A Sarcasm and Two Sugar guide to: Austria

It was with a heavy heart (and some horrible flu symptoms) that I bid farewell to rainy England and hopped on a two hour flight to Munich in February half term. I was leaving a potentially lively week of nights out and Come Dine With Me-e

sque dinner parties, but in retrospect I don’t regret spending my week away from college in beautiful, snow-engulfed Fügen. Having been to Austria twice before, I wasn’t expecting to discover anything new about the country, but this time I made some observations that I just could not keep to myself.

FOOD

There seems t be an unofficial law in Austria, dictating that every dish consumed must either contain copious amounts of cheese or meat. Austrians don’t really seem to grasp the concept of vegetarians, let alone poor vegans. Luckily I quite happily drowned myself in cheese for the entire trip.

Sick in a pan with herbs? This was the saltiest dish I have ever eaten. Looks rank, was delicious.

This looks suspiciously like fried hair. I think it was dumplings and onions but to be honest, I don't think I will ever know what I ate that night.

On my first visit to Austria we stayed in this odd, kind of cheap hotel where a huge red-faced woman served our food to us, and got angry if we didn't devour every morsel. On the night that all the meat-eaters got fried chicken and chips, the hotel staff saw it only fit to serve us veggies up the next best thing – fried cheese and chips. Otherwise known as a heart attack on a plate. I thought this was the only time I would have the honour of eating battered cheese but again this year it was served up to me. Oddly satisfying, but not quite worth the food coma that only cheese coated in batter with chips can induce.

BOOZE

My two previous trips to Austria were with my secondary school, so we weren't exactly able to go on a wild, aprés-ski rampage. We managed to somehow acquire a could of 6% beers, but this is all I saw of Austrian alcohol. How I was missing out...

Beer

Austrian beer is really really good! If you're into beer (I'm usually not because one glass kind of makes me feel like I ate a loaf of bread). It's much more bubbly and has a certain ZING to it (I'm not really up on the whole food/wine critic lingo, sorry).

Schnapps Tee

A shot of Schnapps and a mug of black tea. I wasn't really sure whether this was supposed to be consumed á la Jagerbomb, but this combination is supposedly good for a cold.

Jager Tee

This is the strangest drink I have ever consumed. It smells strong enough to knock a small child out and tastes a bit like nail varnish remover. My mum was unable to move after one small cup.

dad before consuming jagertee/after

ACTIVITIES

So, what to Austrians do for fun, I hear you ask? A lot of pretty crazy shit, I answer. You've got the conventional winter sports including skiing, snowboarding and that weird 'cross country' skiing on really tiny skis that I've never really seen the point of. As far as I have experienced, Austrian and German skiers and snowboarders are on another level of crazy when it comes to winter sports. There is no slope to steep, no off piste route too horrific and no velocity too speedy for these guys. But when they're off the slopes, traditional Austrian hobbies are also kind of baffling. I've played 'skittles' in Austria twice, on both occasions without much luck as the alleyways always seem kind of sloped and the skittles are attached to string and seem very reluctant to fall over. Apart from this, I tried tobogganing, which definitely goes in the top ten most terrifying experiences. A toboggan is essentially two mini skis stuck to a bit of wood, with a big of string for you to hold onto as you hurtle down a fairly steep path. There is no one to guide you or check you're not dead so I don't really blame my mum for dragging her feet and screaming like there was no tomorrow the whole way down. I would recommend tobogganing to those who don't mind the occasional near death experience.

DÉCOR

The Austries might be pros at turning an innocent cuppa into a deadly lashing of booze, rocketing your cholesterol through the roof and doing anything death-threatening involving snow, but I am guessing all this left little time to focus on their décor. My particular favourite place was home to all of the following:

An ant on a casual plant pot adventure

w00000h it's like Hawaii in the middle of Austria! Somebody get me a pinna colada and a hula skirt

Hey my name's Sammy bear. My owners used to love me and my sad but kind of sweet pajamas and my stupid sleeping cap but eventually they got sick of me and stuck me up here to give the place a more 'homely' feel.

Just so that our customers never feel too at ease, we stuck a creepy golden cherub by every table to watch them eat.

We thought too much gold was too flash so in some cases the cherubs had to be marble. But don't worry, we made up for it by making sure this one was in a gollum-esque position for uptimum creepiness.

Although this one place was particularly... mismatched to say the least, most places ran along a sort of 'Christmas' theme all winter long, including lots of tinsel and sometimes fern trees too. Ah well, when you're eating a plate of deep fried cheese, the you kind of stop caring.

All in all, the whole trip was pretty successful. I'm glad we went away as it was probably the last family holiday I will have, until I have to start dragging the geriatrics along on my own family shenanigons (if I ever decide children are worth my while). Would I reccomend Austria to a friend? Yes, yes I would indeed. Although I'd suggest learning some German phrases - 'yes', 'no', 'please', 'sorry I didn't mean to ski into you, are you alive?' etc., although I managed to pick up a few phrases along the way - 'apfelsaft bitte' means 'apple juice, please' (it wasn't the wildest of holidays). Just bare in mind that Austrian people love to stare and you'll get a very negative reaction if you loudly say 'the only German words I know are 'volksgemeinschaft' and 'reich'.