süsses Haupthaus

Home sweet home.

We're a bit busy with the Farewell to Austria tour just now. We have loads of photos on our cameras and we keep meaning to tell you about visitors from Germany, the 5-course (maybe six - there was a LOT of wine) dinner party Angelika threw for us, a trip to Bratislava.... There will even be one more tour guiding opportunity before we leave. My co-worker, Neil, will be flying through Vienna on his way to Kosovo so we'll show him around on our last day in town.

The thing is: with all these frantic "one more times" we haven't focused on the blogging. We promise to do a giant wrap-up post (or two) before we share the coming home culture shock. We have to turn in our modem tomorrow morning, though, so those posts will likely have be created "stateside." In the meantime, I have a little tour of our flat for you.

This has been home for nearly five months!

welcome
WC on the right, kitchen too
Lots of storage on the left, including Christmas decorations (no, not ours)

the kitchen may have more counterspace than ours,
but we won't miss the stove; the ignition gives us fits

The bathroom and our first DIY project
Remember this?

The washing machine in the bathroom
(drying happens on a rack in the bedroom, ironing in the living room)

Heading back out of the kitchen. Just past the clean dishes is the Wasserhahn.

our living room, with plenty of shelf space for hiding yarn

The dining room. Looks a lot like the living room, no?

our bedroom
If only we had closets like that in St. Paul!

I think Curt is itching to get back to yardwork (!) and I'm looking forward to bold paint colors instead of old-lady wallpaper, but this has been a great temporary home.

Budapest, Örülök, hogy megismerhetem!

we hope that's Hungarian for: Budapest, it is nice to meet you!

On the 15th, we traveled to Hungary to meet my college friends, Jon and Lina, and their daughter, Annemieke, who now live in Geneva. We arrived after a very hot, three-hour train ride from Vienna. In our compartment was a Serbian family traveling on to Belgrade. We really could not understand any of their conversations but a few things are universal: the two kids wanted whatever the other had; the other always got more than me; McDonald’s is obviously Mecca to anyone under the age of eight.

It was so hot the emus would have been running backwards and Curt turned upside down.

Our arrival in Budapest seemed to have transported us to 1890. The train station was grand yet sparse; no modern technology in sight. Although it appeared decrepit, it oddly seemed at the same time rather regal. We hiked around the area to find a bank and figure out how to exchange money. Not since March in Prague had we been in a place where the language seemed utterly unrecognizable. It is intimidating but also fun.

with a smile like that, A. didn't need to know Hungarian to get cookies from the waiters

Once we navigated the money exchanges, purchasing tickets, and a persistent beggar who had the nastiest black eye and the impression that I would be her sugardaddy, we made our way to the subway. The first leg of the trip was a visit to the former Communist days, complete with dull green paint in a somewhat classy cattle car. Cool art deco light fixtures however. We then transferred to the M2 line where we traveling to the Opera stop. This line is awesome and dare I say cute. The trains are three small cars and the stations are bright ceramic tiles with wood fixtures. Even cooler was the music playing when the car doors open and shut. Very similar to baseball organ music. No one else on the subway seemed to appreciate me yelling “Go Twins”.

public baths in City Park (next time we'll go in)

Our friends found an apartment rental service rather than getting a hotel. We met the owner who showed us to the top floor of what must have been a very grand apartment building in the 1880’s. A real Altbau. A rickety caged elevator brought us to the top floor that had a terrace overlooking the interior courtyard. Our apartment was huge with 20 foot ceilings. Beautiful wood wardrobes and endtables. The rest of the décor was rather non-existent. We had the only balcony on the exterior building which overlooked the opera and Morrison’s Music Pub. Interesting combo and we are certain more Jaegermeister swilling patrons were turned away from the pub than at the opera.

view of the Opera from our balcony

the building across the street with what appears to be damage from a war,
not typical preservation work in MN

the courtyard of our apartment building,

with sheepskins on the railing

Parliament in Pest, from Buda

lucky for us, Annemieke led us to some great sites
(like you didn't know she'd be in charge)

a tower in Buda

we almost skipped this cathedral, but were happy to go inside (good eye, Curt)
the interior is covered with art nouveau/folk art designs (I won't bore you with all the detail shots I took)

Széchenyi Lánchíd
or The Chain Bridge

the end of a concert outside Parliament

despite the heat....

you can't leave Budapest without some gulasch (served over a flame).

For those of you trying to keep track, Curt wrote the main text, Heather wrote the captions.

Gute Freunde, Gutes Essen

Good Friends, Good Food

We've been remiss in our posting duties lately, haven't we? Perhaps this means that living in Europe is starting to feel normal.

The last couple of weeks have been filled with friendships - renewing old ones, making new ones and nurturing the ones we've made here in Vienna. So, this is going to be a long one. Go ahead, grab a cup of coffee. We'll wait....

For what those of you in the states know as Memorial Day weekend, we hopped on a full train to Munich. Our plan was to spend some more time with Curt's high school host brother and get to know his girlfriend, Maria. Who knew that we would eat so much great food, too? Friday night, they took us to a Greek restaurant where we stuffed ourselves, drank a bit, and laughed our way through several stories.

Saturday afternoon, I took a little break to meet a couple of knitters I'd found online. Bockstark Knits and Elemmaciltur picked me up at the hotel and we went to the cafe at the end of the block. We spent two and a half hours speaking in "code" and talking about living the ex-pat lifestyle. They are delightful and I'm thrilled that they've started a podcast so I can keep up with their German lives even after we land back in MN. There might even be some yarn swapping in our futures.... (I had so much fun chatting with them that I forgot to take any pictures. We all forgot to knit, too, though we did show off our WIP's - see? code!)

Saturday afternoon, Till and Curt gave up on me and headed into the Englischer Garten for lunch. I managed to track them down in the beer garden and joined them for a bite to eat. Maria came a bit later and we enjoyed a lazy afternoon in the park. We left just as it started to rain. While M & T started dinner, Curt bought flowers and we took naps.

apperatifs

We were treated to a five-course, five-hour Italian dinner that was to die for! Champagne cocktails on the balcony, prosciutto and melon, salad, roast beef with kohlrabi, panna cotta.... There was a moment when I thought we'd never cook for friends again; we'd been outdone. But, most of you don't get to sample the cooking prowess of these two, so I guess we'll keep hosting now and then.

nothing tops good food made by good friends

Sunday, we took a long stroll through Munch with Maria and Till before we caught our train "home." Most blogworthy thing we saw: surfing in a stream.

surfing in a landlocked city

We returned to Vienna for a scholarly week. Curt had class all day Tuesday through Friday and Monday! I finished my German class. It was hard to say goodbye to my new friends knowing that it may be too hard to communicate with each other to stay in touch. Here they are (minus two who fell prey to the sore throat that passed around our classroom table):

Deutsch 1A students from Turkey, Venezuela, VietNam and Spain, with a teacher from Vienna

Saturday, we took a car tour with Marie and Florian, Curt's WU "buddy" and her boyfriend. They took us to a heuriger in Sooss where we had a great lunch overlooking the vineyards and bought several bottles of wine. Then, they drove us up a mountain for a view over the city. It was too hazy for good vista photos, but we had a ball.

On Monday, I got up early to have breakfast with Angelika and her Texan "sisters."

Tanna, Angelika and Sue, as they welcome me into their "family"

After coffee, rolls, jam..... Gino took us over to the neighboring school where he (mostly) followed the directions of the kids and they enjoyed watching the Americans attempt the training tricks too. It was a rowdy lot and so much fun!

Gino's tongue post-work reminds me of Loyd's on a hot day

After 'school' we spent a lovely afternoon laughing in the kitchen, the garden and on the kitchen deck. I'm sure you can imagine that we were very well fed. There was Prosecco and Gugelhupf. There was lamb tagine on almond couscous. Then, perfectly steamed salmon on farfalle. Dessert was rhubarb tartlettes and espresso. SOOOO good.

the Dining Room's chief supervisor

This last one is my favorite photo of the day. Gino had had enough of the photos, but I don't mind that he's looking away. The expression on Angelika's face is just right - happy, loving and so warm, just like her.

Another couple of friends it will be so hard to leave.

So, does that make up for the lack of photos lately?

Home Improvement Fun

As many of you know, I am not exactly handy or at least I really don't care to try. However, Vienna may have changed that for me. That is if Menards or Home Depot will follow my suggestions. We have been haunted since our arrival by the squeakiest bathroom door imaginable. Now we have been in our apartment since February 13 so one would think we would have addressed the issue before now. Please see first sentence if you need an explanation why we did not. But the sun came out yesterday and we were feeling adventurous.

We set out looking for a computer printer (cheap) and WD-40 or some other lubricant. In the past we had avoided asking for lubricant because I have had experiences in the past with something lost in the translation. My fear was being given directions to some shop in the red light district. Fortunately, we found Obi (be still Star Wars fans), Vienna's version of the home improvement box store. As we all know, there is nothing that cannot be fixed with either WD-40 or duct tape. That partially holds true here. The lubricant was pretty much in the first display we came upon. I didn't see duct tape however.

What truly set the store apart and from which our American superduper home improvement stores could learn were the extra features. Greeting us as we entered the store was a bakery/smoked meats kiosk. Sure, upon entering, Menards does have the 8-pack of Pringles, 5-lbs. bag of Combos, 3 gallon jar of mixed nuts, and gallon o' beef jerky. The Obi kiosk seemed to actually cater to someone shopping for a group smaller than the Donner party. But, wait, that is not all. As we were checking out, there was a cafe selling hot lunches and featuring (roughly translated): "Nurturing beer, amazing red and white wines by the glass, or refreshing Prosecco." The Menards in St. Paul occupied that very same spot with the cellophane encased mega-nacho and sort of cheese spread case.

I am not sure Heather was all that impressed but I began planning our return to buy the materials to construct a deck on our third story apartment.

Addendum: the door doesn't squeak any longer, we did not find a printer, and I got some schnitzel.