Category Archives: Adventure in Vienna

Broken English

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We’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.

After a too-long day of apartment shopping and trying (unsuccessfully again) to get phones, we stopped at McDonald’s for dinner.  (Starbucks and then McDonald’s on consecutive days — what an exotic Austrian adventure I am having!)  After debating for a moment over the menu, we stepped up to order.  After Dan started to order, in English (because it’s McDonald’s — you just can’t help it) it became apparent that our cashier was a fluent (maybe even native) speaker of English.  But even though I realized that, I couldn’t help but communicating to her in the same minimal vocabulary and sentence structure that I would have used if I was speaking to a native German speaker.  I was even aware that it was happening, and couldn’t overcome it.  I was reduced to simple, one word answers, with nothing extraneous.  I tried to fix it, mid-conversation, but I couldn’t.  It was a really strange sensation.

This was really one of the first times that I’ve encountered someone who was clearly able to speak English fluently.  We’ve run into a few people in shops, on the street, or while apartment hunting who could communicate very well in English, but they still have trouble with anything but the most straightforward language.  We have gotten into the habit of using simple, short sentences, with almost no humor or extraneous adjectives.  I already feel like I’m imposing when I have to resort to speaking English rather than German, so when I use it, I certainly want to be as easy to understand as possible.  But when faced with a skilled English speaker, I couldn’t turn that manner of speaking off.

Of course, this doesn’t extend to Dan and my kids.  Or my mom over Skype, or I imagine anyone else I know from home.  It doesn’t extend to my ability to write, either.  But it’s like I have a new category for language in my head that I didn’t know about:  Austrian English.  It’s a habit.  It’s surprising to me how profoundly I’ve been effected by just a week of expressing myself (or rather, not) so consciously.

A grande soy chai is still a grande soy chai

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Today 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!

It was a very busy day.  With all of our activity, and the fact that Liam isn’t quite adjusted to the time change yet, we’re exhausted.  By 5:00, when we were finished with all of our errands, I was completely drained.  We were headed home and were discussing whether we should stop to grab a little something to treat ourselves on the way home.  I was too tired to walk the extra few blocks, but Dan went, and he brought something home for me:  a grande soy chai, from an actual Starbucks.  Even at home, I would have enjoyed and appreciated something like that after a long day.  But there’s something extra special about having a little treat from home when we’re so far away.  They make it a little less sweet here, but otherwise, it’s so familiar:  the taste, the smell, even the cup (it’s written in English, too!).  Because even though we’re having a wonderful adventure, and it’s great to explore all of the things that are exciting and different, it’s comforting to experience something warm and familiar at the end of a long day.

Apartment hunting

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025We’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 031we 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.

038We 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 013naps 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.

Skills I didn’t even know I had

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There 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.

It wasn’t a complete disaster.  We did come away with groceries.  We even purchased about 75% of what was on our list.  It wasn’t efficient.  It wasn’t elegant.  It wasn’t fast.  There was a lot of confusion and even some tears (fortunately, the latter were from Benjamin and Liam only).  We took the stroller, which didn’t fit down most of the aisles.  I ended up purchasing some kind of baby cereal (which is NOT oatmeal) that is labelled with a word that doesn’t exist anywhere other than the box I purchased.  We struggled to find any kind of mustard, and I purchased powdered sugar instead of regular sugar.  But I braved the deli counter rather than settling for pre-packaged ham.  (This caused a great deal of confusion, because I wasn’t prepared to say anything other than the weight and name of what I wanted, and when presented with a more detailed question by the woman behind the counter, I could only repeat my request.)  I asked for ham, and I could swear she was telling me I wanted bacon (turns out she was asking if I wanted baked ham, which I think is what she gave me after several repetitions of the only phrase I had memorized) and I ended up getting about twice what we really needed, because we’re still not great at the kg/pound mental conversions.  I also think I accidentally cut in line in front of someone else who had been waiting.

But none of that is really the point.  So far, this is the thing that we’ve done that is the most “living here” vs. “visiting here”.  When you visit, you don’t brave the market for staples (at least, not with the sense of resolute determination that we did today).  We did it.  We bought food and ate lunch.  We got our 1/2 kg of schinken, and we even managed to pay and bag our own groceries — all in a store where I don’t think a single person spoke English.  It’s quite an accomplishment.  So, although I’m definitely better at grocery shopping back home, it turns out we’re not so bad at doing it here, either.

Hallo, Gelato!

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Our 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.)

Upon discovering that we were not, in fact, going to get our iPhones today (bummer!) we decided to treat ourselves (and our very patient eldest child) to some gelato.  I’ve had gelato before in the states — it’s basically like strong tasting, less creamy ice cream that everyone gets very excited about and I have no idea why.  I had not, however, ever had real, European Gelato before.  Wow.  Yummy, yummy, yummy.  Pretty much like ice cream, but with a great texture — kind of like a combination of really decadent ice cream and marshmallow fluff.  Kind of like frozen custard, but creamier.  So good.  Can’t wait to get more.

We also found another Starbucks today (that makes two so far).  Dan popped inside and did some reconnaissance — apparently, it’s exactly the same as home.  Same stuff, same prices (which means really expensive for that kind of food here).  But good to know it’s there, just in case I find myself in dire need of a grand soy chai.

Generally, we’re finding it’s harder to get stuff done than we had expected.  We want to make appointments to do some house hunting, but to make those calls, we need phones.  We’ve been trying for two days to get phones, but it’s proving trickier than we expected:  the stores are not open American business hours, and when we finally got to an open store today, Dan first had to come back to get his passport, and then when we went back, we realized that we need paperwork (proof of residency) that we don’t have yet — partly because we haven’t been able to call the people at Dan’s work who we need to get in touch with because we don’t have phones.  It’s all a little frustrating — but only a little.  That seems to be just part of life here:  the pace of things is a little slower, and we aren’t really expected to be firing on all cylinders yet.  We’ll get it sorted out.  In the meantime, we need to get on with normal life stuff:  unpacking, grocery shopping, laundry . . . things like that.  Even big adventurers have housework to do.

The same “hund” as the Queen

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So 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.

Secondly, in Vienna, backpacks and scooters are not just for kids.  I’ve seen several adults on their way to work with backpacks over suits and likewise, several suited adults riding on scooters, headed to work.  Not Vespa scooters, the little ones that kids ride in the States that you push like a skateboard.

264While we were out walking yesterday, and again on our long mid-day walk today, we were getting a lot of stares.  We weren’t sure whether it was because of Bailey (who seemed to be getting a lot of attention) or because Dan was wearing Liam in the Ergo (although, Baby Bjorn would have us believe this is a European thing?) — they both seemed to be getting looks.  Turns out, it was Bailey (or maybe Bailey AND Dan, but at least Bailey).  Three separate people came up to discuss him with us today.  The first guy stared from across the street, and then came over to ask in German if that was one of the same kinds of “hunds” that the Queen of England has.  Unbelievably, I understood exactly what he said, and managed a “Ja”, in response, which then unleashed a stream of German stopped only when Dan interjected that we didn’t speak German.  Then, two schoolboys followed us, to ask, in English, why Bailey didn’t have a tail.  That’s when I remembered that tail docking isn’t legal in Europe, so that may be at least partly why he’s been getting stares.  Then a woman complimented us on his muzzle — it apparently seems more civilized than the kinds most people use here (however, although muzzling your dog is a law here, from what we’ve seen, it’s rarely followed).

We’re generally finding that the people here in Austria are very friendly and helpful (and willing to speak English).  Of course, my first attempt at German today was pretty well shot down by the woman working at the market down the street — she was also impatient with the speed of my shopping because she apparently wanted to get back to sitting outside.  It wasbeautiful outside today.  But, I was brave enough to try!  And I got vollmilch for Benjamin.  So, success!

Well, here we are

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So, our adventure begins.  I’m going to try to write a little, every day, about what we’re experiencing, but I’ll keep it short today and blame the jet lag.

My children are amazing.  They’re handling this amazingly well.  They both slept on the flight (Liam a little, Benjamin a good bit) and were truly in excellent, happy moods today, for the most part, which is pretty amazing considering the way their past few days have gone.

I feel like I’m already going through all the “stages” of relocating abroad that I’ve been told about.  I’m managing to simultaneously feel thrilled by the adventure we’re taking on, concerned that we’ve made a mistake and should be booking our tickets for home, impressed by how together and cool the Austrians seem as they go about their day in Vienna, wistful for the simplicity and straightforwardness of dealing with Americans, brave for taking on this challenge and chicken for being too afraid to try to speak any German today.

So, here we are.  We’ll see how it goes.

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