September Snow

Morning



It was pouring of rain as Maciek and Milly left the house this morning for school.  Maciek commented that it looked almost like snow, and he was right, as not long after he’d driven away the drops fell thicker, and it ended up snowing all day leaving everything blanketed white and little icicles hanging from gutters.  It was magical to watch, totally unexpected and we got a glimpse of what Christmas will be like this year.  Completely unprepared as we are for this weather, when Milly came home from school Maciek made the kids some makeshift gloves out of socks covered in nappy sacks, and out they went to build a snowman complete with a carrot nose and a funny black hat!  Great for them as for the past couple of months the DVD of ‘The Snowman’ has captivated Noah and has been a regular pre-bedtime wind down activity, and they were so excited to be able to build their very own.  Not that he’ll be coming to life at midnight, as he’s already half melted!  The forecast for the rest of the week is sunny and low 20’s.  So my panic at not having anything to wear has died down as I’ve been told I’ve still got another month at least to sort out my wardrobe. 



Afternoon



If you know ‘The Snowman’ you’ll know the main track from it is ‘We’re Walking in the Air’ when the boy and his magical snowman fly to the North Pole to see Father Christmas.  Noah walks around singing it, only he sings ‘We’re Talking in the Air, Todaaaay’.  I just had to add that in so I don’t forget it, because it’s so sweet!



The first Grabowski Snowman



Midday



To end a great day, we acquired a used bike off a friend for Milly, and we captured some great video footage of her riding on her own up and down the driveway for the first time, surrounded by snow.  She’s  doing really well, as long as she gets a push start.  And Maciek predicts she’ll be riding all by herself within a week!  That just leaves me.  Maciek still has hopes of me joining his enthusiasm for all sports Xtreme – tell him he’s dreamin’!  I’m happy on the sidelines sipping hot chocolate!





Ikkey Mah



 











The House Fairy and other stories.....

The river near us

Maciek had told Amelia to make a wish to The House Fairy, to find us a nice house to live in.  And sure enough she came through with the goods much to Amelia’s delight.  It’s not big overall but the bedrooms are huge and there’s so much storage space that there are cupboards and wardrobes that we haven’t been able to fill.  The bathroom is new with underfloor heating and so is the kitchen even though it’s tiny.  This kitchen has an oven, and a kettle, but no microwave or freezer!  The owner is meant to be trying to get us one.  Oh well, you can’t have everything.  The décor leaves a lot to be desired.  Apart from new flooring and the abovementioned renovations, the rest of it looks like it was bought from a deceased estate jumble sale fifty years ago, and not in a retro way!  And it smells like great great grandma’s house that’s been empty for years everytime you walk in.  My favourite piece though is the old tapestry hanging on the wall of the kids room that belongs in a 16th century castle.  We also found out when registering our residency at the local town hall that there is a man also registered at this address who was born in 1913. The man at the town hall said that he has probably died and the current owners have forgotten to deregister him. Then Maciek said we’ll look for him under the floorboards as there seems to be a bad smell coming from there.  The Austrian man found this very amusing and made Maciek repeat the joke to me when I had returned to the desk after taking Noah outside (before he wrecked the place and ate all the complimentary gummy bears). The Austrians are not known for their sense of humour, more for hiking and yodeling and spraying manure all over the place, and they all sound like Arnold Schwartzanegger when speaking English. 

Speaking of weird and wonderful, I sent a wish to the Sleep-In Fairy on our first night here.  With the most annoying church bells in the world far behind us and shutters on the kids bedroom that plunge the room into darkness even in the middle of the day, I held high hopes.  And to our delight, we had a glorious Sunday morning sleep in until 8am!

Since getting involved in the school I have met so many people.  Mostly British women married to Austrians, but some who have moved out here with their families.  We’ve been blown away by the help they’ve offered, and somebody always knows somebody who can help us with work and accommodation.  People I haven’t even met yet, are emailing me about meeting up so they can come with me to the library and show me how it all works so I don’t have to fumble through on my own, or take me to the doctors to register.  I’ve had texts and phone calls just to see how we’re getting on and asking if there’s anything we need.  We’ve heard there are lots of Australians living here too, but have yet to meet one.  The population of St Johann is 8500, so it’s small enough that word travels fast, and Maciek had a meeting today with the Manager of a tiling company and a strong possibility of work until Christmas which will help us get through the winter.

First day at school

The first week of Nursery and Kindergarten for Noah and Amelia is over.  It wasn’t as bad as we anticipated, getting up early and out to school on time (they start at 8am) after 3 months of no routine.  Noah loves it and wants to go everyday, and when we turn into the street where the school is he yells ‘yay kindy!’  And to our complete surprise, Amelia has loved it too.  We expected tears and clinginess, but apart from the first day she has skipped in to the classroom with a wave, a blown kiss and a huge smile, and coming home with stories of all the new things she has learnt.  I was a bit shocked though at being asked to sign a form to give the school permission to administer medication to the children to prevent illness associated with radiation after a nuclear plant disaster!  Not something I’d ever given any thought to, so naturally I was taken aback!  Apparently all schools around Europe need to get this permission from parents after the disaster at Chenobyl and more recently Japan.  Austria has no Nuclear Power Stations, but every country surrounding it does.  I signed it, thinking the likelihood of it happening is minute.  What else could I do??? 

We have no English channels on the T.V, so have no clue what’s going on in the world a

s we can’t understand the news, that is when we can find a news channel.  The kids don’t seem to mind.  We’ve listened to The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse song in French, Polish and German, and it’s funny watching Die Simpsons with the distinctive voices we’ve come to know having been dubbed over.  The German Marge has a lovely smooth feminine voice, and Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal in the German ‘Analyse This’ is just not the same.  Scrubs was on yesterday which was funny, and not because I could understand the humour!

Anyway, it’s the weekend and I’m sending another wish to the Sleep-In Fairy.

So for now, Asta La Vista, Baby.  I’ll be back.

Tell me when this hike is over!

Sprechen Sie Englisch???

Top floor apartment for 2 weeks

Piggy Back

The kids have officially gone feral!  After three months of upheaval and only each other to play with it’s understandable!  I spent the morning at the school helping out with cleaning and classroom preparation where I met Amelia’s teacher and the lady who runs the Kinderkrippe where Noah will go.  I also met the teachers’ aid who is from London but married to an Austrian and has lived here for 10 years, she was very warm and easy to get along with, so I have no worries about the kids settling in and enjoying themselves, and the routine will be great for them.  And us! 

On Tuesday we did a huge hike.  1.5 hours up and 1.5 hours down.  We encountered more cows on our path and a curious horse who took a fancy to Amelia’s bright pink attire and squeals of terror.  We made it in good time, instead of an hour behind the scheduled one, as we splashed out on a baby carrier for Noah (a father’s day present), the hardy-proper- hiker- type ones!  It was an ambitious first hike to take it out on, and Maciek was pretty sore the next day.  And I had trouble walking up the three flights of stairs to our apartment.  Poor Amelia complained all the way down, but I don’t blame her, it was pretty tough, and so much cow poo to dodge!

We’ve been having trouble getting the kids to bed before 9pm.  We tried putting Noah in a bed but because he is such a restless sleeper and we have no bed rail it just wasn’t working, so back into the cot with him!  Last night Amelia wasn’t in bed until 11pm! There is a village church a few hundred metres from our apartment, and the bell ‘DONGS’ 28 times x 3 every morning at 7am, even on Sundays, and has never failed to wake us up.  But this morning, just because we all had to wake up early so that I could get to the school, everyone slept through it!  Good in a way for Amelia because she had such a late night.  But not good for me as I was supposed to be at the school for 8.30am.  Why do these things happen? 

Princess Hiker

After a frustrating first week looking for accommodation and waiting to hear from people who can shed light on living and working here, we are finally finding our feet.  We found a little holiday cottage available for rent until Christmas and then for 6 weeks after New Year.  Hopefully by then we’ll know one way or another what our plans are, and can either take a longer lease or ditch the idea altogether!  We move in on Saturday, and it will be nice not to have to traipse up flights of stairs and be able to sit in the lounge room while the kids play in the fenced garden.  We met an English couple running a Bed and Breakfast not far from us who have been here 4 years, and I have finally been in touch with Catherine who’s daughter will be in Amelia’s class.  So, so far we have 3 people to call and chat to locally!  It’s not easy though.  The language barrier makes things very difficult.  The simplest thing seems impossible and it’s a knock to the confidence having to make a pratt of yourself umpteen times a day.  Some people are smiley and helpful and others are just straight faced and serious and make you feel like a nuisance!  We are excited and encouraged one day, and feeling dejected and flat on another.  For example, we need bed linen and towels for our new house, do you think we can find any? Where is Big W when you need it? (By the way, Big W at ‘Joondy-Up’ is Amelia’s favourite shop, she tells me!)

Silly Moo!

Hopefully getting into a routine next week will help, and now begins the search for work!  Even though I needn’t have missed the church bells in Soest that I loved so much, as there are churches everywhere through Europe, I DEFINATELY won’t miss this one! It’s been a complete pain in the bum.  Fingers crossed for a sleep in this Sunday.  Wishful thinking!

Lost in the wilderness

Awards and Statistics

(Link to the journey map  http://g.co/maps/qh3c)

To mark the end of our 3 month journey we thought it might be interesting to look back and record some of our bests and worsts!

First of all here is a photo of our Sat Nav recorded statistics.  When we first found this (Maciek accidentally came by it while trying to search for something else) it told us our fuel costs and total driving time, which would have been interesting if we could find it again or remember it.  The maximum recorded speed of 144 kmh must have been when we were trying to outrun the Swiss police when they caught us mowing our lawn on a Sunday!  Not really.  But that is an actual law in Switzerland, believe it or not.  There is also a link to a Google map of our journey.

We can call our journey The Magical Birthday Tour with Maciek’s marking the beginning, and mine wrapping it up, with two little ones for each month in the middle!

We are grateful for the fact that we had no major problems at all, and that apart from a night in Torquay when Milly was sick all night and a morning on the second visit to Soest, when Noah was also sick, and a few sore throats and runny noses, we had no health issues.  (Apart from the sea sickness and constant vomiting from the back seat whilst driving.)

It was such an awesome experience,  however hard and stressful it was at times. 

And the Oscar (or wooden spoon) goes to…………….

Worst Roads:

Winner!!!   Poland, followed closely by England due to the abundance of ridiculous roundabouts.

Scariest Moment:

Winner!!!   Losing Noah in France (We’ll elaborate later, didn’t mention it before as we didn’t want to give our oldies heart attacks), followed closely by -  losing Noah at the aqua park in Poland (it’s okay he had floaties on).  In third place is Maciek nearly breaking his shin.  Joint third place is when Maciek was stung by a bee in Kitzbuhel and let go of the stroller which then rolled down the hill and into the road, with Noah in it.

Best food (excluding home cooked):

Winner!!!   Ireland.  Followed closely by no-one.

Most Spectacular town:

Winner!!!   Annecy in the French Alps.

Cosiest Accommodation:

Winner!!!   The farmhouse cottage in the Cotswalds.

Most Relaxing Place/when we felt like we were actually on holidays:

Winner!!!   Second week in France, in the Dordogne, due to the accommodation, weather, and pool!  Followed very closely by Sportcamp Wolfergut in the second week of Austria.

Worst Travelling Companion

Whinger!!!   NOAH

Funniest Moment:

Winner!!!  Amelia doing a number 2 in someone else’s apartment at Haus am Wald!

Most Valuable Purchase:

Winner!!!  The Sat Nav.  As much as we gave out about it, we would have been literally lost without Karen!

Oh, and obviously the car!

Best Bargains:

Winner!!!  Torquay for cheap food and clothes

Most expensive:

Winner!!!   Ireland!

Worst weather:

Winner!!!   Edinburgh!

Most Frustrating:

Winner!!!  Bad skype connections

Worst thing about long distance driving:

Mel’s winner!!!   Getting seat belt burn on my neck from constantly turning around to pick up toys off the floor and pass food and drink to the monsters in the back seat.

Maciek’s Winner!!!  Those @#*%!! roundabouts in England! (have I mentioned those before?)

Cheapest Banana’s:

Winner!!!  Soest at 79 cents per kilo

Interesting to note:  Number of different beds we slept in:  19!!

Obviously we can’t give everything a mention.   We’ve done so much and visited so many places over the past 3 months that this post could go on for pages and pages.  Every place had something special.  I’ve noticed I’ve given out more Wooden Spoons than Oscars, but all the great stuff has already been written in the blog!

Thanks everyone for all the comments to the posts.  We really enjoyed reading them, we were always excited when we got a new one and they gave us encouragment when we were struggling.  We will continue with the blog as we attempt to live in Austria over the winter, but posts may not be as frequent as we will not have a regular internet connection, but we'll try our best.  But for now, that's the end of the first chapter.  Tchuss!

Happy Birthday to Meeeee!!

On the road for the last time

On a 'walk'

We left Poland in shorts and thongs in 34 degrees heat to arrive at our overnight stopover in a little town called Pfeimd in Germany, north of Munich, freezing to bits in 14 degrees!!  We hadn’t thought to check the weather at our destination as we’d been sweltering away in Poland for over a week and had forgotten about cold weather!

Driving into Austria the next day took us back to those first weeks away, which seem so long ago now, exactly 3 months since we left Perth.  Sunny skies and spectacular scenery, greenery, smooth roads and that refreshing scent of freshly sprayed manure!!  (No kidding, Austria smells like cow poo, you get used to after a while!)

Water park

It felt good being back those first few days.  Nice to think we only had one more move left which would be into a permanent house or apartment for the next 6 months.  This apartment is good except for the extraordinarily small kitchen without an oven, microwave, kettle or toaster or draining board, which will make culinary delights pretty hard to achieve over the next fortnight.  Not that I’m any good at it any way!  And after 3 months of eating very basic meals or eating out I’ve almost forgotten how to cook.

We have free entry into the local swimming pools with indoor and outdoor facilities, heated pools, jacuzzi’s, water slides and a playground so we’ve been there a couple of times, where Maciek and I took turns doing laps to trim off some of that holiday chub and where I had a menacing fight with a wasp!  It was self-defence, it was attacking me from all sides, and it deserved what it got.  It wasn’t the first and it won’t be the last to meet its fate at the hands of my stealth slipper and thong wacking action! 

How sweet!

Maciek has played tennis again, and we’ve been on a hike (don’t tell Amelia, to her it’s just a ‘walk’!  She says “ Are you sure this is only a walk, because it feels like a hike and my legs are aching already!”)  We ended our ‘walk’ at a glamorous 5 star resort with Mercedes and Porsches parked outside and old people milling around in white bath robes and lying on sun beds reading books.  Reminded me of a scene from Little Britain.  But next to the state of the art underground tennis courts was a great little playground overlooking an enormous field where Amelia came out with another pearler, “Wow this looks like the whole WORLD!  I could do cartwheels ALL OVER THE PLACE!!”

mmmm cake!

The past couple of days have been more stressful and we’re becoming anxious about finding a place to live for the winter.  It’s difficult with the language barrier and not being able to enquire about the most basic things, and I am awaiting a reply from the one English speaking person I know here.  But after speaking to friends and family from home today we feel better and are sure that within the next  few days things will start moving in the right direction.  Fingers crossed anyway.  I spent my birthday doing nothing, something I haven’t done for 3 months!  Maciek looked after the kids and I slept in until 10, then I slouched around in trackies all day and ate cake!  Hip Hip – Hooorraayyyy!!