Dan and Em's Blog

It has not escaped our notice, being so far away from friends and family, how fortunate we are that we live in an age of email, text messages, smart phones, digital photographs and even video calls.  (Video calls!  This is “the future”!  When I was a kid, the concept of a video phone was half-joking.  And not only can we talk over the computer, but it’s FREE.)  It helps us so much to be able to communicate so quickly and easily with everyone back home and with each other.  (Being without phones for our first month here, and without internet for a week recently has increased our recognition of how wonderful these things are.)

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This morning started off rainy (and cold).  While Dan & Liam napped together in the living room, Benjamin and I decided to take Bailey out for his morning walk.  I got B all suited up in his rain gear (which I haven’t been able to do for over a month) and we headed out into the rain.

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Today was our first “normal” Saturday since we’ve been here in Vienna.  We weren’t house hunting, we didn’t have to move.  We actually spent the day, as we did back in Virginia, doing chores and getting the house in order for the week.  We went grocery shopping, did a fair bit of organizing around the house (Liam’s room and the kitchen are beginning to look a little put together . . . the rest of the house is still a disaster) the boys each took a nap and we Skyped some of our family back home.  Then, we went for a quick walk and got dinner out.

It was very much a Saturday as we would have spent it back in Virginia.  As such, we’re all really tired now — it was a busy day.  It’s comforting to be back in our routine.  It’s also odd to be in our normal routine in this place which doesn’t yet feel like home and which is part ordeal and part vacation.  This little bit of normalcy today has taken the edge off of the ordeal and helped me to look forward to getting back to my “vacation” tomorrow.  (Once our house is mostly put away, we intend to spend less of our Saturdays cleaning and more of them exploring, but getting ourselves put together has a certain urgency right now.)  I think days like this are going to go a long way towards getting us to feel like this is our home;  it will be a great moment when I don’t get my outfit for the day out of a suitcase.

We got our internet and cable installed today, which is good on so many levels.  Now, I can actually access the internet (and write) other than through my phone and we can also watch TV all day.  There have been times in the past where I’ve been hard on myself for putting Benjamin in front of the TV for major parts of the day (I started doing it when I was pregnant with Liam and just too tired to keep up with him all day).  I’ve gotten past that:  I’ve been astounded, over the past year, by how much Benjamin has actually learned from TV (most of it is even good).  (I remember the first time Benjamin pointed out a triangle to me, and I thought, “Oh, it’s great that Dan’s been working on that with him”, and then I asked, and he hadn’t been.)  But beyond that, it’s now going to be a major tool in our introduction to German.

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We received our air shipment today.  We have no idea why it took so long, but now we can close the “waiting for our stuff” chapter of this adventure and move on to all the other (and more exciting) parts.

While we’ve been here, getting relatively settled, and waiting for our stuff, we’ve had a ton of support back at home with the mountainous pile of tasks that were left undone after our departure.  My mom has been doing a tremendous amount of work for us: preparing our house for sale and dealing with getting my car inspected so it can be sold.  My dad and my brothers spent part of this week painting our old apartment.  And that is all on top of the fact that we literally would not have made it to our plane if it had not been for the help of my collective family.

I am so grateful for their help and support.  (Especially considering that, on the whole, I think they’d rather we hadn’t gone at all.)  It is nice to have my stuff, but I’m truly fortunate to have the support of such wonderful, loving people.

To my family:  I love and miss you all so much.  Thank you for all of your help.  We feel very loved.  I can’t wait to see you and show you Vienna!

I love McDonald’s here.  (And it’s not just because you can pretty much count on the cashier speak English.).  McDonald’s here has some menu items we should add in the States, like bacon cheeseburgers, curry dipping sauce, waffle fries and my new favorite beverage, eis caffee (which is espresso and vanilla ice cream).

But they also have a dessert and coffee bar inside — it’s like having a complete Starbucks inside every McDonald’s.  Except cheaper.  (And you don’t even wait in the same lines as people getting “regular” food.)

When we first chose our new apartment here, one of the first things I did was look up the closest Starbucks.  Now I realize there was no need — there’s a McDonald’s on the corner, where I can get (like I did today) an iced chai, a chocolate cupcake and a free babycino (warm milk) for B.

Oh, I’m going to miss that back at home.  Just saying.

I’ve really been wanting to take an evening walk around our new neighborhood, and this evening our schedule cooperated, so we went.  Benjamin wanted to bring his plastic riding car, but since that would be a hazard because of the proximity to the road (and would make for a very slow walk) we opted for his red wagon instead.

It is a huge, red, plastic wagon — it is very American and very un-Austrian.  Benjamin loves it.  It takes up a ton of room on the sidewalk.  We got some haughty glares and some shocked stares of wonder (the latter mostly from kids and parents).

We walked all over, including to the Hofburg Palace (we saw the gardens, which have rosebushes that are as much as 8 feet high!) and to the Spanish Riding School, all with the red wagon, and never more than a mile from home.

What a lovely evening.  Our adventure has not been perfect, to be sure, but moments like these help remind me that things are really pretty great.

We have stuff!  (Oh boy, do we ever!)  Our sea shipment, which contained most of our belongings, arrived today.  We STILL don’t have our air shipment.  Although that doesn’t comprise much of our stuff by volume, it is specifically the things we felt like we’d need the most urgently upon our arrival.  We don’t even yet have any idea when we will get it).

But for today, that doesn’t matter.  We have clothes.  We have furniture.  We have toys and cribs and changing tables for the boys.

The movers unpacked most things, and assembled it all, but there’s still a lot of organizing to do.  Having lived for over a month without this stuff, I have two principal thoughts:  first, that I have never been so grateful to unpack and organize a house full of boxes, and second, that I own WAY too many things.

I love being a mom.  It is the single best decision I have ever made.  I am so thrilled, amazed and overjoyed with my boys — I am grateful every day for having them in my life.  I am humbled to be entrusted as the guardian of their kind hearts, open minds and sweet spirits.  I love them more than I knew was possible.

I love my Mom.  She is loving and generous and thoughtful.  She gave me magic in my childhood (and still does now).  She is fierce and determined when it comes to her family.  She is strong and resourceful beyond my understanding.  She is such a source of comfort and support for me and it brings me so much happiness to see the love she and my children have for each other.

I love my step-mother.  I cannot imagine the challenge she took on in coming into our family (which at the time had four teenagers).  She is warm and funny and confident.

I miss my grandmother.  She was tough and mysterious and particular.  She told great stories.  She would have loved my kids.I love and miss all of my family very much today.  I am really feeling the distance.

We’re here.  We’ve moved in to our new place.  Benjamin got his first taxi ride today (he loved it) and Bailey got his first train ride (he didn’t).  We get the lion’s share of our stuff on Monday, as well as an internet connection.  Now we start setting up our home — it seems like a lot of work for just a year, so I’m really hoping we like this enough to stay for two.

I’ve gotten so used to being in the process of moving that I’m having to constantly remind myself that we’re going to be here for a while.  I was unpacking today and kept thinking, “I don’t need that, I’ll just leave it packed . . . oh right, we LIVE here now.”  Everything will get unpacked here eventually.

For today, we’re “camping” here, but it’s just temporary.  We’re home!