A social life is good!

 24 February 2011

The lack of any new blog entries is directly related to my recent acquisition of an actual life in the lovely city of Vienna.  I now have both Austrian, various international and American friends.  There are already so many things to do here and everyone says that social activities spike sharply once the temperature gets above 20°C (that would be almost 70°F). 

This weekend, I will be visiting Madrid Spain for the first time.  It is so exciting to think of both the city and the company I will keep there.  I hope Madrid is ready for me because I am certainly ready for it!

During the past week, I joined a gym, made going to a private Sunday evening aerobics class a regular thing (going two weeks in a row = “regular thing”), met up with a group of expats at a bookswap, and went bowling with co-workers.  I got 4 strikes and a few spares.  Please feel free to apply that description to any of the activities I have described in this paragraph.

One of the ladies I met at the bookswap is American but works between Austria, Germany and the US.  We had an instant connection and exchanged contact info plus have plans to go shopping for Mexican food (she knows of a store that has all the Mexican staples) and then out to dinner.  She is a very pretty lady and has an excellent ability to really look at you and focus her energy toward you while having a conversation.  I already know I will continue to enjoy her company!

I have my first German/English language exchange set up with a student at the local University.  He needs assistance with his English class presentations…and well, I just need help!  It is a great way to work on language skills and is facilitated by a website called Tandem City.  He sent me a message after I set up a profile and we established a time and place to meet last weekend.  Simple!

Another simple thing was ordering a new camera from Amazon.at when my Fuji finally decided it was time for retirement.  I got a cute little red Samsung that was one of the few cameras not overly priced compared to their American counterparts.  I received it yesterday and will resume to capture photographic evidence of my time in Vienna promptly.

My favorite little neighborhood pub, called Café 2K, has continued to be a good source of entertainment for me.  The owner is still fantastic: lots of fun, helpful and willing to translate.  I met a new bartender this time – his name is Herbert but because Herr is the German word for Mister, we joked and called him Mister Bert.  On the same evening I met Mister Bert, the owner introduced me to a gentleman who thought it was terrible that I had not yet had Weiner Schnitzel – he got up from the bar and ran around the corner to get me a typical Austrian meal.  It was yummy and hilarious!  Then I excused myself 2 drinks later when he started talking about wanting to kiss me…

A Kino.

11 February 2011       

The remembrance of emotions other than shock and excitement marked my evening.  Not in a bad way.  In a way found at the Artis International kino in the middle of Vienna.  I spent 112 minutes watching the big Hollywood movie about the girl who wasn’t perfect and the self-conscious womanizer who was redeemed as she fell apart…so he could put her back together and they could live happily ever after.  Yes, they needed (and had) each other.  And then I remembered it.  I remembered feeling alone.  Ugh!  It followed me all the way across the Atlantic Ocean!  Loneliness, you are truly not wanted here.

Good thing I quickly walked out of the theater into the cold night filled with centuries old cobblestone and pretty store windows.  Very quickly feeling alone was once again nicely replaced with oooh and ahhh.  Which is good, and only, for now.

And also for now, I am continuing to make good friends.  I met one new friend at Rochus tonight after work (before the movie).  Rochus is a great café/restaurant/bar on Landstrasser Haupstrasser (the main road by my apartment).  It is very urban and young, which is unlike many of the other spots in this part of town.  No matter where I was sitting, though, I was with good company.  That company was a lady with a good heart who I learned a bit more about tonight.  One thing that made me feel closer to her was learning she has also been married before.  Her marriage ended in a much different way than mine, but it ended.  When it ended, she started her life completely new.  Sometimes new, with its ooohs and ahhhs, is exactly what a soul needs.

I Dig the Brits...

05 February 2011

            Today has been productive!  My internal clock has not completely adjusted to the external clock on which everyone else around here seems to operate.  I always want to wake up at 11pm EST – and yes, that is 5am here.  The good thing about my confused internal clock is that I have a lot more time to do stuff.  Stuff like watch the sunrise down Landstrasser Hauptstrasse (the main road by my apartment), write a 10 page paper for one of my classes, run to the store and do laundry.  Before noon. 

Having accomplished so much so early today, I decided I would spend the afternoon being a tourist.  I headed out to catch the U3 to Stephansplatz to see St. Stephans Cathedral.  It was impressive!  They are in the process of restoring the amazing exterior and I took time to capture several pictures.  The beautiful blue sky made a great backdrop. 

Speaking of the weather, it was almost 50 degrees today!  I thought I wouldn’t need a winter coat…until the wind began to blow.  Once I realized nobody was trying to drop a house on a wicked witch or whisk me away to munchkin land, I officially proclaimed Vienna sister-city to Chicago, IL.  “City of Wind” – you have officially been challenged.  The wind made it feel like it was at least 15-20 degrees colder, with the hardest gusts being almost unbearable. The stimulating temperature change quickly prompted me to return to my apartment and bundle up before heading out sight-seeing.

All bundled up, along with a bunch of other people who were all bundled up, I came upon a group of British B-boys.  They did a show for the huge crowd that had gathered.  I was impressed by their skills – one guy had the most on-beat threading I have ever seen and another guy held a head spin for about half an hour!  It was the perfect end to a fantastic afternoon.

Sunrise :-)

A Case of the Friendlies! :-)

Day 5

02 February 2011

I had a great experience at work today!  A very nice co-worker from a different department forwarded me some websites aimed at helping expats meet other expats (how thoughtful!).  Then she, her name is Delphine, asked me to meet her in the company’s coffee lounge.  We talked for over a half hour and she filled me in on some of the things she had to learn when she moved to Vienna from France.  She explained that the Billa stores are for food shopping or “everything in the kitchen” and the Bipa stores are for all other household items.  I also finally found out where the holy grail of grocery stores is: the train station.  And why is it so special?  Because it is the only grocery store in the whole city that is open on Sunday. 

She also divulged one of the secrets of the local grocery store check-out process.  Once you pay for your items, you do not start putting them in bags at the check-out stand (nor do they bag them for you).  You put them back in your basket (quickly!) and then go to the shelf/table on the wall by the exit door to organize your groceries into bags.  I went to the grocery store tonight and finally felt like a pro with my Austria check-out skills!  Well, kind of.  I learned another important procedure at the grocery store – you have to weigh and place a price tag on your own fruit at the scale next to the fruit bins.  There is no scale at the check-out counter.  Whoops!  The check-out girl was very nice about my mistake when I told her my favorite line, “Ich spreche kein deutsch” and even went to weigh and tag my oranges for me (well, I guess she had to do that part but at least she wasn’t rude about it).

I also learned a couple things about restaurants.  First, tipping in restaurants is 5-10%.  Second, when you hand the server your money for the bill, you say the total amount you want them to keep including the tip – so if my meal costs 20 euros and I hand the server 25 euros, I would say “22” when I handed them the money.  Then the server would know I only expected 3 euros back after the tip.  How efficient!

After Delphine helped me understand numerous things, she explained she co-leads a French group made up of several expats.  She invited me to meet them for dinner next Wednesday clarifying I would be in good company with another non-french speaker planning to attend the dinner. 

Aerobics on Sunday with Nina and dinner on Wednesday with Delphine & co.  Yay! I am starting to make friends. J

 My Office

 The BIPA store near work

A shelf in the grocery store closest to my house (not a Billa store, it's called Merkur)

First Day in the Office.

01 February 2011

To sum up my first day at work (and 4^th day in Vienna), I have compiled the list below:

·         The walk to work was great!  It is a little under a mile down a main road with lots of interesting shop windows in which to look.  Last night, I met my new boss at a café to get acquainted and she told me I didn’t need to be at the office until 10am today.  It made for a great start!

·         My co-workers and my boss are all very welcoming and helpful - and just generally pleasent.  They have good systems in place for everything (which was seriously lacking at the US office).  They even seem to have a system for their cigarette smoking breaks.  Everyone smokes cigarettes in Vienna.  Bad.  Bad habit.  I actually saw two cigarette vending machines today within 3 feet of each other.  Bad. Bad habit.

·         At work, I sit near Nina who also did not speak German when she arrived.  She is from Finland, lived in NYC for 8 years and now is in Vienna.  She has already extended the offer of friendship and invited me to join her for aerobics on Sunday (she remembers how hard it was to make friends when she got to town and is being extra nice – yay for Nina!)

·         I got a visit today from Thomas, the COO, who explained the best way for me to learn German is to get an Austrian boyfriend.  Oh…Thomas.  Thomas, Thomas, Thomas….He also explained it is likely they will really want me to stay on after I complete my 6-month commitment.  We’ll see…

·         My whole department eats lunch together every day.  We either go to the T-mobile center or order in…either way, it’s good company. 

·         At about 5:45pm, my boss walked over to me and said, "please promise me you will not stay much longer tonight."  She explained nothing was urgent enough to stay late.  I like it when my boss tells me to work less J

·         On my way home from work, I was confident I knew exactly how to get back to my apartment…only to discover I somehow wandered into a construction zone.  It was kind of scary and I couldn’t go back the way I came, which further complicated the directional blunder.  But only about 15 minutes later, I found my way back to the main road and headed home (for real this time).

 Me in the office on my first day.

Two cigarette vending machines...just in case you can't wait two seconds for someone else to finish getting their cancer sticks.