We’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!

We started looking over the weekend.  We looked at a place that is beautiful, gigantic, very recently completely renovated and expensive.  We also looked at a place with is less extravagant but in the embassy section of the city with an amazing (and very Viennese) view of palace grounds.

We have two places to look at tomorrow, and three more later in the week.  I’m trying to keep track of them, because I know that soon everything will start to run together.  Going for tram and train rides all over the city is giving us a better sense of Vienna, but it’s an intense amount of pressure to try and pick the right place for us from a place of such profound ignorance of our surroundings.

The boys have been so great while we’ve been looking.  Benjamin runs around and poses in the pictures I’m taking so I can remember the details of each place.  I love his sweet enthusiasm.  Liam is happily along for the ride in the carrier.  He’s happy wherever we go, as long as we’re together.  Today, we even had to wake them both up from their naps to make it to an appointment (almost) on time, and they were peaceful and relaxed for our journey.  They’re amazing.  (It does seem to help that when we went to our first apartment appointment, we stopped for gelato on the way home, and now Benjamin has decided that each appointment should be accompanied by gelato — not a bad idea, really.)

The search continues tomorrow.  Either of the places we’ve seen so far could work.  We just have to keep searching and find the one that is right for us.  The fatigue is setting in a bit, but I am motivated by keeping things fun for the kids, and inspired by how much fun they’re having and just by how happy they are.