Aufsteirern in Graz

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Today is the festival Aufsteirern in Graz. It's a celebration of Styrian & Austrian culture, which thus loosely translates to Lederhosen as far as the eye can see.

My friends and I met this morning at 10am in the Hauptplatz to begin our official induction into Austrian culture. When we got there, the mayor of the city was addressing everyone in the Hauptplatz, and so we listened a bit then began exploring. It was so cool to see just average people dressed in the traditional clothes: men in Lederhosen, women in Dirndl , and then the more formal Trachten, which were sort of a cross between suits and kilts. There were bands EVERYWHERE, playing folk music and traditional Austrian music. It was really cool.

A lot of the little boothes all over the place had different types of drinks, mostly wines. It figures that Austrians would jump at the advantage to drink early in the morning! Surprisingly enough, though, most of the drinks and wines were based with Apfel, or apple. Apples are one of the specialties of the Styrian region, so everything we saw today was more or less associated with Apfeln. We stopped at a bakery to grab something to munch on at one point, and I got my new favorite food, a Krapfen. It was basically like a donut with apple jelly in the middle and powdered sugar on top. SO GOOD!

We wandered around more, stopping here and there to listen to bands, watch some dances, look at some of the boothes. Though I was bummed I wasn't sporting my best Lederhosen, either, George and I decided to try to each buy a hat . He found one, and I asked a woman at a booth about it, and when I tried a few on, she started laughing, and told me, "Leider hab' ich keine mehr, die grösser sind!" aka "Unfortunately I don't have any bigger ones!" Great. My head was too freakin' big for a hat. Thanks, Mom & Dad.

We went up to Stadtpark for lunch, as Orla had heard that they were roasting a pig there. Indeed, they were. It was more than a little bit gross to see a ginormous pig spinning on a spit, and the man working there laughed at our reaction, but we sat down for lunch. I didn't intend on having any of the pig , but then I gave in. It was actually really delicious, and ridiculously filling.

We then wandered around a little bit more, and then I came back here. I finally am registered in the online university network, so I have to look at some classes to take for registration in a few days. There's a few classes only open to American students here, so I might try to take one about the history of Austria which includes a trip to Vienna, but I might not, depending on if I can find one just offered by the university. I'd rather be with Austrian kids than other American kids, most of whom are pretty awful at German. I also found a couple classes in Italian that sound cool, so I'm going to try to take one of those so I can keep it up. I'm even contemplating taking a Czech class. My friend Libor is from the Czech Republic and he's been teaching us little things to say, and it's really cool, I like it a lot, so I might try to take it just for fun. We'll see, though.

Only about 40 pages left in New Moon, so hopefully will get to start Eclipse tonight, too! Have a test tomorrow, though, so wish me luck...

Servus!

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Photos

Leading the Parade
The beer cart leading the parade.

The Band
One of the many bands playing.

Dirndl
A woman dressed in a Dirndl, the traditional Austrian dress.

Traditional Dress
A group of older Austrians in traditional dress.

Tacht
A man dressed in a formal Tacht. Typically they look like a cross between a suit & a kilt.

Old & New
A man in Lederhosen talking on his cell phone. Old Austria meet New Austria.

Band Playing
The band playing, I think it was one of the songs of Styria, like their anthem oder etwas.

Lederhosen
A guy in Lederhosen.

Ein Junge
A little boy holding the sign for the Graz Spielmannszug. I had to really think about it to come up with a translation for that, it literally means, "a train of men playing." I guess in English it's marching band.

Bier
Beer.

Achtung!
Funny sign for the tram in the Hauptplatz reminding the citizens of the festival.

Mayor
The mayor of Graz addressing the city.

Kids
Kids dressed in traditional clothes.

Jumping Photographer
The theme was, "Come celebrate with a leap!" You could have your picture taken while jumping on a trampoline and surrounded by evergreen trees [Tannenbaeume].

Weaving
A woman weaving a rug.

Boothes
Boothes lined all the streets around the Hauptplatz, each with a different piece of Styrian/Austrian culture.

A Band
These guys had style.

Wood-Workers
There's a group of men who've built over 100 houses around Austria using traditional methods and tools.

Chopping Wood
One of the wood-workers slicing bits of wood off.

Parade
A little parade led by an acordian player who looked about 15.

Royalty
These people also had style.

Comments

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I like the hat, George! I think those fancy yummy snacks you love are called... APPLE JELLY DONUTS!!!!!!!!!!