5/19/2014

When I got home to find out there had been no electricity for couple of days.

2

I'm not gonna start off this post with the reason, why I'm absolutely (still) pissed, but will talk first of all about my week.
So, I had a mini-holiday from work and went to South-Tyrol. As usually, one needs a holiday to recover from a holiday :)
First of all- I managed to start my holiday off with hives on my legs, probably due to all the crap I've eaten in my Mcdonalds job. So, I was prescribed Kortisool as the treatment. Besides my legs feeling extremely blown up (they were swollen) and itching and hurting, I was also deadly tired. During my whole holiday. I still managed to meet all the grannys of Hannes and even see Judith and her parents, eat a lot of cake and get some sun. One of my holiday days, Hannes had to go back to Graz to take an exam, so I had a whole day for myself. Spent it in the Ötzi museum and in a cafe, talking to Hannes's brother. In the end of the day I crashed to Judith's place and stayed overnight there. Was a lovely week, full of nice people, dead ancient people and sun.
On Thursday, I drove back to Graz......


Got into my flat and discovered that we have no electricity. Tried everything, still nothing. Panic, all the stuff in the freezer had already melted up. Hannes, who still stayed in South-Tyrol for couple of days, called our electricity provider. They told that they switched everything off, because they have no information on who's living currently in the flat. Well, we sent the information to them nearly 2 months ago..... Seems that they weren't capable of organizing their papers. So, a really pissed of Maria found out that there will be no electricity until the next day at least. (Just to mention, we didnt get any warning before they switched our electricity off). What to do? There was a storm in Graz on that evening. Some quick phone calls and a bit of organizing, and Maria ended up in Annika's place with all the contents of her freezer. I managed to fit all the stuff into Annika's freezer and stayed overnight there. Was a really lovely evening and morning, too. Thank you, Annika, once more, for helping us so much- I'm really lucky to have Estonian friends here, like you :) (Astrid, thank you for the willingness of helping me, too, even though I didnt need it in the end).
So, on the next day, when I got home again, there was still no electricity. Hannes yelled at the guys from the provider a bit, and 2 hrs later, a guy came and switched us in again.

I managed to get a severe cough thanks to going through the city on a stormy evening with all my stuff. Hell, I was pissed. I still am.

So, we're gonna tell them that all the stuff in our freezer was defrozen and had to be used or otherwize it would've gone bad. Or it was already gone bad. As it's some pretty expensive stuff from Estonia (wild-board sausage etc), we will fuck them hard in the arse. Sorry for my expressions, but we're gonna ask for some money and refund for their idiocy. We're not gonna leave it like that.

Anyway, I still worked on Friday, had a coffee with Annika and Thomas (her son) and worked on Saturday. Then Hannes got back. On Sunday we went to Astrid's place to wash our clothes (hopefully for the last time in someone else's place) and play some 7 Wonders. The week full of curiosities and unbelievable happenings was over. With a nice ending (not for the electricity company, I guarantee it), though.

Oh, as the heating is turned off for the summer, our flat had 16 degrees in it, yesterday. Just to say.....


And here's a picture of how Ötzi is supposed to look like.

5/04/2014

Going to a public sauna in Austria

3

I've been wanting to write here about sauna-culture in Austria since three weeks but just havent had the time and motivation.
So, couple of weeks ago, an Estonian friend of mine (Annika) asked me and Hannes, whether we would be interested in checking out the biggest sauna complex in Graz, called Auster, which happens to be just 3min walk from our new flat. Me and Hannes decided to give it a go, as we both had been really stressed with moving and work in the past couple of weeks, so on a lovely Monday evening us three (me, Hannes and Annika) went to saunas. First of all- we knew that people go to public saunas and spa's naked, but thought that only some of them do it. As soon as we walked into the wellness park area, with our bikinis on (in the Estonian public-sauna style), we saw that no-one, absolutely no-one, was wearing anything that would remind of clothing. So, we turned around, went back to the changing area, and took our swimming clothes off. In the beginning it was really strange- all the people were walking around everywhere, completely naked. Some of them took a towel with them (mostly women) to cover them while walking from one place to another, but the main use for a towel was under bum in the sauna so that you wouldnt sweat on the benches.
Well, as the place looked somewhat like a paradise with all it's outdoors bubble baths and pools with lights at night and saunas indoors, it was a bit like Eden and there were many more Adams walking around, than Eva's. It was probably the biggest amount of naked people I've seen together in one day in one place (and I have to say I've seen quite a lot in my life already).
Ok, that about the being-naked part. Next thing- the saunas themselves. We decided to go to a salt sauna. So, we sat in, the sauna was normal room temperature. The walls were made out of salt and in the middle there was an "oven" (if you can call it that way) which had some salt-stone thingy inside and from where was coming salt-smoke like from the end of a cigarette. After sitting in that room for 15 mins, we decided that we are cold and decided to check out more realistic saunas. So, there was infra-red (too cold again), 60 degree, aroma, and 90-degree sauna (2x). So, we decided to sit in the hottest one. A bit weird, too dry for me and not the best sauna I've been to. But never mind, we got a bit warmer. So we decided to check out the bubble baths outdoors. Oh, those were nice, warm water, sunset, trees around you, relaxing in the water, slight wind blowing through your hair. Felt a bit like in a movie- you know, those ones where rich people go to spa's in St. Tropez or whatever.
Then, as a proper Austrian person does, we decided to use the relaxing areas. In Austria, there's a tradition, that people relax on bed- alike bags on the floor or beach chairs. Read books or just sleep. Yeah, exactly, saw people doing that, too. We also "relaxed" then outside in the air for a bit until it got too boring and/or chilly and we decided to try out some sauna procedures.
It turns out, that in Austrian spa's they have some weird procedures at certain times, where a sauna master does sth inside the sauna. For example puts water instead of you. Or whatever. On that evening there was only one time of "treatment" still left, so we went to check it out. We sat in the 90-degree sauna and waited patiently. The sauna started to fill itself up with people. In the end there was about 30 of us or maybe even more. You could only sit, not lay. Then the show began. The sauna master came, made a short introduction, cooled down the sauna by keeping the door for 5mins wide opened. And waving a bit with a towel to keep the air circulating. Then, he brought a bucket of water, a bucket of ice, some towels and some aroma oil and closed the door. No one was allowed to enter from that moment on, or leave either. Scary, right. So, the music was turned on and the sauna master put a little bit of ice, aroma oil and water on the stones in the kettle that was located in the middle of the sauna. Then, he took a towel and started waving around with it. Literally. He made wind. In the beginning it seemed like a joke and I thought that hmm, Austrians call that a hot sauna or what? Then, he repeated the whole procedure, but with some more water. I started to feel a bit warmer. he went around in the sauna, waving the towel once towards each person. Ok, I got it, it was supposed to get hot. And it did. After the third round, I was sweating like a pig. After the fourth round most of the people just ran out of the sauna- it got intolerable.But the guy made another round after 3/4 of the people had left.  It was similar to Estonians whipping each other in the sauna, but on the whole body, not just on the part that was whipped. Yeah, I was impressed. I jumped into the cold water and got really dizzy because that was a huge change of blood pressures. But never mind, relaxing area was waiting for us.  So, we went there, stayed there for a bit and then swam a bit and Hannes decided to check out the normal pool. Me and Annika decided to try another round with the sauna-master. This time, I decided to sit one step lower. Good idea. First time the guy used some mixture of oils, this time he went for a good strong mint. Oh damn lords, that was good. My whole body was breathing with the amounts of mint aroma caressing it. And my lips, it felt like I would never ever need a lip balm. The guy turned the music up (with the song "I'm happy" or whatever) and everybody were just half-dancing on their places  to the music, with the mad guy in front of them waving with a towel. The high peak of the treatment was when the master put half a bucket of water on the kettle and did his waving. After that the body felt like beaten, like there would be no bones left. Oh, that was so so good.
After a cold shower and relaxing (like a proper Austrian) again, we took a short swim and then decided to go all home. Hannes missed the orgasm-like sauna procedure, but he can try it again the next time :)
The sleep was not that good since a long time. (Even though I had a terrible headache afterwards- my blood pressure is not at it's best state at the moment due to all the stress and mcdonalds food).

Oh, but I will not be working in McDonald's starting from the first of June. Cutting out the stress of having two jobs and no free days. I will focus fully on my second job, which is working one-to-one with people with autism. Way better and I earn more money by making less hours. Seems like a good deal to me. :)