upcoming elections. I had to cast my vote for the next major and the municipal council as well as for the Upper Austrian state government. Easy procedure….as you might realize from the photos below.

A short introduction how you to cast one's vote while you are studying abroad.

1. Request the necessary documents and hope they will arrive on time.

2. Open them, sign the ballot (Wahlkarte)

3. Cast your vote for the major, municipal council and state government.

4. Put the ballot in the correct envelope (violet for major and municipal council and grey for the state government) and give both envelopes in the big envelope in order to assure secret voting and seal the envelope.

5. Send it back.

What you should NOT do:

Drink the night before........

Finally we were capable to cook for the first time in the dorms. The mission was clear, it should be something traditional, Austrian cuisine as well. We decided to make Wiener Schnitzel....(see picture)

What Mr Wikipedia tells us about it: “Wiener Schnitzel (Wiener Schnitzel in German, where Schnitzel means a cutlet without bones) is a traditional Austrian dish and is a popular part of Viennese and Austrian cuisine, consisting of a thin slice of veal coated in breadcrumbs and fried. In Austria the dish is traditionally served with a lemon slice, lingoberry jam and either potato salad or potatoes with parsley and butter. While the traditional Wiener Schnitzel is made of veal, it is now sometimes made of pork, though in that case it is often called Schnitzel Wiener Art (Germany) or Wiener Schnitzel vom Schwein (Austria) to differentiate it from the original. In Austria, the term Wiener Schnitzel is protected by law, and any schnitzel called by that name has to be made from veal.

Well we made it with veal and pork as well. It turned out that the veal was not the best quality and it tasted more like a breaded chewing gum...but the one with pork was really good.