Category Archives: Adventure in Vienna

Help at Home

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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!

The Little Differences

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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.

Out for a walk

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104I’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).

106We 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.

By Sea

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This is the truck, delivering our stuff

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.074

Mother’s Day

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018I 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.

034I 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.

Schottengasse

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026We’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!038

17,000 and 4

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I just found out that the first district of Vienna (where we’ll be living) is, by population, the smallest in all of Vienna:  the population is just over 17,000.  It’s the geographic and symbolic center of the city, and for historical purposes, the first district IS Vienna — the other districts, which had been “the outskirts” weren’t added to the city until 1850 (or later, in some cases).  Tomorrow, we will add 4 (plus Bailey) to the relatively small population of the first district of Vienna:  we move into our apartment.

We still don’t have any of our stuff (other than what we carried over in our suitcases) but Dan’s friends and coworkers have done an amazing job outfitting our new place so that we are almost certain to be more comfortable there than we have been here.  (There were a few uncertain moments earlier today when we thought we might not have the power on there, but it turns out we do.)  We have a place for everyone to sleep (including a spare air mattress, just in case), we have sheets and blankets, we have plates, utensils and cups, we have a promise of towels (although we still need to pick those up).  And, we have a fair bit of furniture that the apartment came with, including a dining room table and chairs as well as some seating for the living room.  We’ll be living in high style!

And the best news of all:  we should be getting our sea shipment on Monday.  Our sea shipment, not our air shipment.  (Boy, I’m sure glad we packed all that stuff we’d need for the first month into that air shipment!)  The sense of relief that it brings to know that we will have so much of our stuff so soon is massive.  Come Monday, we will have clothes, furniture, toys . . . nearly everything.  Of course, then begins the process of REALLY setting up our home — but if there is one thing that I’ve gotten from the experience of this past month, I think it will be a real sense of gratitude for exchanging this new task for the one I’ve been facing.

That had better not be an oncoming train

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There is light at the end of the tunnel.  We’re getting there.  No, we’re not getting our stuff, but we probably are moving in to our new place.  Dan sent out a pleading email today (it contained the phrase, “my wife is going crazy”) to his new coworkers asking for help in getting the things we absolutely must have to move out of here and into “our” apartment:  a crib for Liam, a mattress for Benjamin and some plates and utensils (he also asked for some things we don’t need but which would be nice, like a changing table, a baby bath, blankets, sheets and an air mattress for Dan & I).  Thankfully, these people have all been there — the nice thing about the UN is that everyone is from somewhere else — so people inundated Dan today with offers to help.

We’re being loaned a portacrib for Liam, a mattress for Benjamin, a changing pad and a baby bath (at least).  Two coworkers are taking their lunch tomorrow to help Dan collect the items and move items into our new place.  I can’t get everything in this place together by noon tomorrow, so we won’t *actually* move until Saturday, but we could theoretically spend tomorrow night in our new place if we want to.  I am so grateful for everyone’s generosity.

There are some down sides.  Principally, we won’t have internet (which we’ve been relying on heavily since arriving) and there aren’t curtains on the windows (that, at least, needs to be addressed pretty immediately, or no one will be getting much sleep).  We also have access to a washer/dryer here (only one for the whole building, but still) and we won’t at “home”.  I don’t think it’s really going to feel like “home” until we get at least some of our things, but at least we won’t be financially supporting three apartments (our condo in VA, our temporary place and “our” place that we’re moving in to).

Frankly, the whole “camping” thing has really lost its lustre for me — it was a fun part of this adventure for the first few days, but camping for a month, especially when it isn’t on purpose, is just being homeless.  This time last month we were at the airport, getting checked in and heading to our flight.  We’re still going to be “roughing it” at the new place, but at least we can be actively moving towards setting it up as a home, rather than continuing to be in limbo.  For now, this seems like progress (but check with me again next week).

That’s it, I’m taking a vacation

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Without going into a ton of detail, today was another tough day.  (The summary involves an argument with my husband, vomit from both kids, and baby poop, enough to need to call housekeeping, on less than 4 hours of sleep.  Not pretty.  Although I honestly handled it better than I would have expected this time last week.)  When we were planning this adventure, one of the things I reiterated to Dan repeatedly was, “The only way I can imagine myself doing this is if I think of it as a 1-2 year European vacation.”  The thought of “moving” to Europe was too much for me, but the thought of visiting for extended period sounded pretty good.

I’m going back to that way of thinking.  I think it’s the only way I’m going to make it through this.  So, the laundry may not get done in a timely fashion, I may not use my free minutes during the day to get things done which need to be done and I make absolutely no promises on how neatly my house will be kept.  I will accept that I’m not going to “learn” to truly speak German (although I promise to try my best).  I’m going to go out, walk around, play with my kids, see the sights, drink coffee, eat ice cream and maybe even send some post cards.  If the opportunity presents itself, I’m going to sleep in, too.

I’m on vacation.

I want an iPhone. I don’t care.

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We have phones!!!!  In fact, we have iPhones.  Dan actually got them for us yesterday afternoon and we started getting them set up last night after the kids were in bed.  I just have to say:  it is so cool.  I feel like a kid with a new toy on Christmas morning.  I have so much to learn about it, and have to figure out how to get it all set up.  I really am a neophyte with it — it’s my first smart phone.  This is my first experience with a phone that does anything cooler than take pictures.  I get to pick out apps!  I’m going to have navigation!  My phone knows where I am (that part’s a little creepy).

029So far, I’ve accidentally called my mom at 3:30 in the morning (or maybe Benjamin did that, it’s unclear) taken a bunch of blurry pictures (because I forgot to remove the protective film) and downloaded a bunch of very important apps (like Oregon Trail and Harbor Master).  I’m finding myself getting way too sucked into it — how does anyone get anything done?  (And I haven’t even connected it to Facebook yet!)  Both boys are very drawn to it.  I expected that of Benjamin (he’s played with his aunt Amanda’s iPhone before) but I was shocked at how alluring it is to Liam — he nearly threw himself off the couch earlier in his attempt to get it . . . and it was off at the time.

I’m really having fun with it, but it is also a huge relief to finally be connected.  Dan & I texted back and forth while he was at work today, and now I can contact my family when I need to (although we still have to figure out what it’s going to cost us, and them, to do that, but at least it’s POSSIBLE now).  It is certainly another significant piece of us feeling like we’re at home here.

But, I’m a little perplexed as to why the built in weather app can’t tell where I am, when every other thing on there can?  Eh, I still like it.