scrawls.

scrawls

still cheaper than therapy*

23.2.07

so, obviously,

there are good days to be here and bad days to be here. There are more bad days in the beginning, i think, when really nothing makes any sense and you can't find any tomatoes or shampoo or something, and you have this desperate need to do laundry and no options, and no friends, and noone to call and freak out to and completely dissolve on, and it's all so bizarre and foreign and of course you knew it was going to be but not like this, and you're fucked because now you're here and you can't even find anything to eat. Small things become very, very big. Eventually they get back into proportion, generally, as you find food and meet a person or two so you can leave your flat and go out into the world and start behaving like a rational human being instead of some crazy hermit. Finding things to eat is very, very important.

Small and weird and okay: There is no Energizer bunnny: There is a Duracell bunny, and a little Energizer dude-made-out-of-batteries.

Small and weird and bad: I hate the dial tone. And the ringing-noise, too, for that matter.

Big and weird and mostly good: We have no car. Public transportation is awesome until midnight, when everything turns into a pumpkin, and you have to walk home. But walking home is not really so far. And not having a car is very, very cheap, but it means that we can't just hop in and go somewhere, like Switzerland or something, or even to the airport to pick up M's brother with the dogs. Not that this will happen so often - but still.

Medium-sized and weird and not so great: We still do not speak German. M's work is buying him lessons, we think, possibly starting next month; after I get my work visa, which could theoretically take up to a month or more yet, then i can negotiate a contract with my work, and presumably the people they use to teach German to their employees start classes every month or every other month or so because Berlitz is a very large company and i couldn't imagine they would start classes less often than that. But we have enough german to get groceries and food, and not starving is very important.

Small and weird and very, very bad: Stores are still closed, everywhere, after 7 pm every day, 5 pm (latest) on Saturdays, and entirely on Sundays, except for the ones at the very largest train stations. We are near enough to one of these (Sudbahnhof) that if it was an emergency, we would still have something to eat; but it is overpriced and yucky. Eventually we will learn to plan around this.

Medium-sized (well, for me) and weird and bad: There are only five spices here: paprika, oregano, basil, pepper, and coriander. There is no rosemary. There is no cumin, no thyme, no turmeric, no nutmeg, no chile peppers, no jalapeno. There are herbes des provence and curry mixes, but, first, who the fuck uses herbes des provence, and, second, could we have more than one variety of curry mix, please, so that not everything tastes the fucking same. And fucking parsey doesn't count. Lack of cumin = no chili. Lack of thyme (and, for that matter, why do they not have celery, like, anywhere?) = no jambalaya. No jambalaya and no chili = sad liz. i really need to NOT google mexican food right now or i might cry.

Small and weird and really quite excellent: Five weeks (i think, it might be six) of vacation. F-i-v-e. Holy shit.

Small and weird and disappointing: Everyone says the bread is supposed to be awesome. M was hoping that it would be like the French bread at Albertsons. It is most distinctly not. At all. And there are a million different kinds of this bread that always looks so good, and then it is like trying to eat an iron ingot once you bring it home because it is nothing but density and you have a mouthful and you're full. And annoyed. Because they call it eighty different things, too, so you're trying to find some kind of bread that is not like this, only they all are.

Medium-sized and surprising and good: Pizza is excellent. Mmmmm. Every other block has a brick-oven pizza shop. Lovely. We like pizza.

Small and weird and will probably end up being good, later, once we have the nerve: There are sushi shops everywhere, too, but austria has no coastline, so we're a little squicked out by it.

Small and weird and sad: They have no proper toasters. They have sliced bread, but no toasters. Similarly to how they have blankets and sheets and fuzzy sweaters, but no clothes dryers. It's like living without ever seeing the sun. And the worst part is that they don't even know what they're missing. You tell them about dryers and warm blankety goodness and they're like, So?

Small and surprising and good: Our flat has this incredible, wide, deep bathtub. it doesn't look so big, but then you get in it and it is.

Medium-sized and weird and bad: They also have no Travelocity. A million airlines advertising all over the city, and noplace to actually find a cheap fare unless you go and pay one of the million travel agents all over the city.

Big and weird and bad: Did i mention we had to come up with nearly five months worth of rent to sign the rental contract and move in? We did. It was the suck. And we got a fucking deal, so it could have been much worse and usually is and we were lucky. Lucky to only have to pay nearly five months rent. At least we only have to do it once.

Big and weird and good: Our apartment is nice. It will be even nicer when we have furniture in it.

Labels: expat, vienna

scrawled @ 14:18