We left behind our first “home” in Vienna this morning. I already miss it. We moved into a new place, in another part of the city. It’s smaller, it’s not as nice, and it’s not as much in the area that we want to be in. That said, it is really neat to check out a different part of the city, and I think it will ultimately give us a more well-rounded view of Vienna. It’s clean, it’s safe, it’s near a metro and it has everything we really need. Benjamin is sleeping in the living room, but he’s happy. Liam has a gigantic portacrib (I think he’s the only one whose sleeping situation improved) and he’s asleep and happy, too. That’s what’s important.
Auf Wiedersehen, Hollandstrasse 8.
April 16th, 2011We’re moving tomorrow . . . and I’m not sure to where
April 15th, 2011Our stay in our first temporary apartment is coming to an end. We have to leave by 10:00 tomorrow morning. It’s been great. Super-IKEA-ified, really comfortable, really clean, safe for the kids, and the location is super convenient. It has served us well for our first 10 days here. (I can’t believe we’ve been here for 10 days.)
So now, it’s on to the next place. But until 3 hours ago, we didn’t have a “next place”. (I’m still not sure we really do.) This past week, we’ve been mostly focused on finding a place for permanent housing (and we’d been kind of hoping we might get that settled fast enough to not have to find a second temporary apartment) so we let the search for tomorrow’s apartment go until way too late. We do have a favorite permanent place picked out, but we won’t even see a lease on it until Monday, so we need a place for the next little while.
Red tape
April 14th, 2011I mentioned, in a previous post, that the pace of things is just slower here. Although Vienna is a bustling city, the vibe is just different than home. That’s fine. I actually think that I will come to really appreciate this about our experience here, and it’s something I’m already getting used to. Dan & I were talking today about going back to look at our two favorite housing options. My first instinct was, “Email them now so maybe we can go see the places tomorrow!”, but then I realized that no matter how quickly we contact them, we’re not going to go look at those apartments tomorrow. That just isn’t how it works. We’ll email them today, talk about it tomorrow and go see them Monday or Tuesday (because very little happens here on the weekends — I guess apartment shopping might turn out to be an exception).
Out in the rain
April 13th, 2011It was a chilly, rainy (on and off) day in Vienna today. We were out apartment hunting, and we really felt not having a car. The public transportation here is phenomenal, but there’s just something so easy about having a car. We’re not “good” at being car-less yet, so there’s a lot to think about and plan for.
Here in Vienna, lots of people don’t have cars. But they also aren’t living out of 5 suitcases. They have great little buntings and rain covers for their strollers. They have umbrellas. They have boots. They have raincoats. We have some of those things (not very many). It wasn’t a bad day, just a challenge.
Broken English
April 12th, 2011We’ve been here less than a week (one week ago, we were on the plane and on our way here) and I’m already noticing a difference in my ability to communicate. Obviously, I’m in a country where I don’t speak the native language, so I’m stifled in my ability to communicate in German. That’ll be true until my vocabulary extends beyond the half-dozen words I know (which are almost all for kinds of food). But I’m shocked to find that it’s effected my ability to talk to people in English, too. My English is broken. I’m sure it’s not irreparable, but I’m definitely having trouble using it.
A grande soy chai is still a grande soy chai
April 11th, 2011Today was probably our busiest day so far: we looked at two apartment possibilities in different parts of town, Dan went by his new work to get some of the paperwork started and out of the way, we went shopping for non-food grocery items (which here you don’t buy at the grocery store), we went to the bakery (one of my new favorite places) for a loaf of bread and we had the cleaning lady come by. And that was all before dinner, and in addition to the normal activity of life in a new place with two little ones. Whew!
Apartment hunting
April 10th, 2011We’re looking for a more permanent home here in Vienna. The place we’re in right now is only ours until the 16th (this coming weekend). It’s a bit of a daunting task: trying to find a place that will be good for us, fun for the kids, enough room to make us comfortable, not too expensive, in a good neighborhood, a reasonable commute to Dan’s new job and close to grocery shopping/pharmacy/bakery/market/train/tram because we don’t have a car here. And we don’t really know what we’re doing because we moved here less than a week ago. We don’t really have an educated idea of exactly where we want to be, and we don’t have an idea of what is reasonable to expect from places or from landlords. It’s a challenge!
Skills I didn’t even know I had
April 9th, 2011There are lots of things that I know I’m good at. But today I gained appreciation for something that it turns out I was good at, but didn’t realize. I used to be really good at grocery shopping. I could go in, take an efficient route through the store, shop for the best deal, manage the self-checkout line and get out quickly — with Benjamin or Liam, and usually without a meltdown from any of us. I never really realized that this was something to be proud of until I learned something else today: I am NOT as good at grocery shopping in Austria.
Hallo, Gelato!
April 8th, 2011Our adventure today took us to the Viennese equivalent of Tysons Corner mall. It’s just outside the city, about the same number and style of shops, and even had many of the same shops. Ironic, of course, that we’d move to Europe to go to a mall nearly identical to one that was blocks away from where were living, but we were in search of new phones, and that is where the search took us. (It was to no avail on that front, but that is not the purpose of this story.)
The same “hund” as the Queen
April 7th, 2011So today, some observations.
First, allow me a moment of American ridiculousness: Busch Gardens has gotten so many things right. Seriously, walking through the little cobblestoned streets of Vienna today, I kept thinking of Busch Gardens and how the way they depict the winding alleyways and tiny shops in a way that’s really quite accurate. More trees at Busch Gardens, though.