Tag Archives: differences

Latitude adjustment

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It is sunny here at a quarter after five in the morning.  Not “the sun is coming up”, but sun streaming in the windows.  It starts getting light before 4:30.  It’s taking some getting used to.  At home, we had a rule that the kids couldn’t get up for the day before 6:00.  We just can’t enforce that here.  We can’t convince Benjamin, let alone Liam, to go back to bed when it’s bright out.  It’s making for some early mornings.

And then, on the other side, it’s light here until after 9:00, which is making for some late evenings.

We’re at a very northern latitude here (which, it’s shocking for me to admit, I didn’t realize until recently).  We’re north of every major city in the contiguous US — these are Canadian latitudes!  I actually thought we were a lot closer to DC, latitude-wise.  (How and why I didn’t look in to that further, I have no idea.)

Really, though, it’s lovely.  It’s really pleasant to have so much daylight.  It’s pretty great to be finished putting the kids down for bed and still have it be light out.  But, this raises some concerns . . . first, I don’t imagine we’ll be getting a lot of sleep over the next couple of months.  Second, I don’t know how I’m going to feel about this whole northern latitude thing in November.  (I’ve looked it up, and we will have SEVEN FEWER HOURS of daylight in November than we do right now.  The sun will set just after 4:00 in the afternoon.)  Oh, dear.

Kindergarten and Potassium iodide

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We went to see a potential kindergartern for Benjamin today, with mixed emotions.  I’m very excited for him — I know he will enjoy making friends, playing games, making arts and crafts and everything else he’ll get to experience by going to school.  But I’ve never been away from him like this.  We spend our days together.  With very few exceptions, I have been there to guide his explorations, to kiss all his boo boos and to supervise and witness all of his adventures.  It’s going to be very hard for me to have him go to school, even for just 4 hours a day.

That said, we love the kindergarten.  It’s close to Dan’s work, so they’ll ride the train together every day.  The teachers are so nice, and they all speak at least a little English (although not as much, or as well, as I’d like — I fear there is potential for Benjamin, who is an amazing communicator, to be frustrated . . . but they were trying so hard).  The place is lovely and clean, with lots of toys and a beautiful playground outside.  The kids all seemed happy, relaxed and confident.  We were there during snack time, and it was great to see the kids sitting around the little tables, in their little chairs, helping themselves to fresh fruit.  Benjamin really liked it — he cried when it was time for us to leave (although I think the toys were a big part of that).  If it really is time for him to start school (and I think it is — or will be, in September) then I think it’s a really nice place for him to be.

As part of our interview/orientation today, we had a lot of forms to fill out, papers to sign and information (principally in German) to take home and read (i.e., translate).  It was pretty standard:  immunization records, personal information, who’s allowed to pick him up, emergency contacts . . . and a permission form for the administration of Potassium iodide tablets in the event of nuclear emergency.  Yep.

Apparently, this is a standard thing here.  According to the kindergarten administrator, most people here keep the tablets on hand at home, but they’re happy to provide them for Benjamin in the event of a nuclear event while he’s at school.  Which, I guess, is comforting.  Kind of.

There aren’t any functioning nuclear reactors in Austria.  But in a country that is roughly the size of South Carolina, this, alone, is not sufficiently informative.  There are nuclear power plants surrounding Austria on every side, and many of the reactors are close to the border.  But, although the closest one to where I’m living right now is no closer than the closest one to where I was living at home, the thought of stocking up on Potassium iodide tablets had never crossed my mind.  (It’s certainly on my mind now.)

Shocking as it was to read (and sign) a form permitting Benjamin’s teachers to do their best to protect him in the event of nuclear devastation, I think I’m more concerned with the fact that the kindergarten teachers’ English isn’t as good as I’d like.  I think that’s the better place to spend my worry.  And, I’m glad they’re planning ahead and looking out for him — but I’m a little freaked out.

In the city

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I’ve never lived in a city before:  Tysons Corner was my closest approximation before this (not a bad approximation in terms of the number of people, but a pretty bad approximation in almost every other way).  As such, I sometimes have trouble separating the things I’m enjoying about living in Vienna from the things I’d probably enjoy living in the heart of any city.

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I love being in the middle of everything.  It’s incredibly liberating to be able to walk out of my front door and pick up coffee, go to a park, do any kind of shopping, or even get on a bus or train and go anywhere.  It’s also really enriching my experience here to be able to go for a stroll in the afternoon with the boys and easily access many of the culturally and historically significant aspects of Vienna.  We might, just on an afternoon walk, see a massive palace, visit a church older than my country or happen upon an operatic performance (that last one happened just today).  Pretty much anything I could want or need is right at my doorstep.  (We consider it a “long walk” to go get pizza — which takes 12 minutes from our front door.)

029Most of that, though, could be said about many cities in the world (Europe in particular).  In Vienna, I’m enjoying the safety, the richness of the history and the beauty — not only is the architecture like something from a story book, but this city has so much green space.  I’m not sure how much of that I would get anywhere else.

I’m really enjoying time here, but I’m still really a country mouse at heart.  I love Vienna’s architecture, but I long for a view that comes from other than just between two city streets.  I miss the way that grass cleans the dirt from my shoes.  I love the freshness of the smells of grass or hay or woods — wet pavement has a certain pleasantness to it, but it isn’t the same.

I’m really enjoying Vienna, and I think my sanity is preserved, in part, by being right in the heart of everything here.  But really, I’m just visiting.

In the right place

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I believe that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be — that fate, or God, or the universe has brought me to this place at this time because this is where I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to be doing.  These are the struggles I’m supposed to be having, and overcoming.  These are the experiences I need to have in order to grow.  There are things for me to learn and work on here that are important for me.

The only other time I’ve experienced such a sudden, massive shift in my world view and self-perception was when my children were born.  I’m learning to see myself differently:  I’m capable of more than I thought I was capable of, I’m stronger than I thought I was, and I’m less perfect than I want to be — but that bar is set too high, anyway.  I’m learning to see the world differently:  all around me, people are struggling more than I realized, little changes in our comfort level make huge differences in our experience of the world around us, and people can be unexpectedly kind or surprisingly indifferent to each other.

I’m making some new friends, and I know that they, likewise, have been brought to me at this moment because we ought to be around each other.  It’s a wonderful thing to make new connections.  I am more grateful for the friendships I am forming here, and for those I am missing so much from home, than I ever have been before — it is something I had taken for granted.

I’m searching for (and finding) peace in this experience, even amidst the struggle and the chaos.  I’m looking for the lessons, and I’m trying to learn them.  This experience is not so much making me someone different than I was before, but it is introducing me to parts of myself I didn’t know were there.

Same stuff, different continent

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Here I am, living in Europe.  I’ve packed up my family, my dog and everything I own and moved 1/4 of the way around the world.  I’m living in a country where I don’t speak the language.  Dan has a new job and we have a new apartment.  We are very, very far away from our families and our friends.

And yet, very little is actually different in my day.  I get up, I change diapers, I feed children, I kiss boo boos, I try to straighten the house a little, I try to make some progress on the endless list of things that must be done to make a household run, I put kids down for naps (with varying degrees of success), I give baths, I read stories, I get up in the middle of the night (most nights) to feed a hungry baby, I try to get a shower regularly, I try to eat healthily (and usually don’t).  Every so often, we have somewhere we need to go.  Sometimes, we just try to get out for some fresh air.  Many days (yesterday was one of them) we start trying to get out of the house around 9:00 in the morning and succeed around 5:00 in the evening.  It’s still a 24/7 job with no real breaks, requiring endless patience and a pervasive sense of humor (and some days I struggle to find either).  Those things are as true here as they were in Virginia.

Instead of packing everyone into the car to run errands, I’m making sure the stroller is packed up so we can walk or ride the train to our destination.  The scenery is different, to be sure, and some of the itinerary is a little more interesting:  instead of the grocery store or the mall, I’m likely to be going out to get lunch for us, or to go for a stroll by some Austrian landmark.  But, when I stop to think about it, things are very much the same.  My job travels well, and it doesn’t change much due to location.  All in all, life is pretty much the same here as it was at home.  It’s a life that I love, so that’s a great thing.

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.

Playing in Vienna

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002Much (if not most) of the playground equipment in Vienna would never exist these days in the US.  It would either be outlawed by lawsuit-fearing local regulators or dismantled in the dark of night by overprotective soccer moms.  A lot of it is reminiscent of the playgrounds I played on as a kid:  the equipment is made of metal and wood, it’s too high, there aren’t guardrails, the ground is sometimes just ground or wood chips (not cushy recycled rubber), there are uncovered sandboxes, the swings still hang from chains and the slides probably get very hot in the summer time.  But, they go beyond that, too.  They have tables and planks set on springs, which are designed to be unstable and to be fun to balance on (but also challenging for a little kid).  There was an actual zip line in a park we went to last week — no signs or fences or anything to prevent a kid walking under it from getting clobbered by the kid on the zip line.  Several of the parks we’ve been to even have some kind of running water feature.

The one we went to today had a water pump (complete with pinching hazard!) that poured water onto large rocks.  Actual rocks.  Big, hard, jaggedy rocks — larger than basketballs — which were part of the sandbox area .  It is a huge culture shock for me.  I can’t help it — I’m a product of my socialization.  All I could think of was how I needed to prevent Benjamin from pinching his fingers in the pump, or hitting himself or another kid in the head with the pump handle, and then, once the water was running, make sure he didn’t slip on the (now wet) large, jaggedy rocks and crack his head open or knock out some teeth.  So, of course, I did all of those things.  But I can tell the Austrians are rubbing off on me, at least a little.  Because although I had a strong desire to protect my child from all of these perceived dangers, I also realize that we’ve been here 3+ weeks, and we’ve been to a lot of playgrounds and I’ve seen a lot of kids playing on what are (to my American sensibilities) complete deathtraps of playground equipment.  And I have yet to witness a single injury.

007I’m not blind to the fact that they could still get hurt (and probably do).  But I’m beginning to remember that with proper guidance and supervision, a child can actually play in a world that is not completely bubble wrapped for the sake of their protection.  (My father will read this and be horrified that it took a move to Europe to remind me of an idea he raised me with — and one that still exists in his backyard.)  I’ve known it, intellectually, but it’s been a rare event that I’ve had to use my own judgement on whether a piece of playground equipment is safe for Benjamin back in the states (other than maybe not being age appropriate).

Today, Benjamin made a friend at the playground, whose name is Alex.  They played in the sandbox with Alex’s truck and shovels, used the water pump, played on the swings and the slide and the see-saw.  They were very well supervised my us and by Alex’s grandma.  I did not hover, or hold his hand 100% of the time, and still, no one got hurt.  (Benjamin was even willing to give Alex back his dumptruck before we left the park.  Success!)