Category Archives: Adventure in Vienna

Jo is coming!

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This evening, my sister Jo will board a plane and tomorrow she’ll arrive here, to stay with us for a while. She’ll be here to enjoy and experience Vienna, hang out with us, join us on our adventures, and help out with the kids and around the house. If all goes well, she may be with us for nearly the entire rest of our time here in Austria.

We are very, very excited to have her. I will enjoy her company, as well as the help she’ll give us and the unprecedented freedom that Dan and I will hopefully have to go out as a couple (as she and the kids get used to each other and we’re able to leave her with them from time to time). I really do think that there will be a lot of benefit in it for everyone.

But I also feel nervous, because we’re embarking on something entirely new. It’s taken a while, but we do have a routine worked our here (albeit a pretty demanding one). Things are going to change. Jo and I have never lived together, and now she’ll be sharing an apartment (with a single bathroom!) with the entire family. This is going to be entirely new territory, for all of us.

Regardless of what happens as we go forward, we’re all starting a new chapter tomorrow. Whether things go great or horribly, it will change the texture of our interaction, and the tenor of our shared history. This is something we’ll laugh or cringe about, reminisce or bicker over, forever. She will know me, Dan, and our boys better than she ever would have otherwise, and we will know her better, too. Hopefully, we will be closer, and the adventures we share in the coming months will be full of joy. I am excited. I think this is going to be great.

Tom Tom vs. Garmin Nuvi

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For each of our last two trips, we rented cars, and both times, we rented a GPS to take along.  It added to the cost, but we were glad to have had them.  It was less expensive than turning on data roaming every time we would have needed it, and having one provided a massive peace of mind when traveling as a family — we knew we wouldn’t get hopelessly lost, we knew we could always find a gas station or something to eat nearby.  It was well worth the cost.

On our trip in Scotland, we used it to find a hotel when we were having to pull over every 20 minutes so B could be sick.  We used it to find our way to interesting looking places, and to get us home again, when we decided to get lost on purpose.  And it was super helpful in estimating how long a trip will take.  Before we went, we had heard several cautionary tales about how long it took to get everywhere in England and Ireland and about how much it was going to mess up our plans to constantly underestimate travel times — we ended up having no trouble with that at all, even when we decided, on a whim, to turn off on the scenic route to Edinburgh, when we chose to skip one of our planned destinations in the Cotswolds, or when we had to detour due to a closed motorway driving from York to London.

On our UK/Ireland trip, we had a Tom Tom, and certain things about it drove me crazy — the touch screen wasn’t sensitive enough and it was hard to get the volume right (it was always waking the kids up).  But, after our recent Austrian/German trip, I regretted every word I’d ever said against it.  The Garmin Nuvi we had on this most recent trip was terrible for our purposes, and it really made me appreciate the Tom Tom.

With the Tom Tom, finding and using the features was pretty easy.  The day/night setting was easy to find, zooming out and/or switching to an overview north/south geographic map view happened the way I thought it should and gave me the results I wanted.  The verbal directions it gave were clear and well-timed.  It warned us about speed cameras (which was kind of cool but not needed, since we were traveling on unfamiliar roads — and I’m also unsure about whether the Garmin would have provided the same information if we’d been using it in England).  When it came time to take an exit, it would zoom in and also show us which lanes we could use to exit, or stay straight, as we needed — it was so helpful, and much safer, to know ahead of time how many lanes we had to move over BEFORE we actually had to do it.

By contrast, the Garmin was incredibly frustrating.  The touch screen was more sensitive (which saved my fingers a bit) but every time I touched it, even accidentally, it would shut off our navigation to our desired destination, which was particularly uncool when I hadn’t realized I’d touched it.  The German city and street name pronunciations were terrible — it was absolutely impossible to understand, since it was neither correct in German nor an American-English bastardization of the word.  Rather, it used some kind of hybrid not quite German with poor pseudo-German pronunciation that left us laughing, but meant we couldn’t use the audio cues to help us find our streets or exits.  (I don’t know whether the Tom Tom would have had the same issue because we used it in only English speaking countries.)  Everything felt unintuitive.  Figuring out how to switch in and out of night mode felt complicated each time, and I have to wonder if it didn’t have more features than I was able to discover.

Those were small frustrations, though.  Of bigger concern was the fact that the display only showed the roads you were actually going to use, most of the time, rather than displaying an entire area map.  That meant that we couldn’t see our other options as we went along, and I also couldn’t say helpful things like, “It’ll be the third left” because the only left it would show was the one you actually wanted to turn on.  The voice commands were ill-timed (they came at the last minute, most of the time) and the image display updated slowly.  We missed our turns, several times, because we thought our turn was still coming up as we were driving past it.  Also, perhaps the most inconvenient, was the fact that you couldn’t see your map on a normal, geographic, north/south map.  Most of the time, having directions relative to our direction of travel was fine, but in one case, there was some confusion about which Ingolstadt we were heading towards.  Although we knew we wanted to go north of Munich, and looking at a map of Germany would have told us which one was located there, all we had to choose from were distances and relative direction from where we were.  We ended up guessing and double-checking with the maps on our cell phones, but it was kind of silly that we couldn’t just look at a map and say, “Hey, there it is!  That’s the one we want to go to.”  In fact, we often couldn’t even zoom far enough out to see our destination on our directions, so we were left knowing nothing more than our next direction and the time or distance or direction of our destination.  We managed, but it was frustrating.

They’re both better than Apple Maps, though.  Every time we tried to use that, it took us on a route that was twice as long (or more) than it should have been (in one case, a trip that ended up taking 18 minutes was predicted to take over an hour with Apple Maps) and it kept warning us about tolls that didn’t exist.  The times we needed to confirm the GPS directions, we actually pulled Google Maps up on our phone’s browser and used that instead.  Other than being able to remind us that Germany is north of Austria, Apple Maps didn’t do us any good.

Happily ever after

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Benjamin has fallen in love with storytelling. He’s always loved it when we read to him, and he’s been “reading” (reciting the stories from books that he has memorized) for about 6 months. But, until recently, he hasn’t considered it a “real” story unless it comes from a book.

Recently (and I don’t know why it has changed) he has started to make up stories, and to ask me to do the same. I love it — it’s fun and it comes easily to me to invent a story, and I’m not sure there is anything cooler than hearing him tell one (most often about Angry Birds, or Lightning McQueen, or sometimes a nearly verbatim recitation of a story I just told — I need to teach him about copyright infringement). He’s a pretty creative guy, though, and he tells some very good ones.

They always start with “One day . . . ” and end with, “. . . and they all lived happily ever after. The end.” I love it. I love watching him learn and try new things and find new ways of expressing himself. And I love hearing his happily ever after stories. They’re all my favorite.

Applying for a visa for Austria

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My sister, Jo, is going to be coming to stay with us for a while.  She was originally supposed to come this week, but it took much longer than we expected to get her visa sorted out, so now the plan is for her to come over in a few weeks.

The whole visa process was more complicated and significantly less clear than we anticipated, and it has ended up costing us more (through change fees to the airlines) than we expected.  We were surprised at how hard it was to get correct answers to important, straightforward questions as we went through the process.

Here’s what we’ve learned so far, in the hopes it might save someone else a headache.  As a note, I think a lot of this is true for all of the Schengen Agreement countries, but I only know that it’s true for Austria, and, actually, I can’t even swear to that — Jo’s visa hasn’t been approved yet.

You only need a visa if you are staying more than 3 months but less than 6 months, or if you intend to work while you’re here.  For stays of less than 3 months, no visa is needed (again, unless you want to work while you’re here).  For stays of over 6 months, you need a residence permit.  (I can’t speak to the process of acquiring one, although I have one — the IAEA handled it for us.  I have heard it is “more expensive” to get than a visa, and can take up to 6 months to acquire.  Ours did not take that long.)  If you come without a visa, you are limited to a 3 month stay in ALL of the Schengen Agreement countries, and then you have to stay out of all of those countries for at least 3 months before coming back in.

For the “D” visa (which is the one Jo got — not a work visa, not a student visa, just a tourist visa) the paperwork must be done in person at an Austrian embassy or consulate and must be approved and issued BEFORE coming to Austria.  It cannot be completed here.  (Residence permits can be applied for while in Austria.  This is one of the distinctions we misunderstood — we thought she could start the paperwork in the US and finish it while she was here, as long as it was done before her 3 month long non-visa period ended.  Nope — that’s ok for residence permits, but not for visas.)

Travel to and from Austria has to be booked before you can apply for the visa (but you can’t actually travel without the visa).

The hosts in Austria have to fill out paperwork showing their ability to take financial responsibility for the person getting the visa, and this has to be done BEFORE the application can be put together.  (Otherwise, I believe, the applicant has to show evidence of financial means to support themselves.)  To turn in that paperwork, the hosts have to make an appointment with the correct person at the Austrian police department, during very limited hours (all of which are during business hours).  We were really surprised to have to wait almost 2 weeks for an appointment. This paperwork has to be filed and approved before the applicant can even make their appointment in the US to apply for their visa.  (This is why we had to reschedule Jo’s flight.  We did not count on such a long wait for an appointment.)

Applicant has to show proof of health insurance that will cover them in Austria.

After weeks of trying to get the right answers from the right people, one (expensively) changed plane ticket, a few woefully incorrect answers from Austrian officials, and at least two trips to the Austrian embassy in DC (that was my sister, though, not me) Jo finally got to turn her application in yesterday.  Whew.

After all of this, we’ve come to one conclusion: they don’t really seem to want tourists here longer than 3 months.  Unless you have a pressing need (or infinite patience) just come and stay for 3 months.  However, if you do decide to apply, keep these things in mind:

  • Do the Austrian paperwork first, before buying your ticket (or buy your ticket months in advance and start the paperwork immediately).
  • Remember that you must have both directions of travel booked before applying, but that it can take up to 2 weeks for the visa to be approved, so allow at least that long between application and your departure date.
  • The visa has to be approved and issued before you leave the US, so if it isn’t, you’ll have to delay your trip or limit yourself to a 3 month stay.

I hope that helps.  I wish we’d known all of those things before we started this process.  Fingers crossed that it all actually works out!

Arts & crafts

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I am not a “crafty” mom.  I have friends who do daily arts & crafts projects with their kids and who have closets overflowing with glue, stencils, glitter and construction paper.  I mostly get it together enough to do art projects with the kids only around holidays.  Today, we did a Halloween project.  Although I do this rarely, and it almost never goes how I expect, I’m almost always optimistic and enthusiastic.  I started out, after nap time, assembling paper, crayons, scissors and glue to make pumpkins, bats and ghosts to decorate our windows.

And, when B got up, he was excited to get started, so we commenced with cutting out the shapes, since that was a task I was only planning for B & I, anyway.  We started, and the frustration set in almost immediately.  B uses scissors at school “all the time”, but we’d never done it together before.  The scissors were (by necessity) pretty dull, the paper was a little floppy, and he kept turning the scissors sideways, so I would turn the paper, and it ended (after about 2 minutes) with my fingers pinched a few times and B grumpy and unwilling to continue.  Oops.  Fail.

No question, I had asked him to do too much.  And this point, i looked up “how to help your child learn to use scissors” and realized I was WAY off on what was reasonable.  I tried again, with simpler, smaller tasks, but the “I can’t do it” mentality had already set in, and, regardless of the fact that I’m the adult and I even realized that I had created the frustration in the first place, his unwillingness to “just try again” started to really irritate me.  So, I got snippy, and unsurprisingly, this did not motivate him to want to continue.

So, I switched into pitiful mom mode — “ok, fine, if you don’t want to help me, I guess I’ll just do it all myself . . .”.  At this point, unable to tell which of us was the four year old, Liam woke up and groggily joined our merry crew.

I was able to salvage my mood, hoping that maybe Liam’s general enthusiasm for art projects would inspire B.  I got B started on an age-appropriate scissor task (which he could do, and which seemed to buoy his confidence) and set up Liam with some coloring.  I just *knew* we were going to have a great time at this point!

Liam, shockingly, showed no interest in coloring, but he did decide to try to eat the glow-in-the-dark crayons.  Sigh.  B ran out of paper to cut up, Liam ran off, crayon in hand, giggling, and I decided I had had it, and we were just going to give up and put everything away if no one cared.  Fine.  (Hmph!)  So, I scooped up all the paper, the scissors, the glue and the crayons, and started to put everything away.

And, the kids didn’t care one bit.  They didn’t want to do this project anyway, and they had no interest.  But, truthfully, I did.  So, I took a few breaths, and thought about it.  Who is it I want to be in this moment?  What do I really want to get out of this?  Do I really not care?  If we don’t do it, will I be disappointed?  And, I realized, I *do* want to do it, even if they don’t.  In a perfect world, they’d be excited to join me, and we’d all do it together, smiling and happy.  In a less than perfect world, we’d all do it together, less than perfectly, but it’d be fun anyway.  And in this world, the one I had in front of me today, I wanted to color pumpkins and bats and ghosts.  And I wanted my kids to want to do it, but they didn’t.  And I would have been disappointed if I hadn’t done it — especially if I had quit in an effort to guilt them into wanting to do it.  I don’t want to be morose, I don’t want to be angry, and I certainly don’t want to be a martyr, glumly cutting out pumpkins all by myself.

So, I chose not to be any of those people.  I sat down, got out the crayons, told Liam he could color if he wanted, but he couldn’t eat the crayons, invited B to join us, and I started coloring — all by myself.  It took half a ghost before Liam sat down to help me, and by the time we’d finished a ghost, two bats and a pumpkin, B had joined us, too.  (Although, admittedly, I think part of B’s enthusiasm came from the fact that when he asked, I told him we were doing an art project, and that therefore the Wii, the iPhone and the iPad were not coming out until it was finished.)  B modelled a few of his grumpier “I can’t do the scissors” faces as inspiration for the jack-o-lantern designs, and he did the glue for the pumpkin stems entirely on his own.  Both boys were giggling and jumping up and down with enthusiasm when the time came to actually put our work up on the windows.  (At which point, Dan came home, and I looked like super mom with happy kids and pumpkins for the windows.)

It was a good day.  I’m not a crafty mom, but I really wanted to decorate for Halloween, and I wanted the kids to join me.  I’m embarrassed to admit how hard it was for me to avoid being dramatic, irritated or manipulatively emotional — all for the sake of paper pumpkins.  But, even though we took some detours down those paths, I’m glad I was able to get it together, and focus on what I really wanted.  We all benefitted, and, I was surprised to discover, it actually got us where I wanted to go.

I too!

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Liam is at the age where his vocabulary and his ability to communicate are exploding.  He adds new words and phrases to his repertoire every single day, and it can be hard to keep up.  It often happens that we suddenly understand something he says, and realize that he’s been saying that same thing for days, with an increasing level of frustration on his part, since he’s talking and we’re not getting it.

Today, we had another one of those.  The boys were playing together this afternoon, and Benjamin looked over and said, “Liam, I love you”, to which Liam replied, “I too!”  Oh my goodness.  I was in mommy swoon overdrive when I realized he was saying, “I love you, too” in Liam-ese (and that I’m pretty sure I’ve heard him say it before, I just hadn’t made the connection).  I wanted to be sure, though, so (good scientist that I am) I tested it — I asked B to say it again.  Same response.  We did this a few times (B loved it) and it worked, every time.  By the time we’d been through this a few times, we were all giggling, smiling and hugging.  It was super awesome.

And, of course, I wanted to hear it for myself, too!  So, I tried:  “Liam, I love you”.  Nothing.  Tried again.  Nothing.  Hmm.

B wanted to help, so he said, “Liam, do you love Mommy?”  No response.  Hmm.  Ok, no problem.  Part of me selfishly wanted my own expression of Liam love, but I can’t deny that it’s pretty darn sweet that his first dozen or so declarations of “I love you, too!” were set aside solely for Benjamin.  So, it was ok.

But then, B tried, “Liam, do you love Daddy?” to which we got an enthusiastic nod.  Hey!  Wait a minute!  He wasn’t even THERE.  He was at work, being all productive and stuff.  And there I was, sitting on the floor, trying to not be jealous and failing miserably (and feeling pretty silly and selfish for actually feeling jealous, which I was . . . a little).

It was ok, though — throughout the rest of the afternoon, I was treated to the, “Liam, I love you” from Benjamin followed by, “I too!” which certainly made my day about 1,000,000 times over.

Then Dan got home, and he tried.  “Liam, I love you!”  “I too!”  Hey!!!

But then, this evening, after dinner, I tried again, and finally got my own, “I too!”  (Happy mommy.)

Autumn in Vienna

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Autumn has always been my favorite season. Here in Vienna, we’re being treated to crisp air, with cool mornings, chilly evenings, and pleasantly warm days. It’s one of the things I really like about living here — we have a nice, long fall season. Back home, everyone loves spring and fall, but although we do truly get four seasons in the DC area, sometimes fall and spring pass by in the space of just a few weeks.

Fall in Vienna is full of the smells of roasting chestnuts and wood fires burning. We get lots of drizzly days just damp and cool enough to make you want to be cosy inside, but even more days just right for being out and enjoying the season. I feel like Vienna hits all the points that make this time of year so wonderful. I am absolutely loving it.

To Germany . . . kind of

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Our next vacation is coming up already — we have a trip planned to Germany next week.  Actually . . . it was SUPPOSED to be to Germany, but it turns out it’s going to nearly all be in Austria, oddly enough.

I truly do understand that Austria and Germany are two whole different places — Germany is bigger, and I would guess it likely that most Americans could more accurately identify the German flag and find Germany more easily on a map, but, Austria has been around a lot longer and was the seat of massive amounts of power in Europe for nearly 1000 years.  I think the common language and the closely interwoven history (especially during World War II) throws people off.  (Well, that, and the fact that there are people — and I am not kidding — who ask what we think of living near kangaroos in a place where the seasons are opposite when we say we live in Austria.)

But, of course, when we decided to move here, we knew Germany would be a place we’d want to visit, which poses a challenge in itself — Germany is massive in size and encompasses a wide variety of places and sights.  Of all of Germany, Bavaria is the part that seemed the most alluring to us — the most “German” — so that was the place we chose to see first.  We didn’t even know it at the time, but Bavaria sits right on the Austrian border, which makes it convenient, too.  And, since our train route to Bavaria would require us to stop in Salzburg, which we have yet to see, we decided to make that one of the stops on our trip.

Then, we started looking into which places we most wanted to see in Bavaria.  Neuschwanstein Castle (Mad King Ludwig’s Castle) was highest on our list, as well as a few small Bavarian towns and some hiking destinations in the German mountains.  And, Dan wanted to stop for a tour of the Audi factory (outside of Munich).  So, after some planning and discussing, we came up with a fantastic itinerary — 3 nights in Salzburg and 4 nights in Germany.  Perfect!

Except . . . the parts of Bavaria we want to see (other than the Audi factory) are immediately in the vicinity of the Austrian border . . . and, the best places we found to stay (also the best values) turned out to be on the Austrian side of the border.

So, we’re “going on a week’s vacation to Germany” and spending every single night in Austria.

Honestly, I’m very excited about this vacation.  It’s going to be much more laid back than our recent trip to the British Isles, with a lot more opportunity to take our time and relax, plus a chance to see some places we’ve wanted to visit since we moved to Europe.  We’ll be staying in the mountains just outside of Salzburg, on a working organic farm (where they bring eggs and fresh milk every morning), seeing some of the “Sound of Music” places in Salzburg, spending some time hiking in the mountains in both Austria and Germany (including a visit to Germany’s highest peak), seeing one of the most famous castles in the world, and taking a tour of the place where they make and design Dan’s favorite cars.  But, it’s a little strange to be sleeping in Austria the entire time — it feels kind of like camping in your own backyard.

Jo, the au pair

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We’re all very excited — later this month, my sister, Jo, is coming to stay with us. It was supposed to be this week, but dealing with visa issues (including maddening parts of the Austrian bureaucracy which remind us so much of our first month here) has pushed the date back.

She’s coming for a few reasons — to visit us, to check out how great Vienna is, to get a taste of living abroad, and to help us out with the kids. So, she’s going to kind of be our au pair (but without the inevitable stress and weirdness of having a stranger stay in your house). I’m excited. For me, it’s pretty much all up side — I get to hang out with Jo, have some regular conversation with another adult, and have an extra set of hands when wrangling the kids . . . and maybe even have a little bit of free time sometimes. Maybe even DURING THE DAY. Sounds AWESOME.

I’m hoping that it’ll be fun for her, too. We’re pretty good company, the kids are super wonderful, and we’ll give her a safe base from which to explore a bit. (And, if she’s ever wondered how tedious yet fantastic it is to be a stay-at-home mom, she’ll have an idea. It’ll be like a parenting internship and mental birth control, all rolled up in one!) She’ll get to be here for Halloween and Christmas, too, and Christmas is really special in Vienna.

I imagine, though, that there will also be days where we both wonder what we were thinking when we came up with this plan. But, hopefully those will be rare, and we’ll all get a lot out of sharing this part our adventure together. Her visa, once acquired, will allow her to stay for up to 6 months (but my feelings won’t be hurt if she decides to go home sooner than that).  She’ll have to go through homesickness, culture shock and a bossy older sister, but I think she’ll be ok. It’s actually pretty great here.

I’m impressed with her. I wouldn’t have been brave enough to try this at 21 (I almost wasn’t brave enough to try it at 34). I’m looking forward to her arrival, and to getting to share this experience with her.

Sick baby

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I hate it when my kids are sick.  I absolutely hate it.  I feel helpless, and often scared, and incredibly indecisive.  I never know if I’m doing the right thing, whether or not things have progressed to the point where I should be calling the doctor — and then, if I decide to call, I worry that I’m being an obnoxious over worrier, and if I decide not to call, I worry that I’m not taking good enough care of my boys.

Two nights ago, Liam suddenly got a very high fever and became completely miserable.  It felt like he went from well to sick in an instant.  The Ibuprofen we gave him worked, but it took several hours, and it wore off well before he was due for another dose.  I didn’t want to torment him overly, so we only took his temperature with a forehead thermometer.  I don’t know exactly how warm he got, but our thermometer read 103 (and a bit higher) several times — he was pretty sick.  The pattern has continued since then — high fever, miserable boy, medicine that takes an hour or more to kick in and which wears off hours before he can have more, which means he only has about 3 hours of relief from every dose of medication.  When he lays down to sleep, he gets congested and can’t breathe, and it seems like he has a sore throat.  For the second day in a row, he decided it was time to go to bed about 2 hours earlier than usual, and led us into his room to put him in his crib.  He’s one sickly little guy.

After 12 hours of this, I called the doctor, and she says that all of his symptoms are “very consistent with a viral infection that’s going around”, and that we should just keep him hydrated and watch him.  He’s doing a great job of drinking lots of water, but he’s awfully uncomfortable.  I hate watching him be so unhappy.  And I worry, constantly.  Is he getting worse?  Is his fever too high?  Is he really just sick with a virus, or is it something worse?  And then, in the few minutes when he’s feeling well, he climbs down off the couch and runs off, and I worry that I’m setting him back by letting him play.

I hold him as often as he wants, I fix him lots of things to drink and play his favorite shows on tv.  Benjamin has even offered him one of his own favorite trucks to play with and hold while he’s not feeling well.  But I feel woefully ineffectual.  I tell him, over and over, that he’ll feel better soon, and that he just needs to rest so that his body can heal.

But in the midst of holding a sick Liam for hours and hours, feeling his fevery body and yearning myself for more than a few hours of consecutive sleep, I am so grateful that this is temporary.  I know that when I tell Liam he’ll be better soon that he will be.  This will pass, and he’ll be ok.  I have no magic powers or potions to speed his recovery, but I know that his body will do the work it takes to feel good again.  I don’t know if it will happen while he sleeps tonight, or after he wakes up in the morning, or maybe not even for a few more days, but he’ll get better, and then, in a blink, he’ll be playing and running and climbing and happy again.  While we’re living this, it seems so hard, and so grueling, but it’s really just a quick few moments of our lives.