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.

Metros and Museums and Cigarettes, oh my!!

Day 2.

30 January 2011

            Today I decided to brave the public transportation system in Vienna.  It went very well because it is very similar to the metro in D.C.  I hopped on at the Kardinal Nagl Platz station two blocks from my apartment and rode the U3 line to the Volkstheater station to visit the Museums Quartier.  The Museums Quartier takes up several blocks with many different museums – it reminded me of the Smithsonians except they were all connected by a huge courtyard and not free.  It is a true cultural center, or so the sign said.  I ventured into The Leopold Museum to check out some paintings and sculptures.  I saw a portrait Picaso did of his girlfriend…if I was the girlfriend, I would have been pissed!  I also got to take in one of Andy Warhol’s self-portraits among many other fantastic pieces of art.  In the Leopold, I sat down at my first café in Austria and ordered coffee with Bailey’s.  Being in a high-density tourist area, she did not scoff at my non-Austrian order and knew to bring me black drip coffee with a shot of Bailey’s.  Note to self: Focus outings in the touristy areas until my German vocabulary expands beyond 10 words.

            Once I grew tired of walking around the museum, I got back on the U-bahn and headed back home to find some food.  Darren, one of my travel advisors, was right.  Nothing is open on Sundays…except very few restaurants and many pubs packed with Austrian men.  I was a bit too intimidated to step in the pubs and be the only American girl amongst many drunken Austrian men, so I turned another corner and found an oasis.  A pizza place!  I went in and accomplished ordering a pepperoni pizza to-go.  The man behind the counter spoke no English, but again, the universal language of pointing and nodding saved the day.

            Smoking is very prevalent over here.  I guess they haven’t heard the horror stories of what became of the Marlboro Man because they smoke like chimneys.  Everyone seems to love their little cancer sticks and the promotion of tobacco products here is a bit disturbing.  They have cigarette vending machines on the street that are more common than ATM machines and have even invested in special rubbish bins for cigarette butts (see pictures below).

            My second day is drawing closer and closer to bedtime.  Before I can sleep, I will finish my homework and enjoy the slice of chocolate cake I picked up in the lovely bakery next to cigarette vending machine #1,256,389.  They spoke English in the bakery; I think I might visit them again.

Yep, that's Picaso's Girlfriend up there...

First Day Forecast: Partly Sunny and Awesome!!!!

29 January 2011

I arrived in Vienna Austria at 8:30 this morning.  By the time the plane touched down, my thoughts were swirling around and thoroughly mixing the memories of my last few days in DC with the emotions of arriving in a foreign country...to live there!  It made me feel exhausted (or maybe that was the jet lag...) and a little queasy.  Thankfully, I made it off the plane without falling asleep or "losing" my breakfast. 

The Viennese get a thumbs-up from me on their passport inspection process - I zipped through and on to baggage claim.  Being that I had 4 large checked bags, I had to quickly devise a plan on how I would get my bags from the conveyor belt to the car service waiting outside for me.  As fast as I began to wonder, a man came by with a huge cart.  I walked up to him with my best "Sprechen sie englich" to which he shook his head.  Luckily, pointing and nodding are universal and we got the job done.  I walked out confidently and quickly spotted the sign with my name on it.  My driver was great!  He explained the frozen fog covering everything on our drive was not snow.  He even drove me by my new office on the way to my apartment, helped me carry all my bags in without being asked and wished me well in the new city.

Once I stepped into my apartment, I immediately shuffled to the bed and passed out for a few hours.  When I woke up, I stayed horizontal for a while and contemplated the last few days.  I thought about a moment a couple days back as I sat in Pentagon City Mall and saw a tourist very impressed by the 4 story, shiny monstrosity.  It reminded me of when I was young and going to the Traverse City Mall impressed the hell out of me…the TC mall was and is small, but I knew nothing else so like that tourist a few days ago, I was crazy impressed!  Today, nothing in America’s major cities impresses me.  That’s right, this small town, secluded, rural Northern Michigan girl laughed as she realized how great her perspective is today.  Big, fancy malls don’t impress me anymore, crowded NYC streets no longer make me feel lost, and Austria is on its way to also being conquered by my ability to absorb new experiences that are far beyond what I ever imagined existed.

After my nap, I headed out to explore my new ‘hood.  A huge, automatic security door, spray-painted graffiti on several of the buildings, lots and lots of cars…wait a minute, how the hell did I end up in Detroit??  The answer to that question came quickly as I turned the corner to see none of the buildings had boarded up windows and all the signs were in German.  Ok, the universe wasn’t playing some rude trick on me.  I walked for a bit until I saw a store called Muller which appeared to be Vienna’s version of a Target or CVS.  But it was even better; they had everything a Target would plus higher end, designer products you would usually find at Macy’s.  I quickly purchased three things from my shopping list and was pleased to find out pretty much every product has its ingredients written in English on the back.  Score one for the allergy girl! 

When I got back to my apartment and began to work on putting away some of my mess that was exploding out of my four checked bags and two carry-ons, I started gathering up the books I had to bring with me.  Finally, I realized the genius of the Kindle or Nook readers.  When those electronic readers came out, I was adamantly against getting one because I love the smell and feel of a real book.  My relocation to Austria has changed the score: electronic readers 1, paperbacks 0.