Gösting

Some days are more Austrian than others. 

A couple weeks ago I took advantage of a really beautiful day (the birds were singing, the sun was shining, children were laughing) to hike up to some castle ruins in a nearby village called Gösting.

Within the ruins there's a stone chapel. I'm guessing the shields on the walls depict the heraldic symbols of former important Styrian families, because I didn't recognize the shields of any cities or provinces. Austrians are sort of like a lot of middle-aged high school quarterbacks. They love to reminisce about the bygone glory days. 

Running around the castle grounds with high-fructose fruit drinks in hand and no parental supervision in sight was a group of wild/really cute kids (substitute "discipline" for "parental supervision" and you have Austrian schools... more about that later). What made them REALLY Austrian, though, was the fact that the leader of the pack was wearing Lederhosen. 

Styria is a pretty traditional place. It's not all that rare to see people walking around in Tracht (traditional dress), though it's usually for a special occasion, like a banquet. You (meaning Austrians, not me) can tell a lot about a person from their Tracht, especially from a Dirndl, like where they come from, marital status, and sometimes even family. So owning a pair of Lederhosen isn't rare, but using a pair as play-clothes for a five year old is.

Walking up to the castle and waiting to take a picture of the kid in Lederhosen without looking like I was taking a picture of the kid (what if his parents suddenly came looking for him and wanted to know why I took a picture of their son? Explaining that I just wanted to post his picture on my blog wouldn't do much for damage control) made me thirsty and hungry, so I sat at the castle's outdoor tavern (which had an awesome view and I'd really like to take my family to when they come) and ordered a beer and sausage with mustard. To make this meal even more Austrian, when the server brought the plate out sans mustard and slightly rudely insisted that I hadn't ordered it I argued back ("Ich hab's DOCH mit Senf bestellt."). 

And at no point during the day did I feel like a dancing bear.