Festivities & Holidays
Women in Dirndl, traditional costumes, Trachten
We love to celebrate, to commemorate, to solemnise, to party, be together with loved ones and have a good time. Do you know that the world "gemütlich" can be hardly translated into other languages, we think that "Gemütlichkeit" is not only typical for Austria, but for the whole Alpine region. In this category we talk about festivities, festivals, public and religious holidays. Exceptional events, you can of course visit yourself or transfer to your family traditions. We will show you table decorations, ideas for your party decoration and which food to serve.
Football in the Alps
The 13th European Football Championship (UEFA EURO 2008) is a truly Alpine one, taking place in Austria and Switzerland. It starts on 7 June 2008, and ends after three weeks on 29 June 2008.
The venues in Austria are in Vienna, in Innsbruck (the Tyrol), in Klagenfurt (Carinthia) and in Salzburg. The Swiss venues are in the Basel, Bern, Geneva and Zurich. The final will take place on 29 June in Vienna at the Ernst Happel Stadium.
As the host automatically takes part in the European Championships, hereby two Alpine countries are already qualified. However, there are still two further Alpine nations in the Games, these two already ensured extremely exciting matches in the 2006 World Cup in Germany: France and Germany.
Logo and mascots were created with international support, the Alpine theme - jagged mountain peaks – is to be seen in all areas. The mascot, the twins are in white and red, taking up the colours of the flags of the host countries of Austria (red-white-red striped) and Switzerland (red flag and white cross).
Concerning supporting music during Euro 08, we can choose bewteen three. The official EM-song comes from Shaggy "Feel the Rush". The Swiss EM-song comes from Baschi (Sebastian Bürgin) "Bring en hei" – in wonderful Swiss german, which has already been covered by Mario Lang and Oliver Pocher in a standard german version. From Austria the singer Christina Stürmer (from Starmania times known as "Christl Stürmer") performs the song "Fieber" (fever). Did you know that "Stürmer" means striker in German. Ain't that a good omen – or a never ending running gag.
And if you ever want to practice refrains to be prepared:
Here the lines of Baschi:
"chum bring en hei, chum bring en
chum bring en hei, chum bring en
chum bring en hei, zu mir..."
actually that does not need a lot of translation "take it home, take it, take it home... to me"
And the one from Christina Stürmer "Fieber":
"Wir haben Fieber, komm fieber mit. Hunderttausend folgen dir auf Schritt und Tritt. Wir haben Fieber, komm sei dabei. Wir erleben Emotionen und heben ab, denn wir sind frei."
In a very "free" translation that is: "We have fever, come fever with us. 100,000 follow you at every turn. We have fever, come along. We are experiencing emotions and take off, because we are free."
And we are curious what unofficial slogans and choruses will fill the stadiums and fan miles. We look forward to fair play and exciting matches.
A few notes on hisorical facts: Both countries never have been hosts to European Football Championships beforen and none has ever one such a championship, neither have they entered finals. A little nicer views, when you look at the world championship in football. Switzerland hosted them in 1954, where Austria was third. But enough of football history with that ;-) As long as "Córdoba" is not involved, Austrians don't like to talk a lot about footbal history.
Are you prepared for Euro 2008 in the Alps?
12.05.2008. 15:19