Wall­ern Carni­val- home of the Party Tract­or

A lot of small towns in Austria have a Mardi Gras carni­val, and they often organ­ise them to be on differ­ent days to not clash. This means that if I’m in Austria doing school work­shops in Febru­ary I often see multiple carni­vals. Wall­ern-im-Burgen­land is still the most surreal I’ve seen.

Pamha­gen and Wall­ern-im-Burgen­land- the Kansas of Austria

My next work assign­ment was in a small village called Pamha­gen on the Austria-Hungary border. The main hotel in the village was closed, so we were put up in a neigh­bour­ing village called Wall­ern-im-Burgen­land. Pamha­gen is only about 70 miles away from Vienna, but it’s a million miles in real­ity. Until 1989 it was pinched between the lake and the heav­ily milit­ar­ised Iron Curtain. The border is open again now, with no pass­port controls (thanks Schen­gen Agree­ment!) but the area still feels like the end of the line.

Fanzine Ynftyn 14- jo, frei­lich, die gnädige Frau Magister Emma ist nach Öster­reich gekom­men

I used to go to Austria quite a lot to run work­shops in schools, trav­el­ling from school to school each week. I star­ted writ­ing this zine after my first trip to Vienna in 2010, didn’t finish it, and then finished it off a couple of years later. I made a few copies at the time, but then mislaid the pages again when moving house, so barely anyone has read it. I recently found them again, and scanned them, so people can order it now!

Hello aus Öster­reich

I’m in a small town in SE Austria called Ober­pul­lendorf right by the Hungari­an border. I’m here to teach some English work­shops with kids. I’ve got 1 week here, 1 week in Vienna, and one in a town near Verona, doing essen­tially the same thing, but in differ­ent schools with vari­ous age groups. Oberpullendorf’s got about 3,000 people, but there’s a pretty good selec­tion of shops, and cafes and restaur­ants here. Also 3 under­wear shops and a bong shop, which seems a bit odd for such a small town.

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