Category: Austria

The Veal Goulash

As I had a delecious veal goulash today I decided to share the recipe on my homepage for your guys!

Lets look at the ingredients first!

300g of onions
50 g of butter
20 g of paprika powder
1 garlic glove
Lemon peel of 1/2 a lemon (make sure its without pesticides)
Lemon juice and salt
1 teaspoon of tomato paste
125 ml sour cream
1 teaspoon of flour
125 ml cream

How its done:

Start with frying chopped onions (as small as possible) and paprika powder. Add some water, garlic, lemon peel, lemon juice and season with salt. Stir  it well and bring it to a hard boil. Now you have to add the veil, the formentioned tomato paste and again some water. Lower the heat and partially cover the pot and wait till the meat is tender. Take out the meat and pur the gravy through a seperator or a strainer.

Mix the sour cream with floug, stir it into the gravy, add sweet cream and boild it shortly. Season to your own liking. Add the meat to the gravy again.

In my family goulash is usually eaten with white or dark bread.

And if you are wondering how much people you can feed with this recipe the answer is: 4 medium hungry Austrians but I don’t know how that translate to ther nationalities 😉

And my final tip for Austrian Veal Goulash:

If you cooked for four people and only the two of you have it for dinner, it actually gets better the next day when heated up again. My mum usually prepares the goulash a day in advance and just reheats it on the oven the next day.

Enjoy, and if you try it, please let me know by commenting on this blog!

Back from agencies@google in Dublin!

I just returned from Ireland! I, as a represantativ for my company, was invited by Google to be trained along other agencies from across Europe to improve my knowledge on E-marketing and Website optimization.  It was all on very short notice, I only got the invitation about 1,5 weeks in advance. Needless to say I had my flights and the hotel booked in no time.

My first day started with signing a two page confidential agreement and a meeting of my contact person at Google, that I had previously only known via phone. We started the day with a coffee at the Google Cafeteria and a little chit chat about how my company deals with clients and how tourism works in general in Austria. Then I headed for my first Seminar about Quality Score and Bid management for Google Adwords . The quality of the presentation was top top-notch and very helpful in terms of understanding how Google works. Their philosophy in simply words –  Deliver what the costumer is looking for and you will be successful, try and trick him into visiting a site that is not what he/she is looking for and you will fail. Common Sense which, in my opinion, is the secret behind the success of Google.

My next seminar was about Advanced Optimization, such as using season events to increase profit and how to improve the performance of your website by analyzing how your visitors react to your content.Then came lunch – and if the seminars weren’t already impressive enough – their food was absolutely astonishing. It looks like an ordinary canteen at an university but it tastes like in a restaurant – Sushi, Pizza, fantastic salad, you’ll name it – and on top of all – its free for Visitors and Google Workers alike. Rumor has it that after you start working there you’ll gain about 7 kilos in the first few weeks.

Then came the afternoon seminars – which was kind of hard to follow after the superb lunch, but nonetheless, very interesting. The first one was about ROI Tools and an in depth look on how to improve Return of Investment as well as a “How to Guide”. We ended the day with an Agency Round Table where we where asked how Google could improve and increase support for agencies as well as our opinion on a platform provided by Google for potential clients to choose which agencies fits them best.

Our day ended at the “Ocean”, a bar close the Google headquarter. One guy actually ended up swimming across the Grand Channel after being challenged to do so by the others – Hilarious!

The second day started with a look at the Content Network and how it can be used to promote and get awareness for products that have just been introduced to the market. This seminar was followed by an outlook on the developments of social media and mobile search for the next couple of years. Its kina scary how fast this markets are developing. In the afternoon I got the chance to take a stroll around the Google complex and the official part ended with a workshop and in-depth analyses of my current projects. At night we made a pub crawl around Temple bar, again with the Google Staff. Needless to say I enjoyed a few pints of Guinness…

My final day at the Google Headquarter was dedicated to Google Analytics and its new features such as the Internal site search, Advanced segmentation and Motion charts (still haven’t figured that one out but it sure looks great). Overall I was very excited to go to Dublin and get a little insight on “Google”, but my expectation where actually by far exceeded!

Sound of Music – Sound of Austria?

Sound of Music, Austria, Mondsee

Work wise I was in the lovely Salzkammergut a lot the past month. Several Times in Mondsee, right next the infamous church which was used for the site of the wedding in the movie “Sound of Music”. Every time I was there, a horde of Americans and Asians would walk around the square in front of the church, take a look inside the church and fill up the memory cards of their digital cameras with the pictures of the same spots over and over again..

Today I was in St. Gilgen. I got there in the early morning, it was a sunny day and no wind, so the lake was crystal clear and the mountains mirrored in the lake. It was such a magnificent view that I decided to stop for a moment and enjoy the scenery for a while. That’s when the picture from above was taken. I even drove past that meadow where the shot for the infamous original movie poster was taken.

Until I turned 20 I did not knew about the movie “Sound of Music” at all. I first heard about the movie when Americans started babbling about “Sound of Music” when I told them that I was from Austria. It’s funny that a movie that was shot in 1965 still brings Austria to the minds of even young people all over the world.

My colleague from the local tourism office in St. Gilgen told me that one time, a group of Japanese tourists came to her office and asked her about the sights and the movie. Later the Japenese group would gather and sing the infamous “Edelweiss” song.

Sound of Music is barely known in Austria and hardly ever shown on Austrian television. A lot of Austrians think that it portraits a cliché that is complete unfaithful to the real Austria.

But without a doubt, Sound of Music has done Austria a great favor when it comes to the tourism industry and showing the world just how beautiful my home country really is. When I drove to St. Gilgen today and saw lake Wolfgangsee in front of me, I couldn’t help but smiley and think – maybe Austrians are not like in the movie, but at least the movie got the scenery right!