Continuing my posts to catch up about the places we visited last month, I have to mention Italy as well.  We took a weekend with my parents to visit Venice and Verona. Venice was everything I expected and more.  For some reason we all thought it would be a lot smaller and smellier.  It’s actually pretty […]

We are once again spending Independence Day outside of the US, but wanted to take a minute to wish all our friends and family back home a Happy 4th of July! While this is just like any other day here, they are starting to gear up for the summer season in the shops.  We found these in […]

Hosting guests gave us a good excuse to explore our neighborhood in Europe a little.  Just down road (actually through a tunnel under a mountain) is Slovenia.  The capital Ljubljana is about an hour drive and has enough sights to spend at least an afternoon.  It’s interesting that as soon as you cross the border there […]

My parents recently visited us and we got to do quite a few touristy things in the area.  The next few posts will be some short descriptions and reviews of them. While we have a local airport about 30 minutes drive away, the closest big, international airport is Munich, about 3 hours away.  We met my […]

Now that we have a car, it’s time to explore the area beyond our little town.  After talking to both expats and locals, we made a long list of potential things to do here in the summer.  Item #23 is the Giro d’Italia (kind of like Italy’s version of the Tour de France).  We went to […]

I spent a lot of time writing about the car, but then again I spent a lot time dealing with it.  While the last two posts were all about the process, they didn’t give me quite enough space to really talk about the experience.    If you’ll indulge me, I thought I would take one more […]

When we last left our heroine (me), she was informed by her husband that he was leaving for a business trip and she would need to pick up the new car in Munich by herself.  And drive it back to Austria.  And take care of a few details to get it registered… Let’s re-join the story […]

Our apartment in Austria is on the main street of town, so just about everything we need is in walking distance, including Eric’s job.  This means that we don’t really need a car on a daily basis which is quite a change from SoCal where you can’t go anywhere without one. Having said that, we […]

I think most of you have heard of Mardi Gras and Carnival, but Fasching is the German/Austrian equivalent.  It’s basically a big party before lent begins that involves costumes, donuts, and beer, all in large quantities. One of the largest Fasching celebrations here in Austria happened on Saturday right outside my apartment.  The day started with […]

Part of Eric’s move package included a few months in a corporate apartment.  It was nicely furnished and centrally located, but ultimately a little too small.  We were also getting anxious to find a place of our own because our shipments of “stuff” (clothes, some furniture, pots, dishes, books) from the US arrived. Finding an apartment […]

I chose the title of this blog for 2 reasons.  One, because it’s spelled the same in both Deutsch and English (although not pronounced quite the same), and two, because it’s what we’ve been doing. We also found an apartment and moved in, but that is a story for another blog.  Nearly all of our time […]

I hope the new year is starting off well for everyone. I actually wrote this post a few weeks ago and then forgot to publish it! We celebrated the big night in Austria for the first time.  Everyone converged on the town square, and even though it was cold, they kept warm with some dancing and […]

One of the big advantages of the move to Austria has been the possibility of more travel in Europe.  We are really right in the middle of everything and have a long list of places we’d like to see while we are here. We ended up with some time off  at Xmas and decided to take […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

After the excitement of the century ride, we decided to take some time off and enjoy the extended summer weather we are lucky enough to get here in California.  We thought about going to Yosemite camping, but decided to head for Sequoia and King’s Canyon National Parks instead.  We had never been to either one and […]

Eric and I have been into cycling for a while now – both as fans of professional races and riding on our own for fun.  For some reason though, I’ve always had this notion that you can’t really call yourself a cyclist until you’ve done a century ride (that’s 100 miles… yes, in one day).  We’ve […]