Correction of homework "The most disastrous meal ever"

The most disastrous meal ever

The most disgusting meal I ever had was definitely “vegetable soup“.  I was invited to have dinner at one of my friend’s place, who was supposed to cook a nice, creamy soup with exquisite vegetables from the local food market. The soup was served with pumpkin seeds coated in crusty breadcrumbs and fluffy bread as a side dish. He let the soup simmer on the stove over an hour, so that the soup would absorb the taste of the pumpkin. Afterwards he garnished it with fresh chives. With excitement I took the first bite. In that moment, when the soup reached my tongue, I tasted a sickly and at the same time piquant liquid and had to spit it out again. The soup was absolutely inedible and both of us didn’t have a clue why. When I walked into the kitchen, I saw the rest of the “pumpkins” peel – in that moment, I realized, it hadn’t been a pumpkin but a cantaloupe!

rewritten house swap letter

Dear Lana, 

I am writing to you in response to your last letter. I am glad to hear that your neighbours will be there to show us the house! We will go there by car, so I’d wanted to ask if there is a parking lot or maybe even a garage at your house? If no, is there anywhere a car park nearby? It would also be good to know if there is a monthly season ticket for public means available or if we would anyway be better off going everywhere by car. Lastly, is there any restaurant serving Danish delis near to your place? Maybe some little, cosy place where they sever Smorebröd or something like that? Other than that, everything seems to be fine! So here is all the relevant information for your stay at Saalbach-Hinterglemm.

As I already told you in the last letter, my grandmother will pick you up at the airport Salzburg. It would be great if you could wait at the main entrance of Terminal 1, so that she can find you easily. She will take you directly to her, or actually your, place, where you are going to have a bedroom and a little bathroom on your own. That means, you will only have to share the kitchen with her. No worries, she’s a nice old lady; you can really use the kitchen at any time of the day as long as you clean it up after cooking.

Unfortunately, the next supermarket is around 15 minutes walk. It would probably the best to do one big shop to fill the fridge. You can ask my grandmother if she can bring you there and pick you up with the car, so that you don’t need to carry everything the whole way home.

I think I’ve already told you that the apartment is a little bit up on the mountain. The huge advantage is that it s only three minutes away from the slopes, which is great, as you won’t need to drag your ski gear a long distance. After a few hours’ skiing, you can enjoy some après ski (after skiing) in one of the various alms. Après ski does always take place between 4 o’clock pm until something around 7 o’clock pm. If you are in favour of having a great time with meeting a lot of people from more or less all over the world, this is where you have to be! After that, you will probably hungry so I’d advise to book a table in one of the cosy, very rural cottages that are situated all around my grandmother’s place (I would particularly recommend “Kohlmaisstuben”; it’s around 10 minutes walk).

In case you get fed up with skiing one day, I would recommend a trip to Salzburg. The old city is definitely worth a visit with its cute, little shops and the paved streets. If you’re lucky, there will still be chestnut selling vendors who give the city even more flair. In the afternoon you could visit the castle of Salzburg (Burg Hohensalzburg) because there are always impressive exhibitions. If you are generally interested in arts you could also give the Mönchsbergmuseum  a chance (it is at the foot of the mountain where the castle is built on). Here’s a little description of how you can get there easily: There is hourly a bus leaving from Saalbach to Zell am See. It stops right in front of the train station where again hourly a train sets off to Salzburg. From Salzburg train station it would be the best to take bus line 24 to the inner city and get off at Mönchbergstation. From there you can reach everything by foot. I will leave a map of Salzburg on the kitchen table – just grab it!

If you need a day off to relax and maybe get a massage, you can go to Kaprun. There is a SPA where you can enjoy quietness after an exhausting day of skiing. Maybe you can combine this with a fruity, refreshing cocktail in Zell am See which is the biggest city near to Saalbach. You can also finish off one leisurely evening with ice skating on the romantic, muted illuminated lake of Zell am See.

Should there be any questions left by now,  just get in touch with me! In case you need anything or have any questions while you are here, my mum and my grandma are happy to help!

Kindest regards,

Carla

Eurovision Song Contest - disgrace or honor?

Recently I read a statement on Facebook that said Austria’s ESC participant, who is transsexual and openly shows this to the world, is a disgrace to the Austrian state and its population. I then read the comments on this statement and was more than upset and shocked when people did not only agree to this but even called Conchita Wurst (the participant) disgusting and revolting. Well, I see that some people may find it unnatural and don’t like seeing transsexual people on the street because they find it repulsive in some kind of way. Still, I can’t understand why people need to call them names and insult them on a public website like Facebook. They really don’t need to share my opinion, which I would say is quite liberal, but they don’t need to denounce them either.

When we - some people and me who think those people must not show their intolerance so very obviously - started to show our point of view and told them, what we think is wrong about their opinion, they immediately started insulting us. What really left me speechless was when they generalized our “liberal” point of view by claiming that we probably wouldn’t say anything against people watching child porn. And at that point I joined the conversation – I mean, how the hell can they compare child pornography to transsexuality?!! Do they really consider different sexual orientations just as cruel, violent, terrifying, illegal, traumatic etc. as child pornography?

When the discussion went on they ran out of good arguments, as they kept repeating the sentence: “They will not learn”.

All this took place yesterday before the grand finale of the ESC.

The same night Conchita Wurst won the contest and so did Austria.

The next morning Dave (who is very tolerant and open-minded) wrote a provocative remark by saying that the world had shown those intolerant people that it doesn’t share their opinion on sexual orientation. After that, they answered that the evaluation of the song contest couldn’t be taken seriously anyways because some Austrian people in the show said something negative about Russia’s participant (Don’t ask me where the connection is!), though Russia saved us Austrians and Germans from the NS-regime. Honestly, did they? Didn’t they only want to avoid Hitler conquering more and more European countries and didn’t they want to hit back, because Hitler had also tried to occupy Russia?

Even if it was Russia, who defeated the Nazis, do we still have to support everything they do? Do we, almost 70 years and 7 generations later, still have to be thankful and can’t criticize them in any kind of way? And what does all this have to do with Conchita Wurst, the transsexual, awesome singer who won the Song Contest FOR Austria? Nothing at all! I can only say we live in the 21^st century, so stay tolerant and go with time!

P.S. I would be very pleased if people commented on this 
(by the way, here's the link (unfortunately the 'conversation' was held in German):  https://www.facebook.com/pamela.schroll/posts/10202656289705616?comment_id=10202661226909043&offset=0&total_comments=86&notif_t=feed_comment_reply )