Reality Bites

Our house for now

Every morning I wake up with a sick feeling.  So does Maciek, but he talks himself out of it better than I do.  The butterflies are always there (not talking about the abundance of pretty ones fluttering about that have Milly convinced they are fairies because they are so colourful!  Or the kind that would have my friend in a fit of hysterics – you know who you are!!). 

It’s still a mad rush to get to school, never enough time for a cup of tea or proper breakfast for me.  We have to be out by 7.45 latest, it takes us five minutes to walk to and get into the car, and that’s without the snow and frost.  Even worse is the layers of clothing needed, and worse still when I have Noah all dressed boots and all, and then he decides to do a poo. (It’s okay, he says, I’ve got Winnie on (Winnie the Pooh patterned nappies)).

Around the village

The quality of meat here is not great, weird considering the number of cows, you can’t get a decent steak.  I still haven’t plucked up the courage to order from the deli counter as even though I can rehearse my question, the babble that comes back to me from the butcher leaves me completely stumped, and with a queue of people waiting to order, I’m just too embarrassed.  I know this is silly, but I’m using my avoidance strategy to cope with this one!

The house still needs cleaning, but all I’ve got is an ancient vacuum cleaner that doesn’t pick up and a broom from the shed that looks like it’s been lived in by a number of different residents over the years.  I’m without my Eco spray n wipe, good bathroom cleaners, and steam mop.  Trying to cook good meals with a very-stick frying pan, and without the most basic kitchen utensils is a challenge, and I want to make Babcia’s soup for the kids but where do we get good chicken pieces from?  It takes two hours to do food shopping as we do it at two different supermarkets for the best prices and selection.  And you’re doomed if you forget your 50cents for the trolley or your shopping bags!

When Milly was sick last week with a 40 degree temperature and a cough like her lungs were collapsing I had no idea where the doctor was.  Thankfully my friend’s Austrian father-in-law agreed to see her and she met me in town to take me to his practice.  Being a friend of his DIL he wasn’t concerned with insurance or payment from me (as we hadn’t received Maciek’s insurance from his employer yet) and I was very grateful for that.  She was fine after a couple of days, but it’s always a worry, also not knowing if the doctors will be able to speak English.

We attended our first 5^th birthday party yesterday, a friend’s little boy.  I managed to find him a present but do you think I could find him a card?  It seems they don’t do cards here, so don’t expect any Christmas ones!  I will have to work out how to send e-cards.  My friend says she buys hers from England and sends them back from here!   Milly enjoyed the party until she suddenly threw up, and threw up again on the way home in the car, which went everywhere, and with the lack of cleaning stuff we might be in for an unpleasant scent accompanying our drive to school!  Plus the dryer decided not to work.  So I washed all her clothes, and they’ll probably take days to dry.

The weather turned on Friday.  After a glorious few weeks of mid 20’s, the temperature dropped to 9, and it was pelting with rain all night and most of the day.  Maciek has been riding to work, and without rainproof pants he arrived at work with a soaking wet bum, and had to work like that for hours, thankfully finishing at midday! 

Batty the Snowman

Yesterday there was snow on the mountains.  This morning I woke with the kids at 6.30am to an eerie silence, strange after the pelting of yesterday.  I had an inkling, so we checked through the curtains and were blinded by the white!  Beautiful, until I realized that Amelia still doesn’t have a snow jacket, the kids have no thermals or proper hats, her warmest jacket is still wet after being thrown up on in the car, I have no warm jacket or jumpers whatsoever, or a hat.  And our winter tyres are at Aunty Sue’s house in Germany.

I’ve heard that to feel secure and content we need an equal balance of certainty and uncertainty in our lives.  For us at the moment the only things that are certain are that we have a roof over our heads until 22^nd December, and the kids have school to go to every day at 8am.  Everything else is completely up in the air.  I also know that things could be much worse.  I’m grateful that we do have a comfortable place to stay even if it’s temporary, food on the table, some new friends, and most importantly our health (most of the time!).  But it still doesn’t stop the worry about the future.

The Rockclimber

Sometimes I wish we were happy to just look at our dreams up there in our imaginations from a secure and comfortable place, without feeling the desire to actually reach them.  Things would be much easier, if our dreams remained dreams.  And now that we’re trying to reach ours, I’m wondering if it’s true that if you’re lucky enough for your dreams to become reality, that that’s all they turn out to be?

 

Ellmi’s and the Magical Wood

The train up

 On the weekend we joined some friends at the top of a mountain in Ellmau, about 10 minutes drive away.  We caught the mountain train just in time after battling with traffic and tourist coaches and closed roads all due to a concert by the much daggier, Eurovision-ised Austrian version of Tom Jones!  Apparently all the women over 50 go mad for him but even more disturbingly was that they seemed to have been joined by their husbands, all sporting the badge to let everyone know ‘I’ve been to the Helmut Hinterseer concert’ or whatever his name is!  He’s got blonde flowing hair and snow white teeth, a bit like a skinny Warwick Capper in pink fluffy boots!

The Giants' Chairs

Anyway, at the top of the mountain, 1500m up is a fantastic adventure land for kids, playgrounds and trampolines, all sorts of streams and paddling pools.  Part of the walking trail is called the magical wood.  A little way into it is a tunnel of overhanging branches that drizzle water over you as you walk through, like a rainforest, and creepy witches voices start cackling and talking from the trees.  Amelia wasn’t so keen on that bit!  There’s an owl carved out of wood who talks when you tap him with a stick, a big boat to climb aboard and pretend to be a pirate, fortresses hidden in the trees, an area covered in wooden mushrooms and toadstools the kids can play on, so many things that we didn’t even get around half of it.  The kids can also collect stamps from different areas on a map as they go around. 

But don’t worry, it’s not all for the kids.  There’s also a lovely restaurant and bar, and we ended the afternoon with a beer and an ice-cream with spectacular views.

The Lovely Land of Austria





Going to school



To paint a picture of the environment we are living in I’ll start this post off with the comment Maciek made when he returned from a ride on his new mountain bike.  “That was awesome, I could’ve slapped a cow on the arse!”



Yodel Man



I took the kids for a walk yesterday afternoon to the village and back.  There are lovely streams running through it, and a river, all crystal clear.  So many walking trails, mountains of cows (pardon the pun!).  Acres of fields.  Nobody has a fence around their house, and if they do it’s just a little picket one because it looks pretty! It’s weird wandering around a ‘suburb’ where all the houses are open, you could just wander through someone’s back yard.  It’s hard to tell which land is private and which bit you can run around on!  We’re less than a 5 minute drive from the school which is in town.  No traffic lights, no traffic jams.  September has been a beautiful month weather wise, pretty cold in the morning, mostly foggy or misty, but by lunch time we’re in shorts and t-shirts as it’s close to 30 degrees. Except for the day it snowed! Hard to know what to dress the kids in for school, as they often go out for walks (no parental permission required?!) (I refer back to the “Health and Safety: Was ist Das?” post!)  Too bad if there’s an emergency and I need to collect them from school unexpectedly only to find them not there, but up the mountain with the class learning about which mushrooms are delicious and which ones are deadly!

Maciek has been working now for a week and a half.  His boss speaks good English, and they guy he was working with for the first few days has a brother living in Oz and has travelled around it himself for 6 months, his English is good and he even knows some Aussie slang!  They do things quite differently though, and use different tools.  He leaves the house at 6.45am and doesn’t get home until 5pm, so it’s a long day after not working for over 3 months, so needless to say he’s pretty knackered!  And we miss him every afternoon, especially me, I count down the hours!



The Austrians speak with a dialect very different to high German.  And every town has a different one.  Someone told us that their son can’t understand the kids from a village 15 minutes drive away when they meet for sports games.  I am only starting to be able to hear the difference, slightly.  Two weeks ago I went to a parents evening at the school, thankfully the office manager sat next to me to translate.  The teacher taking the meeting began speaking, and then asked if I understood any German at all.  I said I could understand only bits and pieces, so then she asked me if I minded if she spoke in dialect rather than German.  I said, “Go ahead, it makes absolutely no difference to me whatsoever!”  But most people speak at least a little English, and all learn high German in school, so we can fumble through.



Sneaky Poppy Moss



The longest table

It was the annual Knodelfest on the weekend where everyone dresses in traditional Austrian dress and Lederhosen, drinks loads of beer and eat all sorts of sweet and savoury dumplings.  There are live bands playing traditional yodelly type music and the longest table you’ve ever seen set up through the town.  All the shops are still open, not really sure why as I can’t see how anyone would be interested in shopping with all that knee slapping going on, and it looked impossible to even get into the shops anyway, with the crowds blocking the entrances.  For an entrance fee of E3.00 you get a Knodelfest Badge, which I thought was quite a nice souvineer until I noticed it was from 2008!  Much like a mini Oktoberfest, fun to look at and take photos of funny old men (see pic), but not really something we could experience properly with the little ones.  We did spot a pic of Poppy Moss in the local paper the next day though, and he told us he wasn’t interested in coming to Europe!  Fibber!  Love the hat Albe!





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!