Here we are in the year of May 2020, and I am slowly pretending to adapt to a new way of life….

The 2019/ 2020 ski season is a distant memory as it appears even the snow was evacuated when that covert virus arrived. Restrictions are slowly starting to ease, and a while ago St Anton came out of quarantine after 40 days: naturally I was amused by this and cracked a joke to my bin about it being like a non-denominational Lent where the ski bums had to give up Jägermeister for 40 days. We found it hilarious.

Since the last blog post I have been quite lax with my writing as the purpose of this website was to share travel stories and photographs: not talk about what I had for breakfast. Sadly though, the universe is working against us all, and I am left with no choice but to tell you about not only what I am having for breakfast, but also other activities I have undertaken to distract myself from sporadic panic attacks fuelled by impending doom.

WHAT I’M HAVING FOR BREAKFAST

I cannot commentate on the aforementioned digressions with a straight face. There was going to be a flowery diatribe about how much I was missing travelling, and how I woke up one morning yearning for breakfast in one of my favourite cafes on Bondi Beach: I may have even started to conjure prose about the sidewalks and fresh sea breeze. Full disclosure: I cannot remember one single time I had breakfast at Bondi Beach when I wan’t either hungover, or still going from the night before.

During this whole fiasco, I have made poached eggs once: at 2pm in the afternoon (and that was only because I could not be assed to put a bra on to go to the supermarket). .

Yay me. I put some eggs in water. For the recipe, just google, “How do I make poached eggs”.

WHO ISN’T BAKING BANANA BREAD?

My newsfeed is filled with baking success stories, and I thought participation was key, because “we’re all. in this together”. Quite serendipitously I always have wonderfully ripe bananas: why was I the last person to find out that if you put avocados next to bananas it hastens the ripening process?

So using a dodgy oven with inaccurate settings and some apparatus you apparently use to make soups I made a lot of banana bread, and pretty much gave it away in hope of receiving something delicious in this new bartering system we got going on. Yep, my banana bread garnered me pies, cakes, face masks and so forth.

Even better, some of my neighbours (the family behind) seem to not mind it, and their young son kindly calls me “Nachbarin mit Banana Brot”. “Famale neighbour with banana bread” is so much better than “Crazy lady who sits in backyard staring at trees” - but I am not sure it is more apt.

Anyway, banana bread factory has been on a brief hiatus since that time last week when I put too much baking powder in, and the oven was left looking like a ´Gremlin had been nuked in the microwave.

Gave that one to my young neighbour.

AN OUTING WITH MY BIN

In the beginning a fair chunk of my time was spent incessantly scrolling through my news feed. At first the memes were funny, but after 3 weeks very few were even eliciting a mild guffaw. Aside from the “Bin Isolation Outing” group on Facebook. I mean, you can take the girl out of Australia.

One of my cousins suggested that this was right up my, ahem, driveway, so, again in solidarity I made a pun filled contribution.

I think that the weirdest part of this was that I was walking up the mountain with a bin, and no one I passed flinched. I am not sure if this is indicative of the Tirolean character or mine: I think I’ll go with the former on this one.

Told my bin about how I was feeling a little lonely at times from the social distancing, and he was like, “I so bin there”

CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN

Naturally I have been doing boast posts about how “blessed’” and “fortunate” I am, and it feels so good to be able to “reach out” and other buzz words. I often get comments on my social media referencing The Sound of Music. I just thought I would clear this up. Most Austrians do not even know what The Sound of Music is, and have never heard of most of the songs.

Me on the other hand? Well, I’m half Australian and i go to town on it. I was talking to one friend whilst I was up the mountain and she even made me do a twirl, Maria style, and I happily obliged. Even threw in a few extras because I have no shame.

Again, no comments from the locals that saw me doing it. Peculiar.

Speaking of locals who have seen me “doing it” (and by that I am referring to my social distancing up the mountain) my neighbour who was mentioned in the last post (not the one hosting involuntary watch parties but his sister who has a tendency to squawk and gossip). She is always, ahem, enthusiastically inquisitive regarding my activities, and is never shy to vocalise her approval or disdain.

When I first started running the guest house, she was wonderfully helpful with tips on snow shovelling, and praised me for getting up to make breakfast for my guests at 0700 every morning. From that day forth I rose daily at 0630 to turn on the lights of the kitchen before going back to bed.

Being in a small village as a foreigner at the least is incredibly challenging, so it brings me great delight to report that my neighbour has seen me up the mountain on a multitude of occasions. As long as she sees me then the whole village is bound to know that I am staying fit and healthy.

A NEW STUDY

Now here’s a funny story. Ish. Kind of. Yeah, you’re right, it’s not great.

Everyone has a room which serves as a receptacle for rubbish/ dry stores/ etc. Mine is next to the kitchen, and in general the door stays closed.

I went one afternoon to simply clean the windows as I had banned myself from Netflix until sun down, which in hindsight was a bloody stoopid idea as it was around the time of daylight savings and the days are getting longer and longer.

Anyway, in summary, this also escalated and I learnt how to use a vacuum cleaner.

Please don’t ask where all of the clutter from the room went.

BURMESE STUDY

Somewhere around this time, i hit a wall…. I am pretty sure it can be traced back to missing Myanmar and the other half of my life. Perennially at this time if the year I am posting from an airport somewhere about how hilarious those Germans are when boarding a plane (I call the flight from Frankfurt to Bangkok the “Sex Tourist Express”).

But alas, not this year, but I decided that this was not an excuse to become lax with my studies. Luckily enough, when I hit the wall it was not a physical thing, so I actually had a wall spare. Why wouldn’t I build a map of my Burmese study on it? It was the only logical solution.

A work in progress.

And then the restrictions ended

First came family

It was a little confronting when the restrictions started lifting as I had become quite accustomed to my one man circus. When a sleepover with my nephew and niece was proposed, I am not sure who was more excited:: them or my sister…. Let’s call it a draw.

So the little munchkins were my first guests since March, and they were highly demanding: I don’t think that I would have received more than three stars from them on Air BnB as I had no soap and shower gel to offer them, then the stir fry got sent back as it had green stuff in it, and finally the bed were not deemed comfortable and the only remedy for this was to come and sleep in with Aunty Tashie.

The next day, I had another friend over with her two munchkins, and cheesy toast got sent back.

I think in the future that I will continue to host guests with a different vintage.: they are slightly easier to give schnapps to.

Apple Blossoms and Prosecco

My initial company after the lift of restrictions was definitely a G-rated affair full of bedtime stories, leopard print onesies and declarations of love.

Actually the garden party a few days later was not entirely dissimilar, but through a different lens. It all began in a civilised manner, with glass tinkling and flower arrangements. It’s all hear-say from there, but at some point, we may or may not have been dancing in the kitchen to “Proud Mary” when my neighbour joined in with jiving from his balcony and offered us table dancing jobs next season.

Venturing out into the real world

Whilst I am doing my very best to maintain a positive demeanour, there is no denying that this loss basic freedoms has taken a toll, which is why yesterday i jumped at the opportunity to take a day trip to Innsbruck, just over an hour away.

I am not sure what I expected from the “new” real world, but for a place I ´have been a million times it certainly seemed fresh and new.