TU Ball 2012

Whew! This past week has been tiring! On Thursday Ben and I went to the TU Ball at the Hofburg Palace, which we have been preparing for this whole New Year. A few weeks ago, my Mom sent me a dress from the States along with shoes, a bag, Ben’s shoes and other essentials for a Black Tie affair and we we’re getting as prepared as possible for the long night ahead. Plus, since it was cheaper and more worthwhile to do so, Ben bought a tux! Which I must say he looked rather dashing in. Having all the clothes and attire ready, we then had to take a waltzing class to at least learn the basics, so we didn’t look totally foolish for the TU Ball.

Last Thursday we went to the waltzing lesson, which really wasn’t long enough (only for an hour). Ben and I tried to get the steps, but since Ben is left-handed/left-footed the natural way for him to turn was the reverse way so we had to “relearn” it a little bit, but eventually felt a little more comfortable with the steps. The steps themselves were easy, but it was more keeping to the beat of the music, and trying to keep up with the music. So we all waltzed around and practiced then were turned loose to practice at home over and over again until the Ball a week later. So throughout the week, Ben and I would move some furniture around in our apartment and practice waltzing around our living room, and eventually we got a little more comfortable with the steps, but still want to continue practicing.

This past Thursday evening was the TU Ball, and we had already made arrangements to get together with some friends ahead of time to have dinner and get ready, so I went over early and dropped off all of our Ball Attire, then went on to nannying. I was nannying for 3 hours and the whole time I kept checking on the time to see if it was time to go get ready yet, eventually the time passed and I met up with everyone at Tessa’s apartment for dinner then we all got ready to head to the Ball. Ben and I had brought some champagne but didn’t really have time to drink it before, so we brought the bottle with us and drank it along the way. Yes, super classy I know.

We arrived at the Hofburg quickly checked our coast and tried to scope out a good place to see the “opening ceremony” type performance, which was absolutely beautiful. After all the VIP’s walked in there was a quick little speech and the dancing began! First we wanted to check out the other rooms, so we saw the Main Ballroom with all the waltzing, then we went into another room which had some jazz and swing type dancing, next we went to the Polkanaise room, which had a little Polka band playing and Polka dancing, since we had just arrived we didn’t join in for the Polkanaise, but I wish we had because it actually looked really simple, very much like “Follow the Leader”. Moving on we went back to the Main Ballroom to watch the Quadrille, which is really hard to explain. It’s a huge line of people and it’s sort of like a “Square Dance”, but much classier. It looked pretty complicated, so it was nice to enjoy it from a far at first.

After the Quadrille they played the “Blue Danube Waltz” and of course we had to take to the dance floor for the most popular waltzing song ever. So Ben and I braced ourselves and started waltzing…well we TRIED to waltz. There were so many people on the floor that everyone was running into everyone! It eventually just became a game of spin and shuffle around trying not to hit or get hit. It really was like a huge game of Bumper Cars. However, it was fairly enjoyable, and even though because of the limited space we didn’t really get to do any of the official waltz steps, I still really enjoyed it.

We danced a little while longer, then wanted to try to find some seats, unfortunately there really weren’t any. The Fulbright had reserved about 4 tables with 4 chairs at each table for about 80 people including the undergrads in the exchange program. It was pretty ridiculous and weren’t really able to even sit down until 2 am because the undergrad exchange students were at the table for the whole time, which I don’t understand. You’re at a Ball in Vienna, go dance! Don’t just sit there buying drink after drink, getting drunk then just take up space. Eventually we were able to sit down and rest, but it wasn’t for too long, we eventually got a few more dances in and then were able to do the Quadrille which was at 2:30 a. That was interesting, but really a lot of fun, and probably one of the more interesting dances.

We left at around 3:15 in the morning and took an hour long night bus to get home, so we didn’t even get into bed until 4:30 am, so needless to say we were pretty tired! Overall, we had a great time and it was a lovely experience. Now we just need to practice our waltzing and save up some money for a really nice reserved table for the next time we’re in Vienna ;).

Also, for those who don’t know I recently started working with another family, just once a week on Thursday afternoons as a “Mommy Helper” with her 3 year old and 9 month old, but it’s been a lot of fun. The 3 year old goes to an English preschool and the mother wants me to help her with her English. On this last Thursday she started talking to me more in English as opposed to German which is obviously her first language. She started singing some songs to me in English like “The Vheels on the Bus” which was absolutely adorable, haha. I’m really enjoying working with little ones again.

I’ve also been looking into job opportunities for when we come back to the States, mainly at Summer Camps or something in San Jose for when we first get back, so we can save up some money for a deposit on an apartment once we go back to So-Cal, so keep us in your prayers for trying to organize as much as possible for us to come back home and ease in to our life back in the States. We still have 5 months or so before we head back, but we’re trying to get a jump on things so we can hopefully have something set up for when we come back. Like I said, keep us in prayer!

Love,

Katie

Bonsall Family Vienna Trip 2011

Well this morning my family headed back to the States after their visit here with Ben and I for Christmas and New Years. We had a great time with them, but we are both so tired since these past couple weeks have been so busy! Even before my family got here, we had to do a lot of running around trying to get everything ready for their visit, so today we’re planning on just staying home to catch up on some well needed rest, laundry and dishes. Even though we are totally pooped, we had a great time and got to do a lot with my family.

My parents and brothers arrived in Vienna in the evening on Christmas Eve and Ben and I were super late meeting them at the airport, but eventually got there and headed back with them to the hotel. The plan was to go see the Christmas Eve lights downtown, but since we were so late we didn’t really have time, and once everyone was at the hotel, everyone just wanted to relax and wind down from the trip, so we quickly went to a restaurant down the street for some pizza then off to sleep they went.

On Christmas everyone ventured over to our apartment (I was so proud of them taking the public transit all by themselves!) we opened our presents (thanks to the amazing awesome family for the Kindle by the way, Ben and I have been fighting over it since we got it haha) then headed over to Schönbrunn Palace to check out the Christmas Market and do the museum there. We all got some punsch, glühwein, and coffee as well as some pretzels, Nockerl, and Krapfen to taste Christmas in Vienna then did a little bit of shopping. We also walked around the grounds and got to see a beautiful view of the city of Vienna. It was so neat to show one of our favorite places here to my family and see how much they enjoyed it as well. After walking the grounds, we checked out the museum, then headed back to the apartment to relax and start out Christmas dinner. Overall, our first Christmas dinner was a success! With the American traditional ham and mashed potatoes, but we also had some German/Austrian Spätzle and Kipferl. After our Christmas dinner, we walked my family to the train station and sent them back to the hotel.

The next day we met at the U-Bahn station downtown and got to see Stephansplatz. We walked around the huge church taking pictures, and just overall taking in the downtown Vienna experience. With our tour guide, Ben we walked over to the Hofburg Complex and walked through it with Ben explaining the history of each part of the palace. For lunch we headed over to Café Frauenhuber to have some traditional Austrian dishes, at the Café that Mozart and Beethoven had played. Everyone really seemed to enjoy the food and the coffee, so that was a good sign.  We then headed back to St. Stephan’s to look on the inside and my Dad and brothers did the Catacombs tour. After St. Stephan’s we headed over to the Natural History Museums, and got to check out a bunch of cool Roman and Egyptian artifacts. After the first floor of the museum, my parents and Casey were pretty tired so they headed back to the hotel while Ben, Andrew and myself stayed to check out more art. It’s a good thing we stayed too because we got to see some Monet’s and even a Van Gough painting, so overall it was a great museum. PLUS Ben and I finally got our museum passes so we can go to it (as well as like 5 other museums around Vienna) as many times as we want! When we had our fill of art, we headed back to the hotel, and my mom, Ben and I ventured out to find some quick and easy food. We came across some kabobs and they all got to try some kabobs, then we all turned in early.

Our third day started off super early, meeting at the McDonalds at the WestBahnhof at 7:15 am to make sure we caught the train to Salzburg. We had a nice relaxing train ride to Salzburg playing cards, reading, listening to music and arrived in Salzburg around 10:30 in the morning. We quickly got to the sightseeing areas walking through the palace in Salzburg then pointing out the houses that Mozart had resided in as well as the big church there. We then had a fairly quick lunch, and my family did the Fortress while Ben and I walked through the St. Sebastian’s cemetery where Mozart’s father was buried then walked up the huge hill to the monastery. We met up with my family a couple hours later then walked through the town back to the train station to catch the later train to Munich, Germany. We stopped at a grocery store to get a few snacks got on the train and arrived in Munich around 10 pm that evening. We checked in to our hotel and all quickly fell asleep.

We woke up early the next day got all our stuff then headed to the train station to put our stuff in some lockers, get some coffee/breakfast then took a train to Dachau to see the Concentration Camp and Memorial Museum. Surprisingly we spent almost our whole day in Munich at Dachau. It was such an amazing experience, and although it was completely emotionally draining it was also very humbling, putting a lot of things in perspective. For those who don’t know, Dachau was originally a prisoner camp, that at first just held P.O.W’s and then extended becoming a Concentration Camp for all the targeted people of the Nazi Party. Dachau was never meant to be a “Death Camp”, so they didn’t originally have ways of disposing of the bodies, so seeing the pictures of bodies just piled up was absolutely gut wrenching. Also, towards the end of the war when the Nazi’s realized they had to start killing off their prisoners, the gas chamber and incinerators were constructed…by the prisoners themselves. We walked through the gas chamber with the sign saying “Bad” in German meaning “Bath”, since the prisoners were told they were going into the shower room. Overall is was such an emotional experience, and we all really enjoyed seeing this place to be able to put it all in perspective. Hearing about the horrors of the Concentration Camps were one thing, but actually being there seeing the places where these poor people stood, was quite another. Since we didn’t have a whole lot of time in Munich we then headed back into the City Center area to find a Beer Hall for dinner. We walked around down town Munich which was fantastic, seeing the lights still up, all the people walking around, and over all just enjoying the atmosphere. We ended up going to the Augustine Beer Hall, which is apparently one of the older beer halls and had a very yummy traditional German meal, including a liter of beer all around! Once we were sufficiently stuffed, we headed back to the train station got our stuff and began the 5 hour train ride back to Vienna which was actually a lot of fun, playing cards, chatting, laughing, drinking, etc. Once we arrived in Vienna we all went our separate ways to get some well needed rest.

For Thursday, we all slept in a little bit and I met up with my family at the hotel in the morning, we all kind of hung out the relax a little bit, then headed out to check out the Belvedere Palace. We met Ben there and walked around the grounds, then headed over to the Soviet Monument which was erected to thank the Soviets for liberating Austria during WWII. We then headed over to our favorite place to eat, Pizza Venetia, which is cheap and delicious. We all had a filling late lunch, then we headed over to the Opera. We got some coffee first, then waited in line for a few hours for our standing room tickets to see the Marriage of Figaro, which was awesome by the way. Since we were one of the first groups there, we got in line first so we could get the first row of the standing area, unfortunately two woman in front of us decided they were going to pick a spot and not move, which for those of you who don’t know, isn’t allowed. You pay 4 Euro a ticket for standing room so you don’t get to just choose to stand in the center. These two woman made a huge dramatic scene out of it when the ushers told them they had to go to the end of the aisle, and one woman responded, “If you keep talking to me like this, I am going to sue you,” umm what?! You’re going to sue an usher for telling you that you have to follow the rules of the standing section? Needless to say we made fun of them the rest of the evening, and unfortunately we got split up between 2 rows, but we were still close to each other. When the opera was over everyone was tired from standing for so long, so we once again split off to our respective beds and went to sleep.

For that Friday, the original plan was to head to Budapest, but we were all so tired from everything we had been doing that we decided to still hang out around Vienna. We met up in the morning and basically walked around the downtown area to see the Rathaus, the University and Votivkirche. After seeing a few of the sights we all stopped at Café Landtmann to get some coffee and Austrian pastries to share (Sacher Torte and Apfel Strudel mit vanilla sauce) it was quite the Viennese experience. We all just sat around and were reminiscing about being kids, playing with our cousins, and hearing stories from our parents, so it truly was a great day. When we were done downtown we headed back to our apartment to relax, have some dinner and just overall enjoy each other’s company.

On the morning of New Year’s Eve we met up with everyone took the U-Bahn to Simmering, got some coffee and pastries then took a tram to the Zentralfriedhof, mainly to see the “Musicians Graves”. We walked around the old cemetery and found it interesting to see all the old tombstones. We finally came across the Musician area, which had the graves of Beethoven, Johann Strauss, Brahms, and a monument to Mozart, since he was buried in a Pauper’s grave, and no one really knows where he is. It was really neat to see the final resting place of these famous musicians. We then continued to walk around the Cemetery and got to see the WWII monument as well as a whole section devoted to Soviet Members who had died in WWII as well. Something not seen typically at cemeteries in America. After sufficiently looking around the cemetery we headed back in to town to get some Käsekrainers for lunch and walked around the Naschtmarkt, with the family doing a little souvenir shopping. We once again then spent most of the early evening at our apartment relaxing and taking naps so we could be well rested for New Year’s Eve. We were going all out and decided to go to downtown Stephansplatz so celebrate with the rest of the city of Vienna. New Year’s Eve was…interesting to say the least. We got down town around 10, and it wasn’t too crowded so we did some souvenir shopping, walked around to the different concerts, hung out mainly at the Rock Concert area, then started to make our way back to St. Stephan’s. We tried to stake out a spot near the stage, but quickly moved because of some idiot teenagers lighting off firecrackers in a crowd. A few of them even came towards us and pretended like they were going to throw them at us….idiots. So we quickly moved away from them, and right before New Year’s my mom and brother went to go find a bathroom, but it was so crowded that they didn’t make their way back to where we were for the New Year’s chime. It wasn’t really what anyone had in mind, but we did it and probably won’t do it again.

New Years Day was pretty calm, since it was the last day that my family was going to be here, we basically just went back to Schönbrunn to do some shopping, then downtown to finish shopping. Overall, just trying to take in as much as possible. After shopping we met up with Ben and hung out at the hotel for a few hours, then went back out to check out the UN building, which we could only appreciate from a far, as well as check out the Danube and the Prater area, which everyone seemed to enjoy. When we all got hungry we decided to go back to Pizza Venecia for dinner since it was cheap and delicious, so we enjoyed a nice big meal for their last night in Europe.

My family left this morning and I already miss them so much. I can’t wait to see them all again, but until then I will enjoy this experience of living in Europe with my husband as much as I can. Continue to pray for us, and we miss you all back home! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Moving...

Well we have officially moved in to our new apartment! It’s beautiful and the land lady was so efficient when furnishing it! She even got us a brand new washing machine, so now we don’t have to pay €1.60 for every load of wash we do! There’s no room for a dryer so we’ve got to hang our clothes to dry, super old school, but no big deal. The big highlights of the new place? Well we have an oven for one, so now we can make a much larger variety of food, that aren’t limited to microwave or stove top. Next week since I won’t be working much I plan on making lots of Christmas goodies in that new oven. The second big highlight is our new larger bed! For months in our old “dorm room” Ben and I were sharing a single bed, which was not comfortable, but our only option. Now we have a queen sized bed and are sleeping much better.

Other than moving, Ben and I have spent this past week trying to prepare for Christmas, which I can’t believe is next weekend, meaning my family will be here soon to visit and I can’t WAIT to see them all! Yesterday Ben and I did most of our Christmas shopping at the Christkindl Markt as quickly as we could since it was pouring down rain, but it’s nice to have most of our presents bought, and now wrapped in our little corner of our new apartment. We also were able to buy a Christmas tree this weekend at the Naschtmarkt, just a little thing but it makes it feel a little more Christmasy here.

Some other interesting news. While walking around our new neighborhood here, I came across a Sensory Integration Therapy studio just 2 buildings down from our new apartment building. It obviously caught my eye, so I googled the place and saw that the woman in charge lived and worked in Southern California for part of her professional career, so I’m planning on sending an e-mail to her soon to see if there’s any possible volunteer opportunities at the studio for me. Even cleaning the therapy equipment would be awesome, it would give me something to do on days off from nannying and it would be something nice to put on the resume. So I will most certainly keep everyone updated on that.

Otherwise things here are going well, Ben’s been enjoying his research, but has been taking a break this last week with moving and everything. He plans on trying to get as much research done next week as possible so he will be available to do all the fun stuff with my family once they get here, but he will probably still have to work a little over the holidays. I guess a grad students work is never done…am I really ready for that? Haha. Keep us in prayer  and I will write again soon!

Lots of Love!

-Katie

Birthday Bash

Well last Thursday on December 1^st was my birthday, and I am now 23 years young. It was nice to celebrate my birthday in a little different way this year, and I had a really good time.

Since my birthday was on a Thursday I didn’t have to Nanny, which was nice. However, on Wednesday while nannying, Mom came home and quickly send me and Silvia out of the kitchen for a few minutes. She had bought a little (delicious) cake from a bakery near her work, and stuck a candle in it. Mom and Silvia sang Happy Birthday to me then I ate me little cake and talked with the Mom for a little while before I headed back home. They also got me a small box of Viennese chocolates, which I have already finished because they were that good!

Through out the week, I had been receiving things in the mail, like cards a package from my aunt and uncle with some warm clothes, but I had been waiting for my package from my parents to come which had a nice wool coat, boots, and other birthday goodies. On Thursday I went out to the Christmas Market to look around and buy a few things, and on my way home I checked our mail, and the Post Man was heading out with 2 big boxes. He saw me opening our mail box and realized that I was the person the packages were for, so he stopped me really quickly and handed me my big birthday boxes! I quickly ran upstairs to open them and was so excited to have all this nice warm clothes that my Mom had sent me, and it arrived on my birthday!

For the rest of the afternoon I just hung out at home, watching TV and started getting ready for the opera that evening. I got to Skype with both my parents really quickly before I headed out to the opera-which was awesome of them since they got up at like 5:30 am to Skype with me on my birthday. I got all dressed up put on my nice warm coat and ventured out to meet Ben and the opera.

When I got there we quickly got a Kasekrainer for lunch, then waited, and waited, and waited to get our standing room ticket for “La Boheme”. We got there early enough so we had great spots. Despite the “know it all American” students we were sitting next to, we had a great time and “La Boheme” was beautiful. Breath-taking sets, beautiful songs, and an overall awesome atmosphere.

Friday was pretty relaxed, as well as most of Saturday, but on Saturday evening we went to a local English Theatre to see “God of Carnage” starring Cristoph Waltz, who was born and raised in Vienna, so it was a fitting film. Also, it was hilarious. After the movie we went for food at a Pizza joint down the street to complete our evening.

Now it’s Monday, and back to starting a new week, but in a week from Thursday we will be moving to our bigger apartment! We can’t wait because we will have so much more space, including a bigger bed and kitchen. We are so excited! 

Getting our Permits!

First things first, we finally got our Residency Permits last week!! Praise the Lord, and thank you to all who were praying for us! We were getting close to the “over staying our welcome” time period, but thankfully we went in to pick them up last week, with no complications and are now legally allowed to stay here until September of 2012 (although we are still planning on coming home in June of 2012). Once again thank you to all who prayed for us!

Other great news, Ben and I along with some Fulbright people all went to a Vienna Capitals hockey game last Sunday! We had such a blast, and it really made me realize how much I miss hockey! Ben and I have been able to watch football games now and then, but hockey games are typically on at like 2:00 am here, so we haven’t been able to really watch any games. A few interesting differences:

-The rink is wider, which is kind of cool                                                                                      

-The jerseys are covered in sponsor logos, which kind of detracts from the team name.

-The glass is much lower, and the nets don’t go as far around. In the first 5 minutes of the game a puck went flying up in to the crowd and was about 20 yards away from us. This just means you really have to pay attention!

-They don’t really enforce the “don’t leave your seat or walk to your seat until the play is over” rule, I know this because the teenage girl sitting in front of me got up approximately 8 times during play to get up go get something, come back, leave again…it was quite frustrating.

Even though there are some differences we still had a great time and the Capitals won 2-1, so we can’t wait to go to another game while here.

Ben and I have been trying to go to the Christmas Market’s as much as we can, to soak in the Christmas spirit, hear the music being played, smell and eat the delicious food, and my favorite part-window shopping! Yes, just window shopping, I don’t want to buy any Christmas presents until we move.

Other good news, we will be moving on Dec. 15^th! I can’t wait to move to an actual apartment with a larger bed, an oven, etc. but this just means that we have to pack up all our stuff again and bring it to our new place via public transit. Don’t get me wrong, I love the public transit system here, but I can imagine it will be difficult to not have a car and to move all our junk. We’ll just pray for a smooth transition.

Otherwise, not much to report, we had a great time at the Fulbright Thanksgiving potluck, and it was nice to celebrate with such nice people. We missed our family, of course, but at least we got to celebrate with others. Thanks to everyone who made our Thanksgiving abroad so special =). 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Well this past week has been pretty eventful. Besides the normal nannying for myself and archival work for Ben we had a few interesting things to do this past week. First off, it’s been getting really chilly so I’ve had to go shopping to buy a few more accessories to keep me warm. On Tuesday Ben and I went to the Ambassador Reception at the U.S. Ambassador to Austria’s house. Apparently every year the Ambassador has a Reception for all the U.S. and Austrian Fulbright students. It was a very fancy affair, so we both dressed up and braced the cold to venture over there. It was a lovely event, with free champagne and wine along with delicious appetizers and finger foods. Didn’t get to speak much with the Ambassador, just when we entered, otherwise we socialized with the Fulbright gang and of course the Ambassador’s German Shepard who was greeting all the guests and searching for crumbs. After we were all kicked out the Fulbright gang headed to a pub to keep the party going, so needless to say over the whole night we had lots to drink and were very merry.

The other big thing that happened this week? The Christkindl Markt’s opened around Vienna! For those who don’t know about the Christkindl Markt’s they are beautifully decorated Christmas Markets in multiple locations through out the city of Vienna. The main one is at the Rathaus-Vienna’s City Hall building. The market’s have yummy food, punsch, and lots of booths with plenty of Christmas stuff to buy, decorations, presents, snow globes, candles, and more. I’ve already been to the Christmas Market’s around town 3 times this week, but am proud to say that I have yet to buy anything. I’ve got to look around more and see what Christmas presents I want to buy for everyone.

We’re really getting settled here, but still dearly miss our friends and family back home. We are looking forward to the days that we will have some visitors from back home!

A few upcoming events we’re looking forward to:

-The Fulbright gang is going to a Vienna Capitals hockey game this Sunday!

-Thanksgiving! Obviously the Austrians do not celebrate Thanksgiving but we are planning on participating in a Thanksgiving potluck, which should be delicious and fun.

-My birthday! My 23^rd birthday will be on Dec. 1^st and we will be attending the opera to see “La Boheme” maybe go out for dinner, but mostly the opera.

-Getting our Residency permits! We should be getting them sometime this week, please pray for no complications!

What I miss....

It’s already November and we’ve been in Vienna for over 6 weeks now. I can’t believe how quickly time is passing! Well first I have to get some of the unfortunate issues in place. Unfortunately due to complications back in California we STILL haven’t been able to turn in all the paperwork needed to apply for Residency. This is becoming a potentially bad situation, because we don’t know how long it will take for the residency paperwork to go through, and worst case scenario I’ll have to leave in December because I didn’t get my residency. Please keep us in your prayers while we continue with the process of applying for residency.

Other than issues with paperwork, our time here has been going well. I’ve been having a fun time with the family I nanny doing different things each day, and overall just loving getting to know the very nice family that I am working with. Yesterday was Halloween and for the after school English course we had a little Halloween party complete with sweets (I’m still recovering from all the sugar I had yesterday).

Last week was pretty calm, but Ben and I did get to see another opera, “Fidelo” by Beethoven. It was really awesome, and had such amazing music! Besides the amazing music, the sets and costumes were so elaborate and were breath taking. I mean they had a working drawbridge on stage in the final act, quite impressive.

Today was a holiday in Austria so since most things were closed we decided to go a little out of the city limits to walk through the woods to see all the changing colors of the leaves. It was pretty chilly but overall a great time. After our walk through the woods we went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch, it was delicious and it was nice to have something a little more close to restaurants that are in America.

Recently, since we’ve been gone now for over 6 weeks, I’ve been starting to get a little home sick. So I’ve started a little list of the things that I miss most:

1.       My Family (Mommy, Daddy, brothers, Aunts, Uncles, cousins-I miss them all so much!)

2.       My Murray boy. Every week when I Skype with my parents I get to see him, but he doesn’t understand what’s going on so it’s not as fun as I would hope. Vienna is so dog friendly, and I see dogs everywhere, and whenever I see a beagle I get a little choked up thinking about my spoiled little Murray.

3.       My friends- Mainly Chelsea haha. When walking around town and something makes me laugh, I’ll immediately tell Ben, but sometimes he doesn’t get the joke, so it’s times like those that make me miss my friend because I know she would laugh along with me =)

4.       Starbucks-Yes they have Starbucks here, but to be honest now that I’ve had real Austrian coffee, I know that it is of much better quality. However, as the holiday season begins I really start missing the special holiday Starbucks drinks (Peppermint White Mocha) in the red Christmas cups. I basically miss when I could get a Starbucks and blend in as opposed to here where having a Starbucks makes me stand out.

5.       Food-Knowing how picky I am about food, I didn’t think I would enjoy much of the new food here, but thankfully I’m really enjoying trying to new food here. However, I do miss certain types of food from back home. In-N-Out for example, and good ‘ol fashioned Mexican food. There’s only 2 Mexican Restaurants here in Vienna (and apparently one is a gay bar-don’t ask me how I know that), I haven’t tried the Mexican food yet, but I’m excited to try it.

6.       American TV- I’m enjoying trying to learn German by watching the Simpsons, or old Nickelodeon cartoons in German, but sometimes I just wish I could watch one of my trashy reality shows and relax. Besides television shows, I greatly miss watching the Sharks! All the games are on in the middle of the night here (like around 3 am) so I have yet to listen/watch a game, and I feel like I’m having hockey with drawls =(

7.       Text messaging- ‘nuff said. I can’t just shoot a text to someone when I have something to say to them.

8.       ABC- When I left my job at ABC I was super excited for this new adventure, and thought it would be a nice time for a break. Even though, I truly am enjoying the break, I really miss my kids, and I want to know if they are still progressing the way they were when I left. I hope they remember me, because when I get back I’d love to come by and visit all of them.

9.       Target/Walmart-Yes I know this makes me sound like a cheap ‘Murican, but I really do miss the convenience and price of these shops. We were only able to pack so much when we came here, and now that it’s getting really cold, I need to go shopping. But instead of being able to go to just one store and find a bunch of stuff for cheap, I have to go to a bunch of different stores trying to find things that fit.

10.   Church Family- I like to think that I have a few church families. Cambrian Park Church, RBCR, and the Esswein family church. I miss being able to go to church on Sunday and chat with the people I see to catch up. I miss feeling like part of the family. While here we’ve gone to a few churches, but they aren’t as intimate where everyone knows everyone. I would love to find a church to get involved in here, so make sure you continue to pray for us to find a consistent church while here.