The First Week

First Week

Sonntag 9. März

Aaron in the backyard

That first day here was a bit long, I'll admit. I was tired, but determined to "stick it out," and stay up and get acclimated to the time shift. Rebecca, Aaron, and I wound up taking a brief walking tour of the Schönbrunn park area, including the Gloriette (for which our street is named) and das Schloss (the castle). Aaron was his usual exploratory self, checking out our back yard, and Anson settled in with his electronics.

Anson settling in

I believe we ended up watching a movie later that afternoon, WALL*E, auf Deutsch (in German), and I started to fall asleep. I said I was going to go back and take a brief nap and wound up waking up over three hours later!

Montag 10. März

Rather than jumping in right away, we allowed the kids to have a break and they didn't start school. Instead, all three of us got out for a more extensive walk of the Schönbrunn area. At the end, we stopped in at a neat little "American" themed cafe and had a drink and a snack.

Dienstag 11. Marz

Aaron's Schule

Wednesday morning saw Aaron go to school. He has to walk about 800 meters to get to die Straßenbahn Stelle (street car station), which comes every 5-ish minutes and takes him to a stop that's just 350 meters from his school. Or, he could walk 1.25 km to the U-bahn (subway) station, that takes him to a stop that's 280 meters from school. Or, he could walk or scooter the whole way, which is about 1.9 km.

Scooters at Schule

At this point, we've done all of those things, sometimes even taking his scooter on the S-bahn or the U-bahn and then he scooters the rest of the way. Usually, after school, he likes for me to bring his scooter to him (if we didn't already have it at school) and he scooters home.
These scooters are a big thing here. Many kids use them (33-50%?) and even some adults. They even have a special scooter locking rack mounted on both sides of the school entrance!

Anson and I also started his home schooling. We're covering English, Math, and Science, as well as doing some Physical Education and, of course, Global Studies, which he'll get primarily through the museums and various trips we're going to take.

The bike box with my and Rebecca's bikes and floor pump

After doing school with Anson, I took time to put the bikes together. This was no small task! I had basically watched Jeremy take the bikes apart and stuff them all into the bike box (though I did help), watched carefully, and took notes. I took a bajillion pictures of the whole process of taking the bikes out of the box, as well as notes about critical parts of the process, in the hopes that I'll be able to reverse it and replicate the process of packing the bikes for our trip home. I have a whole Google doc with all the pictures I took and a narrative of my notes, so hopefully it will work.

Mittwoch - Freitag 12.-14. März

These were fairly normal days. Rebecca and I stopped in at the bank and I got some cash (Euros €) since she has the only bank card we've got and can pay with it as a debit card. We also stopped in at one of the three stores in the area, a Spar (there's also a Spar Gourmet and a Zielpunkt). They are ... different. It's hard to explain. They have everything you'd expect: fruits, vegetables, breads, cheese, etc. but it's all different. It's amazing to me how much our foods are different, though they're really all the same. My kids like macaroni and cheese. In the States, you can go and buy a box. Here, you can't. You can get something in a bag, where you just add it to boiling water and you get mostly the same thing, but it's not the same thing. Salad dressing is something they really don't do here, as another example. In the States, there are rows of dressings and brands to choose from. Here, I've found a total of four different kinds and just two brands. I got the French dressing, thinking it's closest to something I know. It's not. It tasted different. I looked at the ingredients and found it has dill in it! So, things are the same, ... but they're different too.

On Donnerstag (Thursday), Rebecca, Aaron, and I got out on a bike ride. It was the first time my tush had touched the saddle since Ironman Wisconsin last September! We went about 20 km, following the Wienfluss (Vienna River) on a fantastic path. It's a path that I will definitely use for my longer runs, though an out and back will only get me ~10 miles. 

On Freitag (Friday), I rode a bike up the hill behind our house, navigated a bit, and arrived at the Hallenbad Hietzing, our district swimming pool complex. It offers an indoor, three lane, 25 meter lap pool, plus a few extra lanes that are open (maybe good for "open water" training), as well as a 25 meter outdoor pool that will be open sometime in early May. The price is only 20€ per month for me, which is a pretty good deal. I plan to start swimming there next week.

Anson in front of the Hapburg

Chandelier at the SRS

That Friday night we had our usual "Friday Family Fun Fest" (FFFF, which we can call our 'Freitag Familien Fröhlich Fest' auf Deutsch). Rebecca took us into the heart of Wien. The kids and I took the U-bahn into town and met her at a stop. We had a great Italian dinner and then toured a bit of the old city. We saw the Hapburg mansion and walked around the Volksgarten and other areas for a while. After that, she took us to the main event: seeing the Lipizzaner Horses at the Spanish Riding School (more). They had a joint program with the Vienna Boys' Choir. The choir was awesome, though I have to say I wasn't entirely impressed with the horses. I kept waiting for them to "do something," especially something that seemed hard for horses to do. I never really saw that. Maybe I'm just not enough of a horse person to appreciate what I did see. I can say that the building was incredible and their chandeliers were amazing!

Samstag 15. März

Rebecca and I at the Gloriette (Schloss behind us)

I was up early and had a great long run for my Boston Marathon training. After that, a shower, and breakfast, Rebecca and I headed out for a walk. We stopped at a bookstore and bought a couple of books on Austrian and Vienna history and then continued our walk, 7 km total, and arrived at the Naschmarkt. Basically, think of the biggest farmers market or flea market you've seen and then multiply it. Several times. And add them together. This thing is 1.5 km long and has everything! I couldn't believe how much was there and  how many people there were shopping. It was shoulder to shoulder, squeezing between people kind of packed. We bought some fresh vegetables, some falafel, and a scarf for Rebecca. With the running and all the walking, I was happy to take the U-bahn back home!

Sontag 16. März

Outside the Natural History Museum

I had planned to go for a bike ride on Sunday, my first real training ride since Ironman Wisconsin last September! However, it was way too windy: sustained winds of 55 kph and gusts up to 90 kph (56 mph for you non-metric folks). Instead, Rebecca, Aaron, and I (Anson decided not to go) went to the Vienna Natural History Museum. The building is incredible and we had a fantastic time inside. I loved the meteorite exhibit (Aaron and I both hugged a huge 60 kg nickel-iron meteorite -- forged in the heart of a star or nova!) as well as the early humans exhibit. The geology / mineralogy exhibit was pretty neat too.  

General Feelings

Overall, I feel I and the kids are settling in well. Rebecca seems to be getting her work done too, which is the most important thing. We're all finding our grooves and seem to be adjusting to life here well. I'm so happy we're here and I'm having an incredible experience so far!