My great Saturday

The weather has cooled and autumn is here and we are awaiting a new visitor to arrive, so we thought we would treat ourselves to a great day of French Toast, naps, a long walk in the autumn colors, a dinner out of Swiss cheese fondue, ice cream and bed by 8pm. :)

We are exactly 7 days away from the due date and thinking of ways to get things going - so my days involve a lot of hot baths and hot meals. Tonight is extra hot taco night.

Andi surprised me with homemade French toast and fresh squeezed orange juice to kick off our Saturday. They were yummy and he is nice. I like him.



The fall colors are amazing around here nowadays. Check out how beautiful the ivy is!



A romantic dinner out with cheese fondue. It was AMAZING and pretty affordable. If you come to visit us, we will take you here. It is great!



Andi was treated with a shot of schnapps to congratulate him on his impending fatherhood. You can tell that he really enjoys the gift!

My Thursday

Just another day of coffee with a bunch of pregnant chicks, a lunch of hummus - iskender kebap - and Oprah, a three hour nap and an evening trip with Andi to a cafe for chai tea latte and chocolate nut cheesecake.

Oh, and my first stretchmark has appeared :(

The Thursday morning coffee with a bunch of pregnant ladies. Four babies have been born since last week's coffee. I think I am in the next wave of women due in the next week.



Delicious kebap and hummus - a solitary lunch, except for Oprah that is. Half of this is now in our fridge waiting for Andi to indulge himself in a midnight snack.



My yummy chai tea latte at the new trendy coffee shop in the city. Free Wifi here! This is where I sit and type this now.



Andi enjoying his cheesecake.

The Preparations

I have been quite surprised by the amount of preparations that go into this whole thing, if you buy into it all. Exercises, nutrition, vitamins, classes, books, meditation, yoga, relaxation, visualization, massage, acupuncture, baby showers, maternity leave, doctors appointments, sleeping positions, trips to the pharmacy, interviewing midwives, meetings with midwives.

It will be nice to finally have this baby and have some time to myself :) Here are just a few examples of the last few months goings ons.

The Chinese tea concoction to help with preparation for birth? Expensive and tastes not great.


Baby shower full of gifts, games and foods


The pregnant lady baby group - we meet once a week for coffee

My days and nights

Ahhh - a good book, a water bottle and my laptop. Oh, and a baby in the belly.

Maternity leave

Major apologies! I know I have been away for nearly 5 or 6 months now. Actually, it seems like longer, but I have a good excuse...kind of...after finding out I was pregnant, I took a blog break to plan a big trip to the States and to handle all the logistics that went along with finding midwives, telling bosses and coworkers, going to doctor appointments, and work toward trying to buy a house. Finally, last Wednesday I worked my last day and now I am fully unemployed and can concentrate on everything that is required to get me ready for this other thing I got goin' on in just a few weeks.


Here is a look into our new world. Minimalist, or cheap - you decide!

The baby room is not so much a baby room as a baby corner. Here is the cow and baby bed.


But the baby bed even has a toy. See, we are GREAT parents!


And here is the baby's stuff. Yup, that shelf there, above Andi's clothes. That is the baby area.


These are pretty great too.

Spring?

With the longer days, a bit more sun and some green coming out here and there, one might suspect that spring is coming to vienna. But the most reliable sign that the tourist season is coming, is the emergence of the outdoor seating area...and here we have it!



My morning and evening walks are completely in the daylight and I have even graduated to the 3/4 walking pants. A true indication of the changing weather. It is WONDERFUL. I hadn't realized how dark and cold it had been until the sun shined through. It felt like coming out of a cave you have been trapped in for 9 months.

We are enjoying touring the city with two wonderful house guests, here from Oregon. I always learn more about Vienna when we have visitors, and it is great.

Ponys for Everyone!!!

I know it has been awhile since I have blogged, and my mother and brother are just naggy McNaggersons, so I am back in action. Here is a fun little piece of graffiti that greets me on my morning/afternoon walks. When they were running elections here for mayor, the city was strewn with promotional posters for candidates. These posters were often defaced with the traditional mustache or vulgar words. My favorite poster graffiti featured a white haired old man smiling through huge crooked white teeth, and the vandal had made up little word bubble stickers that read, "Apfelstrudel fur Alle!!".

I giggled every time I saw that poster.

It seems to be spring here and it is almost 6pm before it gets dark...sooo, my morning walks are only half of the story now. I also have my afternoon/evening walks to blog about. Seeing the sun and blue skies after what seemed like half a year inside a cave has been rejuvenating and wonderful. I am completely ready for spring and summer.

The interview

Guess who will proceed to the second interview for a post with the press office of the U.S. Mission to the OSCE?

photo credit: www.freefoto.com

My top story

Whaaaaaat? Whose name is that at the bottom of this story?

http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2010/offeringcure.html

The Sparbach nature walk

Last Sunday, in the cold and the wind, we decided to hop in the car for a quick 30 minute drive to Sparbach, a small village just outside of Vienna. Andi had done some research for a bit more of a 'real' hike up high in the mountains, but the weather report was not favourable and had we gone, we might still be up there...either lost or frozen. So the Sparbach solution was very welcome.

Little did we know that the nature park that was our backup is in fact closed for the winter months. But that does not stop a Slovenian. Andi successfully convinced me to climb over not one, but two stone walls and plop down into the pristine, wild boar infested, no-human contact for miles nature park.

It was pretty crazy to be in this huge park all by ourselves. The untouched snow, the quiet, the two big wild boars charging down the hill in our general direction. Wait, what?

I was PETRIFIED. I remembered stories of my youth of man-eating wild boars. Don't boars like human flesh? After almost wetting myself and turning to see that the stone wall was too far to provide any life-saving service to me...then scanning the trees in vain for any branches low enough to grab...I hunted for a big enough stick to defend myself with. Once the immediate threat of the piggies had passed, I forced Andi to walk with the stick...to poke my lifeless body after the boars had mauled me to death, I suppose.

Along our way through the park we saw many strange and wonderful things. Many fun ruins, animals, this mill with frozen water falls all over it...

It was cold, can you tell?

Here is the first ruin we ran into along our walk. It has a fun bridge and stone walls and a church and tower and all the good things that ruins should have. And it was ours, ALL OURS!!!

As I was walking over this bridge, I startled yet another pair of boars who went streaking in the other direction.

And here is the second ruin at the highest point in our walk. We walked up those snow covered stairs there to look through the window down on the valley below. It was a lovely view. And then just to the side of the stairs I found poo!

Boar poo? Goat poo? Can anyone identify this poo?

Then upon our return, as we often do, Andi and I make little bets as to whether Kitty is on the bed, on the couch or on the ottoman...but she tricked us both when we found her sitting in the hallway, with her face scrunched up to the only heater we have on in the apartment. She is a heat seaking fuzzball.

The mole

We got a new shipment of jarred sauces from Mexico in the commissary last week. One of them was for mole, and I couldn't resist. Andi and I both love chicken mole, but I do not have the energy to make it from scratch. Apparently it is quite the process, and more than 4 spices is seriously gourmet for me.

Luckily our wonderful, sweet and beautiful Yolanda, also our bestest Mexicita and resource for all things Latina, said that this jarred sauce is the next best thing to home-made, so we bought it and tried it today, and it is eyes-rolled-back-into-your-head good! Can you get La Costena's mole sauce in a jar in Oregon? If you can, then maybe I will ask you to send it to me soon, if the commissary stops carrying it.


So you just need to boil 2-3 chicken breasts in about 1 litre of water, use half a litre of that water and put it into a pot with the entire jar of mole sauce and wait until the sauce is melted through and heated. Shred the chicken and add to sauce. Then EAT!

After spicy mole, spicy mexican rice and spicy refried black beans...a glass of Gelber Muskateller is a necessity! Tomorrow...Indian Tikka chicken with garlic naan!

The strata

Yesterday at work I did my daily blog check and saw a recipe for strata on suziebeezieland and had to try it today. You prepare it the night before and then just stick it into the oven in the morning for an hour. I didn't have any ground sausage, so I just cut up some regular old pork sausage links. I think it might be better with ground sausage since you would have a better shot at getting a bit of pork in every bite.

Looks good, right? It was!

And here is a shot of Andi's new socks checking out the apartment.

The winter

We spoke of the temperatures around her a few weeks ago. I think I was complaining about -6C, am I right?

Well, for about 2 weeks it has not gotten above -12C. When I first saw those numbers on our weather channel, I kinda just froze up and refused to do the morning walks to work. I had just assumed that it was way too cold to venture out in that kind of temperature, so last week I only walked to work one day. Then I saw that the temperature just kept falling and I finally just said, screw it. Im going out there.

So even in -15C or -18C temperature, with a -24C wind chill, I have gotten my butt out the door and into the snow and winds.

You recognize this?

Yup, those little roses are all toasty warm under their coffee sacks.

Oh, and remember this one?



Nice effect with the snow flakes, right?

And here you see the Neu Donau, completely frozen over and with clumps of snow drifts all over it.



And here is one of the many self-made snow plows that run around clearing off the roads and in this case the sidewalks of Vienna.

The Deutsch Spiel Abend

As you all know, although I am living in Vienna, I do not get the opportunity to speak to a whole lot of Viennese people, hence my German is not as strong as it should be for someone living in Austria for four years. This is a problem for those of us who want to live and work in Vienna after our contracts are over. So, we came up with the brilliant idea to hold a games night, wherein we would only speak German. This way, we would get to hang out and do something that we all enjoy, but we would also be reinforcing all of our German skills. Perfect.

The evening began with the warning sign above from Dante. You know this one, right? Abandon all English, ye who enter...or something to that effect.

Then we were on to snacks and chatting.

Then the games began and kitty watched over us with burning jealousy because she couldn't understand a word we were saying. Should really get her some language training.


All in all we had about 4 hours of nothin' but German.

Househunting

It looks like Andi and I will be able to stay here for a few more years, so we are starting a househunt. Unfortunately, we differ as to what we want in a house. I have always dreamt of a charming little old home that I could slowly work to renovate over a series of years. Andi leans more toward the new homes with new appliances and flooring and windows so that once you move in, you don't have to do anything to it. Where is the adventure in that?

But beyond these differences is also the fact that any cute little charming homes have been purchased, torn down, and on that land builders have put bright orange rows of cube homes that are so popular in Europe these days. Austrians also seem to never sell their apartments, but instead just leave them to their children or rent them out, so there are not very many apartments to choose from either. So it seems that we will either have to pay a half a million euro to get anything close to what I want in a home, or live under a bridge.

Charming:

Cubic:

Charming:

Cubic:

Our street

As I said before, the morning walks that I take reveal a part of the city that you just don't get a chance to see in the daylight hours. But sometimes, when you are walking home after work, your husband calls you and tells you that your street is blocked off and three emergency vehicles are performing a mid-air rescue right in front of your apartment.

I rushed to get home to see what was actually happening, who was on fire or what was being rescued. After 20 minutes of waiting and watching, the rescue team had ridden up in their little fancy bucket, pulled out a bag and filled it with snow that was hanging precariously from a rooftop, then rode back down on their little bucket, not before stopping halfway down to chat with some girls who were hanging out the window watching the goings on.

We do not have many reports of robberies, shootings or stabbings, but it certainly makes me feel like I am living in Whoville when it takes a team of firemen and three trucks to knock off the most deadly of offenders...low hanging snow clumps.

The UN cafeteria

Another great part about working for the UN is the lunches. I didn't really have a great appreciation for the UN cafeteria until I worked for the NRC in Maryland. I had just assumed that every cafeteria had a salad bar, soups, hot meals, desserts, made-to-order steaks, burgers, and a Wok counter. This is not necessarily true.

After I began working for the NRC, I quickly realized that my meals were going to consist of a bag of fritos, doritos or ruffles...a coke...and either a white bread sandwhich or the salad of the day. Those were tough times.

Of course, when compared perhaps to a French cafe, the UN cafeteria does not have the latest technology in sauce making, nor does it always have the freshest of organic ingredients. But the food is very edible and 9 times out of 10, it is delicious. Even better? I pay about 3 euro on average for my daily noon-time meal. Andi gets his duck in mushroom gravy with potatoes, I get my vegetarian curry banana vegetable stew on rice, we are both happy and we have paid a total of 7 euro. That's pretty great, right?

My office world

Let me introduce you to my office. Here is where I have sat for the last year and a half with my new best friend Hazel. Hazel is not featured in this photo, but she sits on the right, me on the left. You like how clean my desk is? I work hard to keep it so nice.

It is here where I draft web stories and fact sheets and edit project closures. I have another 7.5 months of this until...who knows what. Maybe I will be forced into early retirement, again. So far I have had a pattern of two years working, two years retirement, two years working, two years retirement. Perhaps not the best strategy for long term financial security.

You see there on the left my wall calendars for the past two years. I keep last year's because it was a year of serious travel and I want to be reminded that it is all behind me. I love looking at my 2010 calendar and seeing nothing there to take me away from my home-cave. I really need to work on my dependance on the home-cave.

You will also see that both Hazel and I have matching long gray sweaters draped over our office chairs. Yup, we are totally twins. I was born on March 6, she on March 8. Even our wedding anniversaries are a day apart. But she is British and calls lunch, dinner and dinner, tea and dessert, pudding and cafeteria, canteen and cookies, biscuits and chips, crisps and seven thirty, half seven and she gets adorably upset whenever I inadvertently use the word fanny in any context. She is great.

We also got an intern yesterday from Brazil. He will be here for 6 months and reaches for his pen when Hazel tells him to bring his chair and tells us about the snow when we ask him about his flight. It will be a very interesting 6 months.

The Sunday hike part 2

This Sunday, in anticipation of the snowy hills, we thought we would go snowshoeing in the Vienna woods. It is a short 50 minute drive to the Vienna woods and the hike was supposed to be 2 hours up and 1 hour down, but we did not calculate our getting lost and the knee high snow into that. The snow was not the right kind for snowshoeing. It was the light and fluffy kind that is better with hiking boots. But even in hiking boots the snow is a killer. You have to lift each foot far above the snow to take one step forward, and with each step down you have to force through all the fluff in order to find solid ground, so this innocent little trip ended up taking us 4 hours.

Initially, the hike was very well marked. But once we hit a large clearing, we had no way to know where the next marking was. As it turned out, it was all the way over a hill off to the left. In the spring, summer and fall, I am sure it is very easy to find your way around, but with fresh snow, no footprints and no markings, we got ourselves good and lost within the first 7 minutes of the hike.

The Vienna woods are normally full of wildlife and we saw several animal watching posts along the way. This one looked extra strange with all the snow and ice.

Once we were deep into the woods, the whole place turned fairy-tale on us. I wanted to sit here and set up a picnic, but we had already eaten our sandwiches in the car on the way to this hike, so there was no picnic to be had.

And 3 hours into the hike, exhausted, a bit hungry and cold, we were looking forward to the mountian hut to warm up and maybe get a bowl of soup. But contrary to what the hiking book stated, the mountain hut was closed until February. So here was our consolation prize.

Ah, the cold and lonely cross. It just wouldn't be a winter hike without him. But we made it back alive. Exhausted, but alive. And this morning we were both feeling it as we creaked down the stairs on the way to work.