H O L I DAY

I just returned last week from my holiday from Greece – I am almost still in vacation mood, which I’d like to use to write my blogpost of the month of August which is about questions regarding the topic vacation, public holidays and recreation.
What was once understood by “public holiday” and which meaning does holiday have to today in Western societies, where most of the people can also afford a holiday?

The English word “holiday” derives from “häligdæg” (holy day) and was mentioned first 950 BC. It is similar to the Latin word “fêria” (feast day), a day on which you leave your work in order to participate in religious and public celebrations – and such holidays we still know today as our public holidays.

Who does still actively participate in such public holidays in our society🤔? As I grew up in the countryside, I experienced these public holidays very traditionally and perceived them as rather “constricting” and “obligatory”, even though celebrating and networking together was and is very important and useful for living together.

Relax and recreation took place in our family mainly on weekends and during school holidays in summer, by taking individual trips in our sourrounding area or visiting our relatives in other federal states of Austria and other countries, occasionally with an overnight stay – but that was it: only as a teenager I started to travel and going on “holiday”. From the Austria-Ticket journey at the age of 17, to several Interail-journeys to various long-distance and business trips – during all those journeys it was important to me to get to know new countries and cultures, networking and to “experience” something – I rarely stayed longer at the same place and I didn’t want to be on vacation at the same place twice; adventure, people and sports, less relaxing per se were important to me.
Travelling and going on vacation starts for me as soon as I start packing my suitcase and driving towards the train station or airport and when I allow myself for a certain period to not think about work – to simply enjoy the moment and to dive into new worlds and let go myself. I also love driving around in cities by taxi having conversations with taxi drivers to get first impressions about the city.

11 years ago, I discovered with Kim White, Molyvos, a place on the Greek island of Lesvos, at the Hotel Aphrodite, which enriched my understanding of being on “holiday”. It is a place where I can relax withing a short time, a place which provides me with a lot of energy, where I enjoy getting ab in early in the morning to go for a run or to take a swim or to go snorkeling, where I always meet new and interesting people and where I meet “old acquaintances” again, where I open my heart and connect with Mother Nature, a place which I find so special that I want to share with friends, if somehow possible I’d like to spend my holiday at least once a year in exactly this place.
I generally try to integrate relaxation and vacation into my everyday life, by allowing myself “relaxation sessions” during a work week, where I sit in a café and look into nothingness or where I simply spend time with friends or family without constantly thinking about time.

In a few words, “holiday” means for me to find inspiration and a way to myself, to simply do nothing or to discover new and old things.

JU’s 3 questions of today are:

👉Do you remember your first holiday? Which moment was special for you?
👉What do you need to relax properly and to find a way to yourself?
👉Do you have any favorite vacation spots or destinations?

🙍🏻‍♀️🇦🇹🇬🇧 Christina Bornberg
Christina has a BSc in Electronics and currently lives in London. In September, she starts studying medical imaging in France, Italy and Spain as part of an Erasmus Mundus Masters – I have known Christina since 2011 when I taught her and her classmates in Geography at HTL 3 Rennweg, Vienna – even as a student I appreciated in her tireless effort, enthusiasm and broad interest with an eye for the big picture, as well as her empathetic nature and social skills. Christina loves playing the guitar, in addition to her interest in research work in the fields of medicine and space technology.

🧑🏻‍🦱🇦🇹🇩🇪John Kulha
I’ve been working with John on and off for several years now, and what I appreciate about him is his technical expertise, his focused and solution-oriented work, his calm and unassuming manner, and his sense of precision and honesty – John is currently studying Game Engineering at the FH Technikum Wien, where he is also a tutor. He is passionate about developing games – twonodes.games, goes running and also enjoys playing games himself.
Why I associate with John Angelo Soliman I will reveal in my description of the next blogger.

👩🏻🇦🇹🇩🇪Beate Kulha (Weghofer)
For the first time a married couple answers the Between Oceans questions for me – and this couple is a newlywed one – Beate and John got married on July 7, 2021 and fell in love with each other on October 7, 2011 during a school event I organized, namely the visit of the exhibition ‘Angelo Soliman’ in the subject geography.
Beate studies Game Engineering at the FH Technikum Vienna and also works there as a tutor – she develops games, twonodes.games, together with her husband and draws, besides programming, great graphics – I have experienced Beate already in 2011 as very self-confident, dedicated, goal-oriented and social person and I appreciate her accuracy and organizational skills.
Her hobbies are running, badminton, bouldering and her three cute rat girls, for whom she always thinks of new things to do.

We travelled around quite a lot when I was a child. Most of the time this was quite stressful since we never really stayed at a place but went from one to the next without taking breaks. I can remember being in a train from Saint Malo to Paris when I started complaining that we never have a relaxed time, since my only wish was to be at home and watch tv. Nowadays, whenever I plan a holiday, I do exactly what I was moaning about in the past. I travel from one place to the next with the goal to see as much as I can. The whole thing became kind of the attitude towards my life, living in different places and getting to know the culture and traveling to cities around with new friends I made.

For me, it is actually quite difficult to relax, but I have to admit, that staying in bed for a couple of days and just do entirely nothing, helps to recharge. This doesn’t even need to be in a nice place, the more plain the better. I can relax when there is nothing new around me, when everything is familiar, including the people I see.