The new unicorn

Hello everybody!

Today I’d like to tell you about a tourism attraction in my home town.

Twelve years ago a school in Perg designed a Unicorn that represented the coat of arms of Perg. The years passed by and the unicorn began to rot and had to be removed for safety reasons. It was unclear if Perg will ever get a new one.

“Perger Tips” published an online-article about the unicorn and the artist Sasha Exenberger from Styria became attentive on it. Sasha Extenberger already created some animal sculptures and decided to design a new unicorn for Perg, one that should have more resemblance with the coat of arms and let it shine in a new lustre.

5^th of August the new unicorn was put up and celebrated with the 17. Vinum on the next day. Since that day the unicorn can again be admired in the middle of Perg.

What do you think about the new unicorn? Please write your personally thoughts in the comments!

Regards
Jakob

COAT OF ARMS                











OLD














NEW

Ecotourism

Hello everybody!

I was reading an article the other day in the online edition of the New York Times and it talks about Ecotourism.

I thought you might be interested because it is important to take care of our environment.

As we all know, mass tourism causes a lot of pollution and trash. So on the one hand tourism is great and many people have the dream of seeing the whole world but on the other hand tourism is really bad for the environment.

What does Ecotourism mean?

The official definition by TIES (The International Ecotourism Society) is “Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the welfare of local people.”

Basically what it says is that Eco-tourism is when one goes on holiday to a remote destination in a natural area while simultaneously being cautious of the environment, thus leaving the smallest carbon footprint possible as well first the infrastructure improvements are built to not only benefit the tourists but also the locals and well-being of the local people is being sustained.

So what are the guidelines to ecotourism?

The first is to protect the environment. This means keeping to the footpath and not leaving litter. The second is to not interfere with the wildlife meaning that you shouldn’t feed or scare animals. Also protecting the resources, so do not waste too much water. And finally respecting local customs and traditions, which is done by wearing appropriate clothing and behave appropriately.

Eco-tourism can consist of many activities including surfing, cycling, walking, kayaking, swimming, diving, bird watching and many others.

An example of eco-tourism includes the Monteverde Cloud Forest in Costa Rica which is in Central America. This destination is attractive as the flora and fauna is very diverse and additionally creates many jobs and incomes.

If done rightly ecotourism has several advantages. Eco-tourism has many benefits to the forest, has created many new businesses and jobs which are directly related to tourism, the wildlife and nature is being protected and led undisturbed as well as the local arts and crafts have been revived.

Since the 1980s the ecotourism sector is growing. It is the fastest growing sector in tourism, growing at an annual rate of between 10% – 15%. Tourism is one of the few sectors of the world economy that continues to grow despite the ups and downs in the world economy.

Tourism will never be completely sustainable but according to the chart the large number of tourists will steadily increase and therefore it becoming even more important to take care of our environment. A balance must be found between limits and usage so that continuous changing, monitoring and planning ensure that tourism can be managed.

So what do you think about ecotourism? Please let me know what you think about it.

Regards

Jakob

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/travel/17journeys.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/travel/22CostaRica.html

Holi festival

 Hello everybody!

The other day in our english lesson we talk about the Holi festival.

The holi festival is a very ancient festival celebrated all over India, but there is a small village called Barsana were the Holi festival is celebrated in a special way. Barsana has approximately 9000 inhabitants but when the Holi festival takes place thousands of pilgrims and tourists came to the village and take part in the celebrations.

The Holi festival is a religious festival, it is said that the god Krishna from the Hindu religion lived in the area of Barsana and playfully pointed his sweetheart’s face with colours.

People prepare small packets of coloured powders that they toss at all the strangers and friends around them and there is live music everywhere.

In the evening all participants change their coloured clothes into fresh, new outfits. They visit friends and relatives at their houses and eat sweets there.

My opinion about the Holi festival is, that it is a festival which sounds really spectacular and amusing and if I get a chance to participate in this festival, I will take it.

What do you think about this festival? Please write your personally thoughts in the comments.

Regards

Jakob

Our trip to France

Our trip to France

Hello everybody!
Today I will talk about our trip to France.

A few months ago my class and I took a trip to France. Early in morning we went from St. Valentin to the airport in Vienne by train. Our plane to Paris took off shortly before midday. Finally arrived in Paris we had to take the bus for another six hours to the north of France to St. Malo. In groups of two or three we stayed at host families. Stefan and I lived together, the family was very kind and the food was delicious. We stayed in St. Malo for five days. In the center of St. Malo there is a wonderful old town with a lot of restaurants and bars, which are perfect to have some drinks in the evening. Besides visiting St. Malo we attended a language school and we did a boat trip to Dinar, which is a small town located near St. Malo. Dinar is a beautiful place with a nice beach and a lovely food market. After five great days in St. Malo we went back to Paris to spend another three days there. We visited all the famous sights for example the Louvre, Sacré Coeur, Montmartre, Notre Dame and many more. But the highlight of our trip to France was clearly the European championship football match. At least for me it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Summarizing I can say that this language trip was really great and it was definitely an experience for life.

Regards

Jakob

The battle of Chernobyl

Hello everybody!

The other day in our English lesson we were watching a documentary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Basically what it says is that 30 years ago in Chernobyl on the 26^th April in 1986 the most serious nuclear accident ever has taken place.

The employees from the reactor block 4 have been ordered to carry out a test on the reactor to safe energy. But something went wrong and the reactor exploded. Two man officially died in that night and 28 men in the following month but the unofficial death rate is way higher. The first few days nobody knew about this accident, no one was informed. Not even Michail Gorbatschow, who was the President of the Soviet Union at that time.

Prypat, a city with about 43 000 inhabitants, is located 3 kilometres away from the reactor. A few hours after the accident the radioactivity was 600 000 times higher than normal. It took 48 hours for them to evacuate the city, about 1000 buses were sent to Prypat to pick up all the people.

Besides that the accident contaminated the land nearby, clouds were contaminated with radioactivity particles and were blown north by the wind. They drifted over 1000 kilometres from Russia, over Belarus up to Sweden, where the radioactive dust rained down.

Until now there is no statistic which shows the number of people who were contaminated. One week after the accident 130 000 people were evacuated and 300 000 hectare land isolated from the rest of the world.

Today 30 years after this nuclear accident, the city Chernobyl is a ghost town. No one ever returned.

Regards

Jakob

Public health care

Hello everybody!

Let me tell you what I think about public helath care.

Public health care

Austria has public health care, meaning that essential health services are paid by the government. What services are regarded as ‘essential’ is always being debated. It is not always clear if a surgical procedure is really needed and should be paid by the government. My first example, which I will give you is a tattoo which the patient says is causing him mental distress. I think such a tattoo can be really a heartache, but I’m against payment by the government, if it hasn’t to be removed immediately because of health reasons. If you decide yourself for a tattoo you have to be aware of the consequences, especially when you don’t like it anymore. Let me give you another example, which is a breast reduction on a 13-year-old who is being teased in school because of her breast size. In this case I think a breast reduction should be paid by the government, because this girl isn’t able to do something against it. This is also true for, cosmetic surgery on an actor’s large nose, which she claims is haring her career. It’s not her fault. She earns her life as an actress and if she won’t get a nose surgery, her job would be affected. In my opinion the government should also pay for this surgical procedure.

What do you think about this topic? Please let me know what you think about it.

Regards,

Jakob

Businessweek

Hello everybody!

Today I’d like to tell you about my business week.

Last week I worked at the company Meinhart. It is a cable business. The company is located in St. Florian (Austria) and employs about 150 employees.

Every day I started working at 7 o’clock am and finished at 4 o’clock pm. It took me about 20 minutes to drive to work. At 12 o’clock I had a short lunch break for 30 minutes. There is the possibility to go to the cafeteria where you can buy tasty food that is really affordable.

My main tasks at internship were to process all important freight documents and to coordinate the transport of the goods from the company to the customers.

For me it was a really good possibility to see the everyday work and I was able to collect a lot of new and interesting impressions for my career choice.

Regards

Jakob