Vienna -- Months 1-3 (May -- July 2015)

**I really meant to do more blogging and posting since we moved, but the crafty side hasn't had time and the lifestyle part of it has been different than expected. I think I'll be putting out the back-log of posts that I've started and not finished and then try and keep the train running with new blog posts of crafts and adventures.

The structure of what is below is what I initially wrote during those first months but never finished (colored purple). I'll continue/round out the experiences of those months best I can so that it will feel more comprehensive.

Months 1-3 (May-July)

First and foremost, I know I've been terrible about updating this blog. The reasons are many-fold, but I will state a few here:

(1) Most people usually only display to the public world a "good" view of their life. They show you the happy times but not as much of the difficult or sad or angry times. I would say that is especially true for me. I don't know who is out there reading my blog and I don't want to dump my feelings on them. That being said, I also want this to be a documentation of this time in my life, so I'm getting back into the blogging (attempting to at least).

(2) The other main reason is that this blog was meant to be a crafty, creative space in addition to a place for me to document my life as it is now in Vienna... however, we shipped most of our possessions (including all of my art supplies, my books, and most of my clothing) in late April, right before we flew across the world. The process was meant to take 8 weeks-- 10 weeks tops...we are now at exactly 3 months after we relinquished our belongings to a shipping company and we still don't have our belongings. The most recent update on that is that the ship has (finally, finally, finally) reached port in Hamburg and we are awaiting German customs to clear it (can take 10 working days) before it can then be transported from Hamburg to Vienna... It has been a bit of a nightmare, to say the least.

Life in Vienna. Let's start with the fact that I thought and knew this was going to be rough. I think some small (or not so small) arrogant part of me thought, "I know all these people who have done this type of transcontinental move say that it was really really hard but I can do better...it won't be as bad for me."

~~~

Wow. I didn't get far on the first post. There was good reason for it-- emotionally I was dealing with so much that I was having trouble coping on a day-to-day basis. Like I left off in the section above, I thought that while others had said it was going to be tough -- really tough -- part of my brain still thought, "I acknowledge that, but I'll be able to do better." Those first three months were like constantly eating humble pie about how well I thought I would cope. For some reason, I thought I would just take it all in stride; the reality was pretty far from that.

It is not to say that I don't think I handled it as well as most people do, especially ones who have as strong a desire for feeling stable and secure, and feeling like they know what is expected of them in possible situations. I think the first few months, I struggled really hard with the fact that everything was ... pretty similar but really different. Moving to a new country is a big change; I don't think anybody would dispute that. BUT moving to Europe--Austria-- from the U.S., is arguably the biggest change one can make in terms of the sheer number of differences one needs to adjust to. Everything, and I mean everything, is different... the language (German), the weather (Celsius), the distance (km), weight (kg) -- basically measurements in general (metric), keeping time (military/24hr), and the list goes on and on.

So in addition to learning to orient in a new city, all my normal "small-talky" ability was sort of stripped away from me because there was always a conversion that needed to be made and you are on constant alert to check and make sure that your audience understands what you said in English. I consider myself a fairly socially adept introvert, at least in the States... a lot of being socially competent is being able to carry a basic conversation and those often eventually touch on weather, distance, time, etc. I initially found this aspect so stressful. (Now, over 9 months in, it is admittedly so much easier).

I think the overarching thing that was the most difficult for me was NOT knowing what to expect, how to be prepared for things. Austria is a Germanic country in all ways to do with government bureaucracy. By that, I mean there are lots of rules, lots of paperwork, lots of sitting in various government buildings waiting to turn in/pick up/sign/get signed a form. And if you want to obtain permanent residence here, there are lots of these forms and offices, but the information about what documents are needed, which of those need to be Apostille stamped, and how many copies of each document you need to provide, is always a toss-up. (Even at this point, I still get really stressed about going to do one of these trips). Fortunately, as long as you have the application filled out and most of the forms, you can usually come back/email the remaining forms. But they have sooo many of these situations just tied to the first few stressful weeks of moving here -- for the electricity/gas, for water, for renting a place, for the "Meldezettel" which is basically registering with the Austrian government each of the places you live within the border within 3 days of moving in. Those are just the things for moving into a place.

For living here as a permanent resident, there is another special level of bureaucratic hell for third country nationals (i.e. NOT Austrian, NOT E.U.). For that you must go to the MA35 and sit with an alphanumerical number in your hand, clutching all of the documents you think will be needed for whatever residency permit you're applying for and wait interminably until they call your number. The thing is, they never call the numbers in any order and depending on the residency permit, you can wait anywhere from 30-40 min to over 2 hours. And there is nobody to ask about when your number will be called. Then they tell you to go pay at the cashier and then send you on your way, telling you they'll contact you in when whatever document you request is ready.

There's a lot of waiting, waiting, waiting, turning in papers, stamping, then paying some sort of fee (not nominal, often round larger numbers like €100) and then send you on your way... I hate that so much. It is infuriating and I realize how American I sound when I say that, but things just run so much slower here.

 

Below are a few things that we experienced in those first few months. 

The Smokers

This was something that I was not prepared for because I grew up in California. Since the mid-late 80s the USA has banned smoking indoors in basically all of its states. As a result, it is more inconvenient to be a smoker which deters people from starting or continuing to smoke. California has always been on the forefront of this issue and I have never lived in a place where smoking is allowed indoors, until we moved to Vienna. 

Austria has the highest proportion of residents who smoke. It is also behind the rest of Western (and a lot of Eastern) Europe in banning smoking indoors. This is slowly changing and supposedly by the year 2018 all indoor spaces will be smoke-free, but as of right now, it is about 50/50 whether a bar, pub, or restaurant will have "separate" non-smoking and smoking sections. Separate but really not because often the divider is a door that is both not sealed properly and often not closed at all. 

In addition to still allowing smoking in a lot of public buildings, it is very noticeable the increased proportion of smokers within the general public. In California, it was rare to end up walking behind someone smoking a cigarette (more often it was pot), and here its is basically unavoidable. I find this so disgusting because they're not only hurting themselves and their immediate families (the poor babies who breathe in that secondhand smoke) but also others around them in public locations. 

Right now, I am sad to say that I've gotten a lot less sensitized to cigarette smoke in my vicinity. I used to be super sensitive to it and never wanted to smell it at all, but since moving to Vienna, we can't avoid the smell so I will move as far away from the smoker(s) as possible but I'm not as all-or-nothing as before, because I can't be. I do choose not to go to bars/pubs that allow smoking indoors, because I don't want to subject myself to the associated risks of secondhand smoke in an enclosed environment. Hopefully, the 2018 smoking ban actually holds and it starts to change the topology of smokers in Austria like it has with the US and also other European countries. 

The "Summer Culture"

One thing, as Americans, we were not fully prepared for is the "Summer Culture" of Europeans. As an employee in Austria, you have days off work on all Catholic holidays and a few other national Austrian holidays. On top of that, you receive 25 days of paid vacations. This all sounds beautiful and idyllic but in the U.S., these holiday days would go to waste or get "rolled-over" until you retire or change jobs, when you are given the option of taking a paycheck for the equivalent of those vacation days. The U.S. does not give you many vacation days and those you do receive, you never really feel that you can take them because you'll get behind or your employer will view it as lack of motivation and your professional development will suffer.

Here, in Europe, and more specifically in Austria, people TAKE those vacations -- and boy, do they go on vacation. We had heard, as most Americans have, that summer is when the Europeans go on vacation. "Try not to travel in Europe during the month of August, because they'll all be on vacation too," we're told. Well... that is true, but its more extreme that we thought. And its not just the month of August, it also includes June and July.

This was not more apparent to us, than when we needed to get an appointment with a dermatologist during the summer months. In mid-July, Chris randomly started showing rash-like symptoms that ultimately was diagnosed as eczema, but for three weeks solid, we couldn't get anyone to tell us a dermatologist that would see him until SEPTEMBER. In the end we went to the hospital and were informed that a 3-week long rash was not an emergency. They referred us to a dermatologist located in a district far out who had clinic hours from 4-6pm each day. We got there right at 4pm and his office already had 15-20 people waiting and the influx was constant as the patients were slowly seen by the doctor. Its crazy that this doctor seemed to be the only one who would see patients without an appointment during that summer time period.

This is when the "Summer Culture" hit us, well-- really, it slapped us in the face. The reason that we couldn't see anyone for over two months is that every person seems to take 3-4 weeks for a nice, long, leisurely vacation somewhere. This is also true for those in the medical professions, and maybe even more so. As a result, the entirety of Vienna is short-staffed of doctors for most of June, July, and August. Those that are in town are often covering the patients of at least one other doctor who is away, and this gets reciprocated once those doctors return.

Living with only two weeks worth of clothes and none of your own belongings

I think the worst thing during the first 3 months was the waiting for our belongings to arrive. We shipped our stuff when we left San Diego in late April. It was supposed to take 8 weeks total to arrive in Vienna (arriving late-June). When it didn't arrive by then, I was starting to really lose my ability to stay sane. We had moved here with two large suitcases, two carry-ons, and our two kitties. We brought about two weeks worth of clothes for San Diego Spring, which is not the same as Viennese Spring -- it is consistently much cooler in Vienna. We had largely prepared for many of the challenges we were going to face in the first few months (housing, bank account, cell phones, etc), but in an rather large oversight, we did not bring appropriately warm clothing for the season in which we arrived. All of the obstacles and things to do in the first few months were easily remedied by buying or paying for something. In this manner, I felt like we were constantly bleeding money in those first few months and, having been raised extremely frugally, this did not sit well or make me feel secure. Feeling insecure because of all of the financial expenses we had to incur in those first few months was compounded by feeling insecure being without the belongings that made our house feel like a home. 

When late-June arrived and our boxes were nowhere to be seen, I started to unravel even more. I felt so ungrounded without my own "things." I know you're not supposed to feel so strongly about material things but considering the amount of change I had just thrown myself into, I wanted some things that I was familiar with to balance the whole affair out. We were obviously able to acquire more things but it wasn't the same and like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, all my craft stuff was in those boxes too. I usually do something artsy to decompress and relax, and without my art supplies, I was sort of left a bit off-center.

Things that we would have liked to know or at least have a good idea about:

{One} Shipping your belongings means that you are guaranteed to have delays; its a reality of the shipping industry bringing items long distances by boat.

For us, we moved from the West Coast of the US so the fastest way is through the Panama Canal. In the end our stuff took four months to arrive, which is over 2 months longer than the estimate. Expecting this probably would have assuaged some of the constant wondering whether our stuff would come next week, or next week, or never? While wondering whether your stuff will never arrive seems a bit overdramatic, the fact of the matter is that boats do sink.

We were so happy when our stuff actually arrived that we kind of just swallowed the delays and delays and rude customer service agents along the way. I think it is sort of like when a mother forgets within the first few months how bad the labor pains really were, because she finally has her child in her arms. Once our belongings arrived (and were finally unpacked... which took longer than you might think), things started to truly level out a bit and I could feel more at home in this strange new place. 

{Two} Austrian (and maybe all Germanic or European) Bureaucracy is very slow and each office has an indeterminate amount of rules and specifics they expect that you already know.

Except that nobody really tells you these "givens" as a foreigner. Such things include: 

1. There are fees for almost everything from rental contracts to deliveries, which are never explicitly stated. They just expect you to know about it (and obviously, pay) but never tell you about it. Ask a local and they'll tell you that its true and look at you incredulous that you didn't know that. 
2. Never trust that the list of forms/documents/etc listed on a webpage of whatever bureaucratic office you are visiting will be the complete list. You can try and be as prepared as possible but inevitably there will be some surprise document that you didn't bring which is required for your application. In the end, as long as you have the most important document (usually the application form or something similar), you can email/fax/mail the accessory documents that you "forgot" to bring. I put forgot in parenthesis because these are documents that are not listed on the webpage for whichever bureaucratic office you're going to but then is asked for when you are physically in the office.
3. There are taxes that you pay to whichever religion you declare, and this is not explicitly stated when you are filling out the document in which you declare your religion. Once declared, the church will expect you to pay them some fee yearly. 
4. And many more...

All of the above and some situations not listed fall under the "you should already know about it but nobody tells you about it" category mentioned earlier. It makes it really hard to anticipate outcomes, so for someone like me who likes to anticipate and prepare for all possible outcomes, this was, and to some extent still is, a special version of hell.  

{Three} You can't learn German by immersion in Austria (especially in Vienna) -- at least very easily.

Despite the fact that the best way to learn a new language is through cultural immersion -- and that the official language of Austria is German -- in Vienna (and maybe Austria) almost three-quarters of the population speak English, and good English at that. As a result, if they hear an American or English-speaker accent in your German, they will automatically switch to English.

As an English-speaking foreigner, this has loads of benefits.

1. It means that you can get around and settle into a daily routine in a new country without the added stress of trying to learn the language. 
2. It also means that, if you choose, you never actually have to learn German and will still be able to comfortably get around and live in Vienna. 

One of the side effects of most of the population speaking good English is that when you encounter someone who does not (or doesn't feel comfortable speaking English), they can often be quite surly and tacit about it. They will choose to curtly speak quick-fire German at you, rather than trying to do the age-old dance of each person trying to speak whatever broken bits of the other's language that they know, along with various Charades-like miming, to try and communicate. This is not their fault but it is quite a stark contrast to the rest of the population who do congenially speak English with you. 

Surprisingly, the highest population that I have found of this group is at the MA35, which is the government office that deals with residency permits and visas. Essentially, all the people that go to the MA35 are foreign people conducting business regarding their visas (be it applying, renewing, pick-up, etc). This is the one place that I don't understand why they do not hire people who speak decent English, since it is an office that works with people who are definitely non-Austrian, and often non-EU citizens. 

Once you've settled a bit in Austria, and decide "yes, I'd like to become at least conversational in German," you now have a different type of problem. 

Some of the major disadvantages to the fact that the population speaks such good English include: 

1. If you decide to try and learn German, you never really get the chance to practice. This is what I mean that immersion doesn't really work in Vienna. Service people will switch to English so that business can be conducted quicker and more efficiently. 
2. Also, no niceties or small-talk occur in normal business exchanges. At the cash register, they churn you through as quick as possible. They don't really speak to you except a curt greeting and asking how you will pay. As a foreign person, who works in a place where English is the common language, these exchanges at the supermarket, drugstore, etc are the main places that you encounter an opportunity to speak with native German speakers and practice your German. Unfortunately, these exchanges are not very useful for practice because of how truncated and rushed they are. 

Overall, the first three months living abroad in Vienna were, without doubt, the hardest time in my life. But looking at it now, almost a year in, even within those three months, I was improving and I can definitely see a difference between then and now (Apr 2016). So for anyone who reads this and has just moved to a new place completely outside your comfort zone: take heart, it will get better; push through the early months, they are the absolute worst!