Austria - Glorious Graz!

How'd you like Liberia? It was pretty good and way upbeat! If it weren't for that one repetitive commercial, it would be one of our favorites.

Today let's tune in to Austria!

zere in ze dark green.

"Put another shrimp on the barbie, eh?" God, Pinky's seen Dumb and Dumber too many times. Kinda wish he could wipe it from his memory at this point. And, just to prove we're not total idiota, here is an audio clip to clear things up:

(Link) View more Lisa Stothard Sound Clips and Lloyd Christmas Sound Clips

Pinky whipped through Austria for a minute about 10 years ago. He doesn't really remember much about it beyond the incredible landscape and walking down a beautiful street with a bunch of cafes. He randomly picked one and tried to decipher the menu and was pleasantly surprised to find out that, as an English speaker, he could figure out a lot of it. Yay for Germanic languages! Pinky ended up getting a bratwurst or hot dog or some kind of meat stuffed into a casing. He was 16, y'all. Shut up. He saw his first Unimog there too. Needless to say, his mind was totally blown. 

what is it doing?!

Our friend Kesi had a more recent experience in Austria. You should read about it. She's kind of amazing.

OK, let's make a deal and not get into all the history that we so easily could. We all read about it in high school world history. You remember... the Hapsburgs and the treaties among creaking monarchies that dragged Europe into WWI and, let's not forget, the Von Trapp Family Singers. Let's ignore the dancing horses, too, even though Ellen totally thinks this is wild and crazy and might constitute animal cruelty. But, since we're skipping all of that we'll go ahead and get it out of the way that Austria the home of Hitler, Schwarzenegger, Mozart, and Porsche, which really shows that you can grow up to be anything that you want to kiddos.

haha! horses!

In asinine trivia, there's a tiny town of barely more than a hundred people that's named "Fucking", which is a beautiful name for a town. The road signs get stolen ALL the time by tourists. And, while you're touring, you can visit the Museum of Contraception and Abortion, and the Museum of Esperanto, as well.

water, snow, mountains, charm... it's everything asheville aspires to be!

You know what else Austria is home to? PEZ! This dude invented PEZ in the late 20's as a smoking alternative, targeting it toward adults. The dispenser was made to look like a lighter, too. They were originally minty, hence the name which is short for the German word for peppermint.

come on baby, light my fire.

Now that we know all about Austria, it's time to tune in to Soundportal, a net radio station based out of Graz. Back in 2001, Ellen was scheduled to do an exchange with another high schooler from Graz. But, September 11th happened, every parent in the world freaked out, and now she only has a story of how should could have gone to Graz and listened to pirate radio. She might still be bitter. 


Any way, you should tune in and enjoy! We've already heard some Metallica and some sweet pop tunes!

Soundportal - Netradio

Listen Here 

(Press the play button and take a deep breath. Now, let it out. It should be playing by now.)

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