Hello fellow Steemians,

since @dovetail has finally managed to drag me here, I thought I'd best introduce myself. My name is Theodora and I live where the hills are said to be alive with the sound of music, where Freud analysed people on his couch, and where Arnold Schwarzenegger was born: Austria.

In this blog post, I'd like to tell you a bit about myself and what I've got planned for you.

Me and my little friend Mercutio - I think he's cuter than a piece of paper.

Where I come from

I grew up in a small Austrian town where I learned to read and write at the age of three. I learned English, Spanish, French, Ukrainian, and Russian as well as some Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, Hungarian, Norwegian, and a couple of other more or less obscure languages. Currently, I'm trying to learn Dari (Afghan Persian). My second home is a city in Ukraine.

Things I've done so far - a non-exhaustive list

In my life, I've tried a fair share of things - and I hope the best are yet to come:

• I've worked in the automotive industry.
• I studied bio-engineering, biology - with a focus on animals and their behaviour and cognition, linguistics, cultural studies, and even mass-media communication. 
• I learned how to train parrots, cows, and goldfish (yes, you can train goldfish and no, they don't have crap memory!). 
• I used to play in a jazz band. 
• I worked in biotech for about seven years, but quit my "safe" job on my way home from a trip to Eastern Europe in July 2017
• I taught English in nursery schools. 
• I travelled a lot - particularly when I was a teenager. 
• I'm the editor of an online-magazine for biologists. 
• I do PR. 
• I blog.
• But most of all: I live and I'm doing more of what makes me happy.

Five random things I love:

1. Photography
2. Writing
3. Books
4. Geocaching
5. Cooking

Why I'm here

Travelling around the globe, I noticed that people usually either don't know Austria at all or they see it as the place where Mozart / Klimt / Schwarzenegger were born. Which it undoubtedly is. Well, in fact, Austria isn't really Mozart's home country - because strictly speaking, Mozart wasn't Austrian (if you want to find out why and why I think it would have been amazing to drink a few pints of beer with him, follow me and keep reading my blog Travelling around Austria with a Local, as I've already put this onto my long list of topics I'm going to write about). Anyway, Austria is so much more than Mozart, Klimt, Schwarzenegger, mountains, yodelling, leather trousers - or kangaroos. (Note to self: I have to write a post about "no kangaroos in Austria"-T-shirts because... seriously, dear rest of the world, this is not Australia!)

Showing foreigners around Austria also opened up a whole new world to me. All those weird things about Austrian / Alpine traditions, the crazy tourist attractions we have, the weirdness of Standard German - and the Austrian dialects (one of which is my mother tongue) - I never gave them much thought until I saw Austria through the eyes of my friends from all over the world.

Travelling around Austria with me and my blog

If you keep reading my blog, this is what you will get:

Austria from this Austrian's perspective (not Fake Mozart's, but mine ;-)),

pics of its landscapes,

and of hidden gems.

Places you might not find in a guidebook,

an insight into weird Austrian traditions

and into the Austrian sense of humour.

Food for thought,

hopefully a few laughs or at least giggles - 

and, believe it or not, some cat content...

...dog content...

...and even the occasional guinea pig content.

Of course I'm also curious to find out more about you, receive feedback and answer your questions!

I might also throw in the occasional recipe for Austrian food or share some of my pictures with you.

I'm really looking forward to going on this adventure with each and everyone of you!

~ Theodora ~

P.S.:
All content and images in this post are of course my own. Unauthorised use is prohibited.