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Archive for December, 2010

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Merry Christmas!

Saturday, December 25th, 2010

Greetings to all our family and friends!  I hope you are all having a happy holiday with lots of great food, nice presents, and most of all good company.

Christmas is a big deal in Austria and a very festive time.  We’ve been enjoying the Christkindl Markt in the town where there’s hot Gluhwein to keep you from feeling the cold.  If you haven’t tried it before, it’s a mulled wine served warm and there always people willing to brave the weather to stand outside and drink it.  It’s really good stuff.

There are also tons of Italians who cross the nearby border to Xmas shop in the market and the big mall here, guzzle Gluhwein, and generally just look really stylish.  On the weekends, we hear Italian being spoken everywhere, and while I hate stereotypes, they all seem to be wearing the shiniest boots and coolest jackets.  I’m jealous.

We spent Christmas Eve dinner with some other expats and the big day relaxing.  We didn’t to have wish for a white Christmas  – here are a few views of the town and the market:

Posted in Austria, Living Abroad | No Comments »

Wilkommen In Österreich

Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010

I arrived in Austria with my 2 biggest suitcases (yes, I had to pay the extra baggage fee because I don’t have any status on Lufthansa) packed with all the most important things I’ll need for the next month – mostly warm clothes, important papers, and a few English-language books.  We have two shipments of “stuff” coming – one in hopefully about a month via air with some more clothes, ski boots, and our computer, and another that could take 2 months with our furniture, bikes, and everything else.

In the meantime until we find an apartment and our things arrive, we are staying in a corporate apartment.  It has a great location in the middle of town so we can walk to almost everything we need.  The first week was a little disorienting, but we are starting to learn our way around and have found the closest grocery store, tried a few of the many bakeries, started to check out the local cuisine and restaurants.

It was at one of these restaurants that we were introduced to a weird Austrian holiday tradition. We sat quietly eating dinner when we hear a loud metal clanging from the entrance.  It turned out to be the sound of large bells attached to a person in a really scary devil costume.  He was followed by a few more like him and they wandered around the restaurant stopping at each table to stare and poke the patrons.

The costumes were really something to see – fur bodies and detailed masks with horns – and so creepy.  After a while, another character entered.  This time it was someone dressed like an old-fashioned Santa with long red robes, a bishop’s hat, and a staff.  It turned out to be Saint Nicholas himself.  The tradition goes that he and the beasty named Krampus wander around together near December 6th.  If you’ve been good, St. Nick will give you candy. If you’ve been bad, you have to face the devilish Krampus.  If I saw these costumes as a kid, I’d be terrified enough to be good forever.

We must be behaving here in Austria, because in the end we came home with a handful of candy and escaped from Krampus!

Posted in Austria, Living Abroad | 2 Comments »

It’s a Whole New Ballgame

Friday, December 10th, 2010

It seems like every time I post a new blog I’m apologizing for not writing in a long time.  Since we’ve been back from traveling, it seems like “regular life” just takes up so much time.  I think that for this post I really do have a good excuse for not writing in a while.

A lot has happened in the last 2 months.  Eric got a job offer in Austin and we starting packing our things, imagining what life would be like in Texas.  While we were in the midst of planning for that move, he received a second job offer.  As the old saying goes, when it rains… The second offer was for a position in Austria and it completely took us by surprise.  Many times during our travel, we had late night discussions over bottles of wine about how we’d like to live “somewhere else” for a while.  Now the prospect of being an expat is real and there was no way we could turn it down.  Congrats to Eric for supplying us with this great opportunity to work, live, and especially travel in Europe.

So within two weeks our plans completely changed direction.  Packing for AUStin became packing for AUStria. (needless to say some of our friends were very confused… “ You mean Europe??”  “I thought you said Texas!”)  We sold our car and some of our furniture, put our house up for rent, and started to close up our accounts and withdraw from our California lives.  It has been a very emotional month with the excitement of a new adventure tempered slightly by a realization that we are leaving behind a very safe, comfortable life for the unknown.

Granted, Austria is a first world western country, so I don’t exactly expect a hardship.  However, the weather, the language, and the lifestyle will all be different.  With that in mind, I’m planning to start up the blog again to focus on our experience of living abroad.

More coming soon….next post from Austria!

Just when we finally go the house back in shape – the new paint , fireplace, TV, and bamboo floor will be enjoyed by someone else.  Our empty house after moving day:

Posted in Travel | 1 Comment »