Bus problems

Posted on May 6, 2014 by admin

Generally, public transportation in Vienna is functional and pleasant. Everything runs mostly on time, and is quite clean. People usually board and disembark in an orderly fashion, vocal volume is low, people (more or less) make way for the elderly and disabled, and strollers are managed without too much trouble. We don’t have a car, and we’ve gotten around Vienna (and beyond) very well using public transport these past 3 years. If you can think of a piece of common sense when it comes to public transportation, it probably happens here (except that Austrians don’t queue properly, ever, and many will go out of their way to wait for an elevator).

Sure, there are always exceptions — groups of rowdy teenagers, drunk people, self-absorbed individuals. But Austrians are a reliably orderly lot in general.

But the bus line I use to take the boys to school in the morning is a complete anomaly. I’ve come to the conclusion that is the most dysfunctional piece of all of Vienna’s public transportation system. The problem has nothing to do with the route itself, but with the passengers. The regularity with which we encounter uncharacteristic dysfunction is kind of shocking. There was the old lady who told me off for not making a space available for her (I was standing, my boys were sitting, the seats across from and behind us were free, but she wanted THAT ONE … but hadn’t asked), the time a mother left her unsecured stroller rolling around the center aisle of the bus while she looked on (no kid inside, thankfully) and the grown woman who pushed past Liam (coming close to knocking him down) to get the seat she wanted. Every day, it’s a struggle to get off the bus while people refuse to make way and/or push past departing people to get in first. Getting a stroller off is next to impossible with people being so impatient that they have to get on before you get it off. (We’ve basically abandoned the idea of taking the stroller at all when we go to school.) And, in the past week, two different people have actually sat down in Benjamin’s seat with him. (I know he’s pretty small, but WHAT?!?)

You might think, from these descriptions, that this is a massively crowded bus line. It’s not. Although there are times that we’re packed in like sardines, the VAST majority of the time (including all of the specific incidents I mentioned) the bus is about half full or less.

For anyone local, the line is the 92A between Donaustadtbrücke and Kaisermühlen. For anyone not local, this is not the city center, but the mostly residential outer section of Vienna. I’ve been pondering the phenomenon of horrible behavior on this line, and I was perplexed. No idea why it should be so bad.

My thought, all along, has been that people must just be markedly more rude during the morning rush hour. But that just hasn’t been my experience when I travel in other parts of Vienna during rush hour. After considering it for a while, and observing this behavior for almost 3 years now, I have come to an embarrassing conclusion: I think it’s us. Not “us” our family, but “us” the Americans, or at least the foreigners. This bus line, just 2 miles and 10 stops long, serves English-speaking Webster University (which seems to host a lot of rowdy and self-involved American teenagers and young adults) and the UN (which seems to host a lot of “important”, “busy” and hurried adults from around the world . . . including a lot of people that I know and like — I’m not saying it’s everyone). A really high number of people foreign to Vienna travel through this part of the city every day. So I wonder if we’ve broken the system. I wonder if we outsiders have introduced so much impatience, dysfunction and selfishness into the system that we’ve brought out the inner “man for himself” in even the orderly, patient, local Austrians who use that line to commute every day.

Or maybe not. Maybe it’s some other kind of bad luck that has turned that bus line into the “Lord of the Flies” of the Viennese public transportation system.

Bad luck

Posted on May 5, 2014 by admin

I’ve never heard anything like it. There was a loud pop and the shatter of breaking glass, a moment of stillness, and then a second, floor-shaking, monumental crash that followed. I had no idea what it was, but I didn’t look around. We were all in the living room. I ran to the kids and wrapped them in my arms. Whatever it had been, they were safer right where they were than anywhere else.

As it turns out, the massive, gilt-wood framed mirror that hung in our dining room had fallen. There was glass everywhere. Our dining room floor was covered in jagged tiny pieces. It was a complete mess.

This doesn’t quite do it justice. We’d already started cleaning at this point (the vase was mostly disposed of, for example). It really doesn’t look quite right in the pictures.

The kids did great. I closed them in the living room, put on the TV, attempted to impress upon them how vital it was that they not leave the room, and went to assist Dan with the cleanup. It’s one of those jobs where there is no good place to start. You just have to start picking at the edges and hope that it gets less overwhelming as you progress (which it did). The mirror had fallen on a vase (a gift from my sister) which had been holding our Osterbaum, the boys’ Easter baskets, and a pile of papers, drawings and unopened mail that had not been sorted in much too long. The vase shattering under the weight of the falling 40-50 lb mirror was the first sound we had heard. Then all of that tipped onto the parquet floor which, though vacuumed earlier in the day, had toys strewn on it. What a mess.

To my great and pleasant surprise, the actual Easter baskets survived, even though they, too, must have caught part of the weight of the mirror directly (points to Pottery Barn for sturdiness). The eggs (all of the real ones and several of the plastic ones) and candy were mostly a loss (poor chocolate bunnies) and at least one of the fluffy chicks inhabiting a basket was beheaded. The beautiful, fancy, hand-painted Austrian Easter eggs we’ve collected since our arrival here were mostly destroyed. A few were basically vaporized — only spots of sparkly dust and a few sad, squished ribbons remained. Most were just horribly broken. Three were damaged but sound enough to keep. I kept pieces of 3 others that were intact enough to hang again … more or less.

I dealt with the Easter carnage while Dan broke down the remains of the frame and starting dealing with the broken glass. There was SO MUCH glass. There were big, jagged triangles and long vicious-looking shards, plus all of the teeny, tiny bits and the pieces that had become little more than dust. (Plus a lot of glitter from the destroyed eggs — and it’s very hard to tell glass dust from glitter.) It took 2 hours, but we got everything cleaned up. The kids patiently watched TV while we worked. Our floor hasn’t been this clean in a while.

As it turns out, that huge, heavy, ornate mirror was hung with TWINE, which apparently broke. It was just a question of time. I’m kind of horrified at the way it was hung — we’d never looked at it, because it was MASSIVE, and it came with the apartment and had hung there for years without event. We completely took it for granted.

We were so lucky. We were running late, but we should have been eating dinner, or at least setting the table, at the time that it fell. We weren’t. We were all hanging out in the living room. But the kids play in the spot where it fell, all the time. Bailey lays there, often. We walk back and forth past that spot dozens of times every day. It is, quite literally, in one of the highest traffic spots in our whole house. We are so lucky that no one was seriously hurt (or worse). As it was, it was a huge pain, and a complete disruption to our typical Saturday evening, but no permanent damage was done, except to the mirror and some eggs (which I will miss). Dan even managed to avoid injuring himself with the glass, which is beyond impressive to me. All is well, we are all safe. We’re down one huge mirror, but I’m just so, so glad that it wasn’t a much more awful story to tell.

Kindergarten or first grade?

Posted on April 29, 2014 by admin

We didn’t expect to be here so long. We thought that by now, we’d be home already, or at least headed home. Consequently, all of our plans for “real” school for the kids started with “Well, we’ll be home by then …”

When we left the US, our plan was to be in Austria for 1-2 years. We’ve now been here more than 3, and although we’re psychologically ready to move home, we don’t yet have the opportunity to do so. Last year, when we were going through the process of deciding whether to stay for this third year, the boys’ educational experience factored heavily. I liked the idea if B completing preschool (“Kindergarten”, here) with his friends, and I loved the idea of Liam getting to join him at that school for a year. The fact that this year of preschool, for both boys, would be free to us only heightened its appeal. Their opportunity for school this past year is a large part of why we’re here now. It was too good to pass up, and I feel like it was definitely the right decision. B has really flourished at school this year, found his confidence, become nearly fluent in German and begun to discover which bits of school most ignite his enthusiasm for learning. Liam has had a fantastic first experience with school, getting to follow in B’s footsteps and hold his hand along the way.

It’s good that we stayed. I’m glad we did.

But our plan has ALWAYS been to have B home before “real” school started. This year of school here, called “Vorschule”, is like half-day US kindergarten. I had hoped to enroll him in full-day kindergarten in the US next fall, giving him a year to adjust to full-day school and to recover from our relocation. Besides, he’d get to start right along with his classmates and be one of the oldest in his class instead of one of the youngest (he has a mid-July birthday). So even though he’s definitely bright enough to handle first grade, I was thinking that kindergarten in the US would be right for him next year, and I was hoping that it would be easy to set that up.

But we aren’t in the US. And however much we miss everyone, we realized a few months ago that without having found work in the US for Dan, we might be staying here a bit longer. And if we might find ourselves still here this coming August, we need to have a plan for school next year for B. (Liam can stay right where he is, thankfully, because I think we got the kids into one of the best preschools in Vienna, entirely by good luck.)

When we realized we needed a plan for the fall, we also realized we were entirely behind. Parents of some of B’s friends had turned in applications to private schools in Vienna as early as last September. We’d been assuming that we didn’t need to, because we expected that we’d already be home … so we hadn’t done anything. Not a thing. We didn’t even know which school we wanted him to attend.

We’re fortunate to have several good options to choose from. The automatic path would be for B to go from his Viennese preschool straight into first grade in a Viennese primary school. The instruction would be entirely in German, and, following that path, he would have quickly become completely fluent and bilingual. The state schools are free (or maybe very nearly so) but, attractive as all of that is, we opted against this, except as a fallback plan. Our sole objection was a big one — *our* German is insufficient to keep us abreast of the goings on, even at the preschool. As B advances in his education, I don’t want to be entirely shut out of the process. Besides, if our eventual plan is to return to the US and enroll him in school there, I think he might get a stronger base for that by learning in English. I worry a bit that the holes in his ability to understand or communicate in German might prevent him from learning as much as he could, or could lead to frustration as he moves forward.

That decision narrowed our options to the two major English-speaking international schools in Vienna (yep, two) — the Vienna International School and the American International School.

All of this was really weird to me. First, I honestly never imagined that either of the kids would attend elementary school outside of the US. It was part of our fundamental thinking from the very beginning of deciding to live abroad — that we were going with enough time to come back before elementary school. It was part of the PLAN (and oh, how I love a plan)! Secondly, I absolutely never envisioned my kids attending private school at all. I was fortunate enough to grow up in an area with some of the best public schools in the US, and, before we moved, we were raising our kids in an area with an equally impressive public school system. Private school was never really on my radar. And then, we moved here, and the Vienna public preschool that we got our kids into is amazing. I just never considered private school. So I’ve been left to ponder, whether I am really prepared to send my child, who will be just barely 6 years old, to a private school that costs nearly as much per year as college? (Fortunately for us, the IAEA reimburses most of the expense.) It’s not at all something I ever imagined we’d be doing. Yet here we are.

As I’ve said, we were way behind in the process, and initially Benjamin was wait-listed for next year. A few weeks ago, though, we heard he’d gotten a place for next year for first grade. And we are beyond thrilled about it. I truly believe that it’s the right place for him if we’re in the “still in Vienna” situation.

Through the entire admissions process, it was simply assumed that he’d attend first grade next year, based on his age and the fact that we and his teachers raised no concerns that would preclude his placement in first grade. After all, if he were going to Austrian school next year, he’d go to first grade, and other than his German (which isn’t an issue in an English-speaking school) he’s at a comparable academic, intellectual and emotional level to his peers. So, first grade.

But, after the admissions hurdle was cleared, I started really thinking about that for the first time — was first grade really the right place for him next year? Is he ready to go from a half-day Vorschule program to full day first grade? The kids who are currently attending kindergarten at the international school (the kids who would be his classmates next year) are in full day kindergarten now, but he’s not. He’ll be one of the youngest and smallest in his class, and, if he’s in first grade, then at whatever point in the next 12 months we get the chance to move back home (Dan’s contract expires next April, so it’ll happen sometime this year) he’ll have to transition from first grade at the international school to first grade in the US. Wouldn’t that whole transition, which already means 2 new schools in 1 year, be a whole lot easier done in kindergarten than in first grade? Add to that the fact that B’s best friend, who will also be attending the same school next year, will be in kindergarten next year (he has a November birthday, so his placement in kindergarten was as automatic as B’s was into first grade). I think it really might be nice for him to make the switch with a friend or two.

These are the questions that I’ve been running around in my head for the past few weeks.

On the other hand . . . do I really want to be one of THOSE parents? Do I really want to start hovering before my poor kid has even gotten hs foot in the door? I mean, how typically American can I be? Besides, he’s a bright kid, and he might be bored in kindergarten. Maybe it’s time for him to be challenged a little more. Am I really prepared to start meddling ALREADY?

Apparently I am. We contacted the admissions counselor at the school and asked whether they would consider switching B’s placement for next year to kindergarten. And I feel good about the decision. I do think I’m being a bit meddling and overbearing. But I also think it’s the right thing for him (I only wish I’d thought of it before we’d gone through the admissions process, because I get the impression it would have been a non-issue if I’d raised it at the beginning).

We don’t know their decision yet. There’s a meeting of the admissions board next week, and they’re going to discuss it then. I don’t know if this is a formality or not. I have no sense of which way the decision is going to go. But we’ve decided we’re going to fully and happily accept whatever they decide. We wholeheartedly feel that this school IS the right place for him for next year (if we’re here), and we trust their judgement. They do this all the time. This school, perhaps more than any other, is thoroughly experienced and well prepared to place a child in the right spot. They are used to assimilating kids from all over the world and a wide variety of educational backgrounds, from the US and Japan, from Finland and Kenya. They’re used to kids who speak different languages, who have only been home-schooled previously, kids with different learning challenges, and kids who have collected pieces of education in a variety of countries around the world. We are going to trust their decision, and whatever they choose, we’ll go with it.

Student Humans

Posted on April 28, 2014 by admin

I’ve often seen service dogs, or dogs that are in training, wearing little vests that tell people they encounter what they’re up to. They ask people not to pet them, or to give them some space, or other things that save their handlers having to make explanations 20 times a day about why you can’t pet their dog, or why they are, in fact, allowed to take their dog into a place that otherwise wouldn’t allow them. They’re kind of like the “Student Driver” signs on cars — they let everyone know that the erratic driving they might witness is for a good reason and they might want to put their patient pants on for 5 minutes. They’re different ways of kindly saying, “Important stuff is happening here. Try not to freak out.”

I’m thinking of inventing the same thing for my kids. Little vests that they could wear which would remind people, “I’m learning to be a grown up human, but I haven’t finished my training yet. Please be patient with me.” Or, “I’m just being a kid, please leave me be.” Because I think we all forget. I think we spend a lot of effort trying to get our kids to “behave” or “quiet down” or “settle down”, when they’re just being kids. Don’t get me wrong — part of learning to be a grown up human includes practicing sitting still on the bus, waiting patiently in line and being quiet in a restaurant. They should be working on those things. But they’re just practicing and learning, and we adults, I think sometimes we forget.

So I think I’ll invent little vests, or maybe hats, that remind the people they encounter to remember that they need a little more space, a little more patience, and sometimes some special consideration. I could use the reminder, too, since my kids hear “Hush!”, and “Sit still!” more from me than from the rest of the world combined.

Happy Easter 2014!

Posted on April 25, 2014 by admin

Happy Easter 2014!

Our Easter celebration this year started, as it always does, with the boys finding the treats that the Easter Bunny had hidden. (He did a good job to avoid Benjamin, who was on high alert overnight to catch Herr Bunny this year.) The boys were up bright and early to search the house. The Easter Bunny left treats, toys, and a few impressively colored eggs around the house and even out on the terrace (which was a little unfortunate, because it rained overnight). With a little help, the boys managed to find everything. And after only a little encouragement, they decided they were again willing to share their collected treasures (the Easter Bunny did leave a note encouraging them to share) which prevented Liam getting 2 stuffed lambs with B having 2 giant Kindereggs.

After a breakfast of French Toast (which had seemed like a good idea but was, in fact, just more sugar added to the equation) we decided to get out of the house and enjoy the beautiful spring day. I’ve always enjoyed spending at least a little bit of time outside on Easter, and this was a perfect spring day to celebrate. We spent a little time at the playground, but when I suggested a stroll through the rest of the Rathaus park, both boys collapsed into miserable piles of “I can’t walk!” unhappiness. We overcame this malady by discovering a very cool crane being used to assemble pieces of a giant stage in front of the Rathaus.

After returning home, and having a nap, I made my first attempt at homemade macaroni & cheese (which I saved from near-disaster halfway through). We also had a “ham in an egg of bread”, which I think is an Austrian thing (it was tasty but difficult to cut and serve) followed by a cake MADE BY DAN (his first ever). We finished up our day by Skyping some of our family at home. As always, being away from our loved ones is the hardest part of holidays far from home, but getting to talk to some of them was a huge help. We’ve definitely gotten the hang of celebrating festivities far from home, but our experience does nothing to lessen how much we’d like to see them and be together. (Liam insisted we go to Grandma’s house for Easter dinner and explained exactly how we’d get there.)

It was another successful Calle family Austrian Easter. We had a great day and the Easter Bunny was good to us. A happy Easter all around.

Schönbrunn Easter Market 2014

Posted on April 24, 2014 by admin

The Easter markets in Vienna are not nearly so plentiful as the Christmas markets. I only know of 2 — the one near our house at the Freyung, and the bigger one at Schönbrunn. We try to make it to both every year. The Freyung market is quieter and very charming, and the focus is on the massive display of decorated eggs. Schönbrunn is much bigger and has much more of a party feel, plus many, many busloads of tourists. There’s a lot more food and a lot more to do at Schönbrunn (especially for kids), which makes it an easier place for a longer visit.

We didn’t make it out there this year until the day before Easter, and it was, predictably, a bit of a zoo. But we had a great time. The boys played quite a few games (like tabletop hockey . . . with chickens) and participated in some fun activities (walking on stilts), we all ate a little lunch, I visited the shop stall of my favorite Austrian folk artist, Lisl (who remembers me every time) and we all enjoyed a beautiful afternoon at the market. (By contrast, last year it was rainy and cold the day we went to the Schönbrunn market, but still lots of fun.)

It was fun and festive, and good times were had all around. It was a fun way to spend part of Easter weekend, and to enjoy a little of early spring in Vienna.

B even took on an adult in chicken hockey

All in a day’s work

Posted on April 23, 2014 by admin

As I’ve expressed before, I usually don’t feel like I have things very much together. I often feel like I’m just barely managing the frenetic and delicate choreography of life with kids, and I think I’m usually the least likely mom to pull off something difficult with grace and ease. Which makes it all the more impressive when I actually manage to.

Easter in Austria always means a long weekend for us. Dan gets Good Friday and Easter Monday off of work (the latter is also a school holiday) so we get a four day weekend to color eggs, be festive for Easter and enjoy spring. Our plans for last Friday were to color eggs and to finish up the few last-minute Easter preparations still to be taken care of. I hadn’t been able to find the egg dye we’d used so successfully last year, but I found another type. For this kind, the eggs needed to still be warm from boiling while being dyed, so Friday morning I set about boiling 20 eggs while Dan took the boys out to the courtyard downstairs to run off some steam. (We figured they’d do better at not having egg-dyeing meltdowns if they weren’t too keyed up.)

The egg dye I was able to find this year

All was well, and the water was just about to boil, when Dan came in with both boys amidst a bunch of commotion. Liam was very upset, as was Benjamin. It turns out that while outside playing, Liam had managed to put a rock up his nose, and he was (understandably) not happy that it was not as easy to get out as it had been to get in.

Even after 5 1/2 years as parents, this was our first something-in-the-nose experience. Dan assured me he had things under control as I attempted to figure out whether to try and save the eggs or to ditch them and take over with Liam. I called out advice from the kitchen while Dan came up with a series of ideas about how to remove the rock. (My main advice was, “I think he needs to see the doctor”, while Dan was sure he could address the problem at home.) I left the eggs on the stove, set a timer, and tried to help . . . mostly at first by reiterating that I thought it was time for a professional. Our regular pediatrician is (of course) out of town, but after a few minutes I persuaded Dan to call the backup doctor, just to find out what she suggested. No answer. I vetoed Dan’s ideas of using tweezers to remove it (sticking something ELSE in his nose did not seem like the solution to me) and I was on the verge of making a command decision that it was time for a trip to the ER when we decided to settle our debate the modern way . . . with the internet!

Liam’s nose rock and a coin for perspective (a 2 cent Euro coin is about the size of a US penny)

We looked up how to remove a rock from a child’s nose and found this. (Don’t read it if you’ll be bothered by being a little grossed out.) We decided that we would try it, and if it failed, we would take the trip to the hospital. So, although Liam was NOT into the idea, we held him down, and I . . . fixed the problem. It actually worked! Liam was a bit shaken from the whole experience, but otherwise completely well, and with a good life lesson learned. I gave him a big snuggle and reassured him that he would be fine. He recovered quickly, and went right back to playing. (When I looked up the link, I was looking at my phone, so I didn’t see the suggestion of actually performing the procedure AT the hospital. I’m really glad everything turned out ok.)

And I got back to the eggs before the timer went off.

I have to say that I kind of felt like a kickass mom. Rock taken out of the nose and eggs boiled for dyeing, all at the same time. We went on to have a fun and festive Friday, everyone was well, and I pretty much felt like I saved the day.

Freyung Easter Market . . . yet again

Posted on April 22, 2014 by admin

The Freyung Easter market holds a very special place in our hearts. Not only was it our first holiday market experience when we moved to Vienna, but it ended up being literally across the street from our home here, but we had no way of knowing that it would be the first time we visited it. I love the Easter markets and the Christmas markets in Vienna. I love how festive and fun they are, the feeling of neighborhood and community, the yummy treats and the sights, sounds and smells. I’ve been completely won over by the whole experience.

We have learned, however, that for the kids, it’s not always as much fun as it seems like it should be. There’s a lot to see, but so much that they aren’t allowed to touch. There are lots of snacks and treats, but even though we try to say yes when we can, they end up hearing “no” a lot. It’s usually pretty crowded, so they can’t run off and be free. It’s fun for them, but not for as long as it’s fun for us. We’ve learned that trips with the kids need to be short and sweet, and that if we adults want to go back and browse, we need to do it another time.

We made a quick family trip to the Freyung Easter market the weekend before Easter. We looked at the amazing displays of painted, carved and beaded eggs (real eggs!), listened to some live music, visited the bunnies (Benjamin has decided that the black and white one IS the Easter Bunny) and ate some roasted almonds. It was a short trip, but a fun one. Visiting the Freyung Easter market truly feels like a celebration not just of spring and of Easter, but also of our Vienna anniversary. I made another trip back later in the week to do some more thorough shopping, but we had a great time, all of us, just stopping by for a quick visit.

My “reverse expat bucket list”

Posted on April 17, 2014 by admin

Living abroad, I am very aware of my limitations. I am reminded, constantly, of how poorly I speak the language and how unfamiliar I am with the customs here. Every day I have thoughts of how I wish I were doing better, learning faster and moving through the world more easily. I think it’s perfectly understandable that I so often focus on my challenges and shortcomings, because I see them all the time.

It’s easy to overlook how much I’ve accomplished, how far I’ve come, and how many things that I’ve done and seen. Amanda at Expat Life with a Double Buggy is hosting a blog link up today, encouraging expats to celebrate what we have already done and accomplished in our adventures. So, here is my “reverse bucket list” — I’m taking a moment to celebrate what I’ve done so far.

In the past 3 years, I have:

Travelled to England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Italy, Vatican City and Germany
Survived 3 round trip transatlantic flights with preschool aged kids (and never even had anything thrown at me … by anyone other than my kids)
Been sledding in the Alps
Visited the highest point in Germany
Took the overnight train to Italy
Eaten pasta and gelato in Italy, baguettes and macaroons in France, and fish & chips and shepherd’s pie in England
Visited some astoundingly beautiful places in Austria
Seen a mountain goat in its natural habitat
Visited at least 4 different castles
Been to a ball at a palace (twice!)
Seen a couple of glaciers
Shopped for groceries … and didn’t hold up the checkout line
Learned a bit about Austrian history
Learned a bit of German
Renewed my (expired) passport
Completed entire shopping transactions entirely in German
Got to know the Krampus
Swum in both sides of the Atlantic
Become pretty much an expert on traveling with kids — either across town or between continents
Written over 900 blog posts
Been in several of the grandest cathedrals in Europe
Learned to love Lanternenfest
Had a flying lesson
Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower
Ridden in a gondola
Been to at least 7 different museums in 4 different countries
Made new friends, including actual Austrian friends
Become a connoisseur of Austrian Christmas markets
Saw Shakespeare performed in England
Learned to let go of being a perfectionist (more or less) and become much more flexible
Let go of judgement (of myself and others)
Turned over a new leaf in terms of my health

When I write it down like that, it DOES seem something to be proud of (especially since I’ve probably forgotten to include many things). These past 3 years have been a remarkable adventure. I’ve seen and done things I didn’t expect I ever would, and I’ve become a different person in small but important ways. Whatever the future holds for me, these experiences will never leave me, and I hope they serve to inspire many further adventures.

Taxes abroad

Posted on April 14, 2014 by admin

It’s that time of year again, when, with a flurry of paperwork and many cups of coffee, I (and many others) sit down to tackle the family taxes. It’s not a task I love, but really, we have a pretty good situation here, so I can’t complain. In fact, we’re amazingly lucky when it comes to our tax bill. Because we’re US citizens and (I think?) because the IAEA and the UN have a special situation worked out with Austria, we pay US taxes, but not Austrian taxes. AND, we’re exempt from large chunks of our typical US tax bill because we’re not living IN the States. In short, we pay a fractional part of our US tax bill while enjoying so much of what the high tax bills of Austria pay for. It’s a fantastic deal. We get all the free preschool and clean streets we can handle, and we don’t have to pay for it. (Of course, there are things back at home that we’re paying for but not using, but still, we’re on the winning end of this deal from a tax perspective, no question.)

But although the pain of actually PAYING our tax bill is seriously mitigated by our situation, the relative pain of FILING our taxes is generally greater here than in the States. Not only do I have to check a remarkable number of the “this situation is not common” boxes on Turbo Tax, but there’s no handy H&R Block or anything similar down the street that I could go to for safety’s sake. Luckily, since we sold our house in the US during our first year here, the situation is somewhat simpler than it used to be. Still, it’s pretty darn complicated, and there are tons of paperwork and lots of calculations to be put together each year. (Plus I have to keep track of which numbers are in Euros and which are in dollars, and if anything ends up messing me up, that’s going to be the thing.)

Fine, though. That’s life as an American, at home or abroad. As April 15 approaches, we panic a little, dust off our calculators and start scribbling numbers down on a little scraps of paper that will soon find a home in a shoebox. That’s what I was doing this morning, when I realized that I’m probably not going to be done by tomorrow, thus missing the deadline. Except, that as a US citizen living abroad, I get an automatic extension to file until June. And I *just* found out, just today (this is the 3rd year I’ve filed while living abroad, and I’m just figuring this out) that we *also* don’t have to PAY until June 15. No kidding. (I thought the automatic extension was just like a regular extension, where you get extra time to file but the money is still due on April 15. Nope. If you’ve overseas, you don’t even have to pay until June, with no penalty.)

So, instead of spending the next 36 hours panicking about getting my taxes paid, I get to relax and get them done in a leisurely fashion between now and June. Except that what will REALLY happen is that I’ll put it off, I won’t get it done, and on June 13 I’ll be freaking out all over again . . . and then I won’t have anyone to commiserate with.

A Mommy Abroad

Our big adventure, as a family of three.

Category Archives: Adventure in Vienna

Bus problems

Bad luck

Kindergarten or first grade?

Student Humans

Happy Easter 2014!

Schönbrunn Easter Market 2014

All in a day’s work

Freyung Easter Market . . . yet again

My “reverse expat bucket list”

Taxes abroad