The Top 10 of the Top 5 Expat Bloggers in Austria – Week 1: The Practice Room
Back in April of this year,the English language online news blog, The Local, featured “The Five Best Expat Blogs in Austria.”
Who knew?
I certainly didn’t until I found out quite accidentally this past week. Thrilled to learn I had been included on a list with like-minded expats in Austria spreading the word, I decided to reach out and invite them to come hang out with us for a post and meet you all via a blog tour. Fortunately, they enthusiastically agreed so in November, I will feature one expat blogger per week, with each of their Top 10 Favorite Things Austrian.
So here it is — Week One featuring the blogger brave enough to go first: expat soloist/singer Kristina Cosumano who lives in Tirol and writes about just about everything and especially about all things Tyrolean and author of the blog, The Practice Room.
Expat Blogger, Kristina Cosumano’s Top 10 Favorite Austrian Things
1) Food
Wiener Schnitzel with a dollop of Preiselbeeren.
2) Drink
A Melange from Cafe Munding in the Innsbrucker Altstadt.
3) Film or TV Show
Anything with Josef Hader. “Indien”, for example.
4) Book
“Im Alphabet der Häuser” von Christoph W. Bauer. Right now I’m reading his book of short stories, “In einer Bar unter dem Meer”.
Fliess in late October, photo by Kristina Cosumano
5) Month
October. Tirolean “Altweibsommer” (Indian Summer), when it’s sunny and dry, is perfect.
6) Place
Unusual, forgotten places. For instance there’s a curve on a forest road between Landeck and Fliess, where there are grooves worn into rock from centuries of Roman wagon wheels. There is a cave in the Rofan Mountains north of the Achensee with “Etruscan” texts carved onto the walls. There is a grassy mound next to the Bergisl ski jump, under which are the remains of an ancient sacrificial burning altar from pre-Christian times.
the Roman “Via Claudia Augusta” in Tirol photo by Kristina Cosumano
7) Historical Figure
Maria Theresia. Mozart. Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
8) Tradition / Past time
A hike to the Alm for Schnitzel and a Radler.
9) Song
Mozart, Eine kleine deutsche Kantata, KV 619. The text, more or less: For God’s sake, stop warring and love your neighbor.
10) Word
Well, I have favorite phrases rather than words. Such as “taking the Nr. 71” (tram, which runs to Vienna Central Cemetery) as a euphemism for dying; that a situation is “hoffnungsloss aber nicht ernst” (hopeless but not serious). Or what I refer to as the Official Motto of Tirol, “Es wird schon”.
