Everybody loves Christmas (Markets)

Christmas in Vienna has become a brand in city tourism. People flock to the Austrian capital from literally everywhere to get into Christmas spirit central which apparently is not located near the North Pole but rather smack in the middle of Europe.

And where do you best experience that yuletide feeling? That question has everyone pointing to Christmas markets. And there are loads of them in Vienna. A veritable industry has sprung up around these folksy collections of rustic huts. But what is the attraction of these markets? CzechAut has sent out its staff to investigate!

Our first stop was the Christmas Market on Maria-Theresien-Platz which is situated near  Museumsquartier.

photos: Melania Hudakova

You can find plenty of stands here which offer traditional Christmas food and drinks like hot punch with or without alcohol, pretzels and sweets like hot chocolate with cream. The visitors had smiles on their faces and they were going from one stand to another. Except from food stalls, there were also some which were selling hand made goods such as Christmas decorations and similar items. We even bumped into a booth selling traditional Czech cake-on-a-stick. 

CzechAut: So where are you from?

Trdelnik people: Our stand, where we offer the traditional czech ,,Trdelnik´´ is from Brno.

CzechAut: How long have you been selling here?

Trdelnik people: It´s our first year here.

CzechAut: How do you like this Vienna´s Christmas market? What are your impressions?

Trdelnik people: It goes… But we expect more people coming in here after the first advent.

We found the atmosphere really amazing and we got into the Christmas mood very quickly.

Next stop: The highlight of all Vienna Christmas markets is the one on Rathaus square, at least judging from the masses of visitors.  Every year it hosts more than 3 Millions of tourists from all around the world. Visitors don’t have to worry about not finding anything to buy because there are more than 150 booths, which offer lots of good stuff such as food, hot drinks and small cute Christmas gifts. You can also find totally unnecessary things like fake perfumes, too. If you come over you have to try the typical hot Christmas punch and the sweet doughnuts ­(„Krapfen“)  We asked a tourist from California what they liked best. 

Tourist: “There’s like a lot of things to see, such as different types of booths and also the area. Is that a church?”

CzechAut: “Well, actually it’s a city hall.”

Tourist: “Yea, well, like the structure is really nice and that really tall Christmas tree.“ 

One of the most traditional Christmas markets in terms of the souvenirs and things they are selling, is the "Altwiener Christkindlmarkt" which has been on the Freyung since 1989. But the Freyung was already a market place many years before that. This Christmas market also has a 46 meter long picture of Bethlehem with Jesus and Mary in the middle. The sellers of this market run little shops and workshops with handmade products like kitchen utensils made out olive wood as well as signs and toys from an original wood carver.

Within all those shops was also a little stage for charity projects used for Christmas plays and charities  and for those who might get thirsty or even hungry there is a stall with an old Czech sweet called "Livance" which is known to be the grandmother of pancakes as well as having a place to buy many different sorts of punch, a mostly alcoholic Christmas drink. 

Our staff met a couple from Houston, Texas, and asked them about their thoughts, why people keep visiting the Austrian Christmas markets and whether they have something like this in Houston?

"-...yeah, but it’s just a four days, it’s called Nutcracker market, but it’s nothing like this, it’s not outdoor."

she told us due to her visit and her mothers visit a year ago. They also agreed that being on a Christmas market is a nice experience."Well, I think it sort of depends, where are you from, I mean, Houston is really hot, REALLY HOT, so we don’t get to experience a weather like this, so it’s kinda nice to come here." 

So now we know why tourists´enjoy those markets but what about the natives? The answer is: punch (and mulled wine). For Viennese it´s that time of the year when you meet your friends and get loaded on sweet, hot alcohol and regret it the next day. 

Elections: Regular and Irregular

Vienna Elections 2015: Results

Here are the results of the Vienna Elections that took place on Sunday, October 11


Elections to the Vienna City Council:

                                                                                      %                             Number of seats (100 total)
Social Democrats (SPÖ)                                           39,5 %                                           44

Freedom Party (FPÖ)                                                30,9 %                                           35

Greens (Grünen)                                                      11,16 %                                             9

Christ Democratic Austrian People`s Party(ÖVP)      9,5 %                                   7

NEOS                                                                           6,2 %                                              5



Chart:

                                                               
           http://www.profil.at/oesterreich/wien-wahl-2015-live-ticker-ergebnis-5908900

Pass Egal Wahl 2015

In addition to the results of Vienna’s election we also summarized the results of Vienna’s Pass Egal Wahl, about which we already wrote an article in 2013 and mentioned it last week. 1223 people went to this year´s Pass Egal Wahl to cast their vote even though they are not allowed to vote on a regular basis in Vienna, Most of these people from 75 different countries have been living in Vienna for quite some time but don´t have the Austrian citizenship.

This is the longest queue that has been seen on the Friedrich-Schmidt-Platz in a long time. Because of the amount of people who wanted to vote they even had to close a half hour later.

These are the results of this years Pass Egal Wahl. Interesting is the slightly different coloured chart for the results compared to the regular city council elections. 

These elections for Vienna city council will repeat in another five years.

If you were living in an other country and couldn't vote there would you go to a similar project like the Pass Egal Wahl? Are you satisfied with the results of this years elections? Why so?

Finally! Kofola in Vienna!

Darling readers!

A while back we did a desperate search for our favourite cola drink - Kofola. Alas, it was nowhere to be found in the VIE. The last deli selling it had taken it out of stock months before, so it was back to bothering your friends and family in SK and CZ to bring our beloved elixir by the bottle.

But there has come the day when we can all rejoice and drink our caffeine soda while sitting down in a really nice place too. Vit Dvorak, dentist and chef, has opened his lovely coffee bar called GARAGE 01 in a former garage (what else?) underneath the light rail tracks on Radetzkyplatz in the heart of the 3rd district.

He and his staff serve up a fusion of Czech and South American food. 
You heard right: Czechozuelan! And that is also the name of his signature drink: Kofola and rum!

image: Garage 01

https://www.facebook.com/garage01

http://www.garage01.com/garage01/

The results of Mahü

We have an update on the discussion about the Mahü issue!
There was a poll about whether the Mariahilferstraße should remain a pedestrian zone or not. The result is that 53 percent voted yes to the remodeling in a poll among residents. This means that the pedestrian zone will be built and finished by 2015. By 2015 the mahü shall be transformed into a pedestrian zone which will be 1.6 kilometers long. Nearly 50,000 residents of Mariahilf and Neubau were asked, more than 50 percent of the residents actually took part.

Puber arrested

We recently reported about Puber a well-known graffiti artist. (You can find the post here)

He was „famous“ for spraying his name everywhere possible.
Now he was arrested. On the website of „Vice“ magazine is now an interview with his flat mates. It was possible to read from it what kind of man he was.
His roomies told them that there wasn’t a deeper meaning when he was writing his name everywhere. He just wanted to be known. When he was in the news he reveled, didn’t matter if it was bad or good news. He referred to himself as “public enemy number one”. Furthermore they claimed that he has a “God complex”, which he demonstrated by putting a diaper on his head, on which was written: “I am God, you fagots”.
So as you can see, Puber was either mentally handicapped or just a genial idiot.

Sources (Vice magazine):

The interview
Other articles with the tag puber 

Redesigning Mariahilfer Straße

In the last two years, Vienna  has had a much discussed topic. It  is the redesign of one of the most famous streets in Vienna - Mariahilferstraße. It´s a street that connects the 1st and the 14th district. Mariahilferstraße is above all known for its many shops. It means that every day thousands of people go along this street. This is actually one of the reasons, why this street has changed so much over the years.

The main issue is in fact the traffic there. Because in such a long street, which is used by so many people, cars should not drive. It causes many problems, from pollution to accidents. That´s unfortunately the problem which is discussed. The people have separated themselves into two camps. One side is against the traffic there that is why they want to remodel the street into a pedestrian zone. The other side is against any changes at all. One of the main reasons why they are against it is that they are using the bus line, which runs along the Mariahilferstraße.

The opinions about our “Mahü” are varied, one old men who works as a tobacconist, is very skeptical. Since 16th August 2013 he has had 30 percent less revenue. Because the drivers, who bought their cigarettes and their newspaper in his tobacco shop can no longer be his customers. But that’s just because the street isn’t rebuilt yet. However, fact is that it won’t work until they rebuilt the street, so that people can relax there and feel comfortable. Like it is on Broadway, New York. There the revenue increased by about 70 percent.

Starting February 17th, people will be asked for their opinions. It´s going to be a referendum that will be similar to an election: the side with more votes wins.

Akademikerball Riots

The most recent shocking event that happened in Vienna were the protest marches against the so called “Akademikerball”. The FPÖ, the Austrian right wing party (or "the Austrian Freedom Party") organising the event, which is an event comparable with the UK independence party, just to give you an idea of what it is.
It took place in the famous Hofburg on January 24th.
This year, one of the protest marches was unusually violent and destructive. There were approximately 4 or 5 marches in the inner districts of Vienna with 6000 demonstrators in total. Naturally, most of them were on the far left. Most of the marches proceeded peacefully, except the one protest on Stephansplatz, which caused that big turmoil. Among the demonstrators of this march there was a group called “Der schwarze Block” consisting of 200 people. The police knew beforehand that they were going to wear masks and therefor imposed a prohibition of wearing masks (including scarfs!), which made the inhabitants of the first district quite angry. We later found out that the police had warned us with good reason! - There were apparently busses which brought the masked hooligans from Germany and the result was this:
                                

Crazy weather!

What´s wrong with the weather lately?

I think that everyone in Vienna was hoping for white Christmas, which actually turn out to be brown Christmas most of the time.
After all, it´s not uncommon that it snows in Vienna over New Year or at least in January.
But there is no snow in sight!
The weather reporters keep telling us that winter won´t come this year and I´m starting to believe it because everyone runs around like if it was autumn.
No surprise. It has 10°C outside…
Oh well, at least we don´t have to deal with the muddy snow this time.
It´s a pain in the neck!
I have to admit that these temperatures bother me, though.

Here some facts:
This winter was the warmest winter in history since 1997/98. The warmth record was raised almost by one degree. It´s special because when the record increases, it usually increases by only one or two tenth of a degree. The reason is global warming.

If this will go on like this, what will winter in Vienna look like in fifty years, I wonder.

What do you think of it?
Are you rather glad that winter has become that soft or does it bother you?

Feel free to comment!

Crazy weather!
source: ninja-bunny ;)