weekend update.

V.

Good evening everybody! :)

So... what have I been up to this past weekend? Not much, to be quite honest. After a stressful past week I've induldged in doing pretty much nothing this weekend, by sitting around, staring at my laptop and pretending to read the scripts for an exam I'm taking in October.. THAT WAS IT. Well, almost. :)

FRIDAY

As you might know already, I just love to be creative. When my bofriend came up with the idea that he wants to surprise his former host mum and her family (that he lived with during his language course) with a few presents for her birthday,- I was totally smitten! We immediately decided on a few things that would make her happy, such as ...

... a Viennese cooking book and a CD that contains "typical" Austrian Symphonies (they just love cooking and classical music)  ...

... a magnet of Mike's host mum's favourite artist's painting - (Van Gogh, Café Terrace at Night, 1888) ... 

... a really cool handicraft instruction book for her kid, in witch you can fold together buses and planes and colour them afterwards ... 

 ... a card for the birthday girl, of course - (for those of you who saw my anniversary present post- yes, it is the same card-design I used for my boyfriend's card) :) ...

... and some typical Austrian chocolate! :) We really hope that they'll enjoy it.

After having finished wrapping these presents I went to a class reunion of our academic high school years (I'm not exactly sure how to translate the word Gymnasium..) and we had a wonderful time! Here's a pic of a few of us with our former teacher (I asked her permission before posting this picture, of course) :)

SATURDAY

On Saturday (and this part is going to annoy Esther so much, she'll probably delete it before you guys will read it)- (haha, that rimes! :) ) 

- on Saturday we watched one of my absolute favourite German TV shows of all times - DAS SUPERTALENT! It's basically an imitation of "America's Got Talent" but I love it so much!! Besides Ralph Fiennes, Esther's most hated enemy that simultaneously is my absolute favourite TV show person - is Dieter Bohlen. Generally speaking, (or let's say in her eyes) he's an unnecessary, musically illiterate, rude and primitive human being that spends way too much time on the tanning bed than doing some actual work. In my eyes, he is in fact a harsh yet highly entertaining person who more and more drops his image of "the bad guy" and unintentionally starts to show his emotional side that seems to be more real and appealing to the public.

source

I honestly cried my eyes out last Saturday when Mr. Bohlen was moved to tears by a contestant that turned out to be his former first agent who's now gotten old and who feared to have been forgotten by Dieter. However, he immediately recognized him and went on stage to give him a hug. Aww.. :)

Alright,- before I'm driving Esther and everybody else on this blog crazy because of my seemingly endless Dieter Bohlen story, I will now stop and continue to the next day.

SUNDAY

On Sunday, all that Austrians could think about was the legislative election. After experiencing a highly unsatisfying coalition of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) and the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) that has been going on for five years now, the population was now intrigued to vote for other parties that tried to become or were already members of the parliament. 

While awaiting the first statistical projection I got myself a lovely apple pie and some tea. If I would have known, however, how the results would turn out minutes later, the piece of cake would have gotten stuck in my throat. 

The results were a predictable loss of percentage for SPÖ and ÖVP (due to people's discontent with their adiministration), however also a very unpleasant (I may even say appalling) rise of Austrias Freedom Party (FPÖ) that, in my eyes, can only be defined by its unprogressive and racist attitude, led by an even more primitive figure, H. C. Strache, who simply refuses to draw a line between themselves and right-wing extremism. It makes me sad to live in a country where ignorance, pure racism and sheer stupidity is being encouraged and lived out by 20% of Austria's population. I am ashamed of those people, I really am. Scaringly enough, there's now a discussion led about whether SPÖ and ÖVP will continue leading a coalition (which I hope they will) or if ÖVP might get together with FPÖ and Team Stronach,- another ridiculously enough represented party in Austria's parliament.

 

I guess, the only positive and gratifying outcome of this election day was the rise of the Green Party (Die Grünen), who won at least 1% and a seemingly not well known liberal party called NEOS, who won almost 5% at their first try and therefore immediately became a member of Parliament.

Other than that, it was a marvellous Sunday and - weekend in general, full of old friends, presents, excitement and of course great food. :)