Dan and Em's Blog

We’re definitely not “just” tourists here:  tourists don’t typically need to find a pediatrician.  And this isn’t finding a doctor who will treat you for a day or a weekend or a week because you got sick on vacation:  this person will be the primary doctor for the next few years for our children — guiding us through vaccination regimes, tests and developmental yardsticks that are all different than they are a home, and mostly important.

We really, really liked our pediatrician at home.  (Well, we still like him, and he’s still there.)  It’s not an easy thing to go out and find a doctor in a foreign country, where you don’t speak the language (I know, I say that about a lot of things, but it’s true about a lot of things).

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We’ve been in Vienna long enough to start to get accustomed to certain things:  we’re used to sharing the sidewalks with bikes (who have the right of way over pedestrians), we’re in the habit of doing all of our grocery shopping on Saturday so we aren’t stuck on Sunday without something important (since the stores aren’t open) and we’re beginning to abandon the idea of waiting in any kind of an organized line for anything (since the Austrians don’t put much emphasis on waiting and turns — he who jumps to the front the quickest gets served the fastest).  In general, we’re catching on.

We’ve also gotten used to the fact that horse-drawn carriages share the roads with the cars — with surprising ease and patience from all (mostly).  I’m amazed and impressed at the confidence and success with which the drivers maneuver through traffic and down narrow streets, all while avoiding cars, trucks, buses, tourists (children included), bicycles and each other.  Many of the places that we frequent — our favorite pizza place, our favorite coffee places, the walking route I take with the boys in the morning and even the street in front of our house — are on the route typically taken by Viennese carriage drivers as they give their passengers a tour of the city center.  So, we’ve also started to recognize the horses and drivers themselves.

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Today, we did something we never do — we played softball.  To be accurate, Dan played softball, and Liam, Benjamin and I watched.  Some coworkers of Dan’s put a game together and, in the interest of being social and making new friends, we went.

I don’t know what it is about me, but absolutely anytime I attempt to be a spectator at anything, I end up getting drafted into some sort of duty role.  I don’t know if I look responsible, or I just look like a sucker, but it never fails.  I’ll end up collecting tickets, selling concessions, taking pictures, serving beverages or some sort of other useful task.  Honestly, it doesn’t bother me that much:  I’m more of a doer than a watcher, anyway, but I wish I understood why this happens to me, simply so I could turn it off when I prefer to sit back and relax.

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Saturday is our “work” day in our family:  it’s our day to get our household chores and errands done that don’t easily get done during the week.  We sweep, do laundry and lately, we unpack and get organized, but hopefully not for too much longer.  We usually start after breakfast with a trip to the grocery store.  Typically, we all go together, or occasionally, Dan will go with one of the kids while I get some things done around the house with the other one.

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Monday is a government holiday in Austria, and even better, it’s one of the holidays that the UN observes for their employees, so Dan doesn’t have to go to work.  Great!  We’re really excited to have a three day weekend, and there are some things we’ve really been wanting to do and to get done, so it comes at a great time.  We didn’t find out about this until yesterday, so it came as a complete surprise to us.

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One of the best things about where we live in Vienna is that we get to hear church bells ring every day.  They ring at noon and 5:45 p.m. every day, and then on the weekends they also ring just before 9:30 in the morning.  (I find the times themselves a little random, but I’m guessing it has something to do with church, and if I actually went, I’d probably know.)

We are within hearing distance of at least three sets of bells, maybe more — I’m not even sure which ones I’m hearing at which times.  I absolutely love to hear them, and I’ve already grown accustomed to telling the time by them.  The boys are usually down for their naps by the time the noon bells ring, and Dan gets home right after the bells ring in the evening.  On the weekends, if I hear the morning bells and I haven’t gotten myself in gear to get some things done, I’m probably running late.

Some days, my routine with the kids feels so familiar, it’s actually easy to forget how far from home I am.  No matter how wrapped up I get in my day, I hear the bells and I stop what I’m doing for a moment to listen.  Although I’m used to hearing them, I don’t take them for granted (yet).  They’re magical to me:  anachronistic and yet so perfectly appropriate, so much of Vienna.  It’s like snow on Christmas — it belongs, but its belonging doesn’t diminish your delight when you find it.

We’ve been here just over two months.  I didn’t really see it happen, but somewhere along the way, we got settled here.  Life is getting into a (new) routine and most of our creature comforts have gotten sorted out.  I am starting to have places I “usually” go, and I’m finding I need to go digging in the suitcases less and less.  We’ve come a long way.

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I can’t stand the heat.  It’s driving me nuts.  I’ve never been one of those people who longs for the heat of summer — I’ve always been someone who would rather be too cold than too hot (my philosophy is that you can always put more layers on, but there are only so many you can take off).  I hate being sweaty when I’m sitting still — not my style.  It’s not super hot here . . . 85 or so during the heat of the afternoon, but it varies between 5 to 10 degrees hotter than that in our apartment.  I’m used to setting my air conditioning at home at a max of 72, so this is rough for me.  Benjamin seems unfazed by it, but Liam is sweating all day, and we’ve started going out in the afternoons just to get out of here at the hottest part of the day.

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I miss my family.  It was not completely unusual for me to go 4 or 6 or (on occasion) even 8 weeks without seeing some members of my immediate family (parents, brothers and sisters).  But, it rarely went beyond that.  I’d get to a point where I’d realize I hadn’t seen them in nearly 2 months, and pick up the phone . . . or a birthday or holiday would roll around and we’d all get together.  (I never went this long without seeing everyone at this time of year, though:  Easter, Mother’s Day, my brother Peter’s birthday have all passed since I’ve been here.)  We hit the 2 month mark today, and I’ve really noticed over the past few days that my longing for home (most particularly being with my family) has been growing.  I may be very fortunate, and get to see my mother very soon, but it will be months (or more) before I see the others.  I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around that.

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