Thanksgiving - Black Friday

Thanksgiving was first celebrated in 1621 when the pilgrims invited the Native Americans to celebrate the harvest.
It is celebrated every year on the 4th Thursday of November. The familys stay together, give thanks for everything and have a typical thanksgiving meal. They eat for example turkeys, match potatoes, green beans, corn pudding.

The day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday. It's the start of the Christmas shopping season. The shops open at 5 o'clock in the morning and grant discounts up to 50 %. People queue up the whole night to be the first to go into the shop.
I don't understand why they are doing this. I'm glad Black Friday isn't common in Austria.

Halloween

Halloween October 31st

Halloween is a shortened form of All Hallows' Eve.
Halloween means holy.
Eve is the day before a holy day.
Halloween was an ancient British Celtic festival.
At Halloween the souls of the dead returned.
People lit bonfires to frighten evil spirits.
Now bonfires are only burnt on November the 5th. Bonfire night.
Masks costumes ghosts
Witches on broomsticks with black cats...
skeletons, bats an spiders...
and Halloween lanterns
have all become part of Halloween.
Children play trick-or-treat.
They ask for a treat
hoping to get sweets.

Of course I searched my own halloween video. I chose this because I think the teacher had a funny idea to make an interesing halloween lesson.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKviYiZhtZY

Farrah

Last lesson a student from the USA was with us. Her name is Farrah, she is 22 years old and comes from Maryland, near Washington DC. She studied German at university for about 3 years and now she wanted to see something new, that's why she came to Austria. She will stay until the end of May.
We asked Farrah which are the biggest differences between the USA and Austria. Her answer was that everything in the USA is much bigger! For example our 3rd biggest city Linz would be only the 122nd in the USA. But she says she really loves Austria. She loves the cities with the old buildings, the mountains, the snow and much more.
She also told us something about other places she had visited, for example the big and busy city New York or the smaller Washington DC. She also likes Germany and Greece, where she had been when she was young.
Of course we mentioned many other things, like the age of driving or drinking alcohol, and that the Americans love football and not soccer or skiing.
I think this was a very interesting lesson and I'm looking forward to have the chance to see Farrah again.

The development of advertising

At school we read an article which deals with the development of advertising. Advertising began in the 19th century, the early stages of Industrial Revolution, and was manly used to promote new and exotic products. But after some time there were more and more producer for the same products so brand-naming became necessary.
As a cause of the economic depression from 1873 to 1894 there were more products at the market than could be sold. So many of the small industrial firms realised that it would be better to combine with others and widen the range of products. This was when the phase of the monopoly capitalism and mass advertising started.
At the turn of the century, there was a big change in the soap trade. Instead of the anonymous bars of soap, distributed by wholesalers and door-to-door seller, the companies started more aggressive selling methods, for example Lord Leverhulme who "branded" his soap.
Lord Leverhulme realised that advertising should contain logical arguments as well as eye-catching slogans. Advertising had now reached the stage of persuasion and, as the writer E. S. Turner points out, many smaller firms were displaced by the bigger ones, because they couldn't afford the money for advertising.

My favorite spot is the Milchschnitte-spot, because I really like Milchschnitten. :)
In the spot to girls just arrive at home and want to have a snack. So one of them goes into the kitchen and puts a bottle of milk, some wheat and honey into the fridge. After some minutes time it makes a "pling" and the Milchschnitten are ready.

Trip To ITALY

Last week our class went on Sport- and Culture-Week to Italy, Bibione. It was a nice week with a lot of sunshine. I really enjoyed it and I wish I would be there now.

We started on Monday 8:00 p.m. and visited the town Udine in the afternoon. At 6 o'clock we arrived at our homes disposed by Villaggio Tourisico Internazionale. Of course we visited the beach and jumped into the sea.



On Tuesday we spent the whole day in Venice. I really love Venice, with all the bridges and small streets. To keep us busy our teachers gave us a "little" quiz about Venice. Those who found out the most things got a little price. So we were walking through the city for more than 3 hours and tried to answer the questions. In the end we asked some gondoliers and policemen. :)
After this torture we spent a comfortable evening on our veranda.



Wednesday morning we went to nearby forest to try to kill birds - just joking...we tried to hit a target with bow and arrow. This wasn't easy, I just hit it one time. In the afternoon we had some free time, which we spent on the beach. At 2 o'clock we all got a bike and rode to a beautiful old lighthouse in a bay. Wednesday was our sports day so we went to the disco in the evening. Unfortunately we were a little bit to loud (said the security) so they took away our Camping Cards.



On Tuesday we visited Marano Lagunare. There was nothing to do, so we took a lot of photos. In the afternoon we could decide if we wanted to play beach soccer, boccia or beach volleyball. I played beach volleyball and it was great fun. In the evening we were allowed to stay in Bibione until 1 o'clock. So we did.




Unfortunately we left on Friday 10 o'clock. But before Yvonne, Angelika, Werner and I watched the sunset. We arrived at Perg at 5 o'clock and I was happy when I met my bed.

This week was a great experience and I would regret if I hadn't been there.

Save the Planet

Last English lesson we had the subject "Let's go green". We talked about why there is the climate change and what we can do to save life on earth. Some of us made a presentation about these subjects. I really liked the presentation. It made clear that we have to do something for our planet, if we want to live on it for a longer time. They also mentioned two organizations which protect the planet: WWF and Greenpeace.

WWF stands for World Wildlife Fund and its mission is to save the environment and make a future where humans live in harmony with nature. I have already had a look at the website of WWF. It has a very clear structure and I think it explains very well what WWF is doing. So people, who want to join this organization, are able to find out what they are going to support.

Greenpeace, the other organization, stands for peace and protecting the environment as well. On the website they say, that they exist because our earth deserves a voice. The Greenpeace people often demonstrate and so show the public what is going wrong. If you join this organization, you really have to be satisfied on what you are doing, because the demonstrators often get arrested.

I think it's good that there are organizations which want to protect the world. But I don't think that they can change people. The can just show us what is going wrong and what we can do.
After this lesson I'm thinking about using my bicycle more often. This would be good for the environment and good for me too.

Presentation Tourism

I really liked KMME's presentation about tourism. They had plenty of information and explained it very well. They spoke understandable and because of the power point it was easy for me to follow. I think it was a good idea to make a podcast about London.

I have already visited the website "lonleyplanet.com" which was a part of their presentation. You can find there any information you need for your trip. But there is not only the basic information, there are also postings of people, who wanted to share their experiences. As a help to imagine what are you going to see on your trip, there are many photographs as well. I really like this website because it's easy to handle and with its help you may arrange the journey of your dreams.

Austrian production output

I read an article the other day in the online version of "austriantimes.at" and it talks about the consequences of the financial crisis for the Austrian production output.
I thought you might be interested because we will have to pay the debts which are made now.
Basically what it talks about is that Austria's production output had decreased by more than 10 per cent last year, compared to 2008. The industrial sector suffered the most and the construction branch the less.
The institute of Economic Research (Wifo) said that Austria would recover from the crisis more slowly than other European countries, because it has a strong economic presence in Eastern Europe. There are a lot of Austrian banks for example.
Wifo also mentioned that Austria's growth between 2010 and 2014 would be 1.8 per cent annually on the average. This is about 0.75 per cent less than in the years before the crisis.
I think it will take a long time for the whole world to recover from the financial crisis.



Vocabulary:

• output (Leistung, Produktion): The production output of the company decreased.
  
  
• growth (Wirtschaftswachstum): The growth will be 1.8 per cent annually on the average.
  
  
• average (Durchschnitt): The average of 2 + 4 is 3.
  
  
• debt (Schuld): He has to pay for the debts he made years ago.
  

original Link:
http://austriantimes.at/news/Business/2010-02-24/21000/Austrian_production_output_down_in_2009

Austrian Pellet Production

Some weeks ago, I read an article at the online version of "austriantimes.at" and it talks about the pellet production in Austria.
I thought you might be interested because pellet is the heating material of the future.
Basically what it talks about is that Austria is the second largest wood pellet producer per capita in the world. Only Sweden produced more pellets per capita.
It is also said, that the Austrian producer 'proPellets' produced 700 000 tons of pellets this year. The head of proPellets Austria said that the pellets production will rise in 2010 because they are going to run two new facilities.
The world largest producer of pellets is the USA with 4,7 million tons per year.
I think that pellets are going to replace oil used as heating material soon.

Vocabulary:

• per capita (pro Person): The journey cost 10 euros per capita.
  

Original text:

http://www.austriantimes.at/news/Business/2010-01-20/19848/Austria_is_pellet_production_giant