Thanksgiving

In 1621, the pilgrims thanked Squanto (a Native American) for his help by organizing a big party. They cooked a lot of food and they ate together.

Nowadays, Thanksgiving is celebrated in America. The whole family sits on the table and eats together. A typical American Thanksgiving meal contains a turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, a gravy, fried onion and green beans. For dessert they eat pumpkin pie or pecan pie.

The typical decoration for the table is a cornucopia which is filled with vegetables and fruits.

The day after Thanksgiving is called “black Friday”. On this day, the stores start to sell Christmas products. They offer a lot of discounts and a lot of people go shopping on this day.

This is a nice picture of a cornucopia:

Thanksgiving

In 1621, the pilgrims thanked Squanto (a Native American) for his help by organizing a big party. They cooked a lot of food and they ate together.

Nowadays, Thanksgiving is celebrated in America. The whole family sits on the table and eats together. A typical American Thanksgiving meal contains a turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, a gravy, fried onion and green beans. For dessert they eat pumpkin pie or pecan pie.

The typical decoration for the table is a cornucopia which is filled with vegetables and fruits.

The day after Thanksgiving is called “black Friday”. On this day, the stores start to sell Christmas products. They offer a lot of discounts and a lot of people go shopping on this day.

This is a nice picture of a cornucopia:

HALLOWEEN

Halloween October 31st
Halloween is a shortened form of All Hallows‘ Eve
Hallowed 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 5th.
Bonfire night.
Masks, costumes, ghosts, witches on broomsticks with black cats, skeletons, bats and spiders and Halloween lanterns have all become part of Halloween.
Children play trick-or-treat.
They ask for a treat hoping to get sweets.


When you follow the link, you’ll see a video about the history of Halloween. I like the video because they speak clearly and they tell us a lot of information.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-VRAemIvbI

Farrah

In our last English lesson, we had a visit from Farrah. She is from Maryland, near Washington D.C. and she is here in Austria to improve her German.
She will stay in Austria until May. Farrah likes Austria because it is very pretty. She already visited Saalbach, Vienna, Linz and Perg.
Her hobbies are reading books, listening to music, watching movies and travelling.
She loves to hear pop, rock and folk music like Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan.
Her favourite movies are Fight Club, American Beauty, Superbad and Hangover.
She has a lot of pets at her home in the US. There is a dog, a cat, a turtle and a parrot.
The biggest difference between Austria and the States is, that in Austria is everything smaller. The cities, the buildings, the schools …
At the end I can say that it was an interesting lesson and I learned a lot.

XXXLutz

I don't like the spots of XXXLutz because they are silly and unnecessary. But it's a good advertisement because everybody remember this spots.

This is the link of one spot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9IL3y1QiFM

The development of advertising

First paragraph:

In the 19^th century, during the Industrial Revolution, advertising became popular for new and fringe products. Later, more and more factories produced the same products and so, brand-naming became necessary.

Second paragraph:

The economic depression was a turning point for the economy. Before the depression the production had permanently expanded, but after it there was a crisis because the factories produced too much and the customers bought not enough and so the prices fell. And so the small firms combined with other small firms to rise their profits.

Third paragraph:

An example of the changes is a case in the soap industry. Small Factories flooded the market with anonymous soap bars and so the competition grew very fast. The leading companies started more aggressive selling methods to win new customers.

Fourth paragraph:

Lord Leverhulme was the first industrialist who realized that advertisement is an important part of selling methods. Nowadays, advertising is important and those firms who can’t afford advertising are out.

My grades

These are my grades of this year
Winter term: C
2nd test: B
presentation: B
course work (participation in class, home exercices, blogs, etc. ): A

I think I deserve a B because my test improved and my class work is very good.

Our trip to Italy

Monday, May 17th: We started our trip at 8 o'clock in the morning. When we were in Udine, we stopped our journey to visit the city and to take a lot of photos. At 6 o'clock, we arrived in Bibione. There, we got the key for our accomodation, which were small caravans.

Tuesday, May 18th: We started our trip to Venice at 15 past 8 o'clock in the morning. It took us about 2 hours to arrive in Venice. There we had to wait about one hour to take the ferry, which brought us to the famous "Markusplatz". Our teacher, Mr. Huber, told us a lot of information about Venice. After this, we got a short quiz. We had 3 hours to answer all questions and we had to find the funniest postcard. At 4 o'clock, we were back at the bus and after 2 hours, we were back at Bibione.

Wednesday, May 19th: On wednesday, we learned how to use a bow and in the afternoon we went cycling. We rode to a beautiful coast where we had time to relax. At the evening, we went to Bibione, to drink a cocktail and to buy souveniers and after it, we went to the disco.

Thursday, May 20th: First, we went to a small fishing village near Bibione. There, we ate noodles with seafood and we visited the village. In the afternoon, we had time to relax at the beach and we played boccia. At the evening, we went to Bibione and there we drank some cocktails again. We went back at 10 o'clock and then, we packed our suitcases.

Friday, May 21st: We had to clean our caravan and at half past 10 we went back home, to rainy Austria. We arrived in Perg at 5 o'clock.

Finally, I can say, that it was a very funny, hot, interesting and great week. :)

Let's Go Green!!

I saw a presentation about environment and pollution.

What I learned about it is that the climate changes don't only depend on the nature they also depend on human causes.

To save the life on earth, recycling and composting is very important. You have to separate your waste, to reuse it.

We can reuse paper, switch of the light or use public transport to save the earth.

At the end of the presentation, I had a look at two webpages of organisations which want to help the environment.

Press Review

I read an article the other day on the internet newspaper austriantimes.at and it talks about fake Euros.

I thought you might be interested because counterfeit money is on the rise and each of us needs money every day for living.

Basically what it says is that 47 per cent of the counterfeit currency are 100 – Euro – notes and about 27 per cent are 50 – Euro – notes.
It is also said that there had been more 50 – and 20 – Euro – notes forged than 100 – and 200 – Euro notes.
And it is mentioned, that the centers of counterfeit coins are Bulgaria and Italy.

What surprised me most was the fact that the police confiscated
15 000 counterfeit 100 – Euro notes last year.


Vocabularies:

counterfeit (gefälscht) - A 100 - Euro - note is counterfeit, when it is not original.
forge (gefälscht) - Forge is a synonym of counterfeit
currency (Währung) - Austria's currency is the Euro


If you want to see the original article, klick here!