Naschmarkt! and other explorations

Yesterday was a lovely, busy day. I had German class in the morning-- I was slightly late because the U-Bahn train I was on broke down mid-commute and they kicked us off and I had to wait (like 5 minutes) for the next one, which was a very mild inconvenience. I need to keep in mind that such things are possible and not cut my travel times so close. Language-wise, I'm getting better for sure, but still trip all over myself when I have to speak in class, and my pronunciation is all over the place. It's definitely getting easier, so I think it's just a matter of getting accustomed to a new phonology.

After class I got coffee with a classmate, which was nice and relaxing (and REALLY good coffee), then headed off to try to sort out a problem with my cell phone. Travis had bought me a monthly SIM, the same one he and Dennis and Janice all have, but mine had stopped letting me access the internet and sent me three texts (in German) every five minutes about needing to recharge. As it turns out, apparently MMS messages were not included in the SMS/Call/Data plan, so I had to pay their "minimum" of €10 to offset the negative 60 cents I'd accumulated. But at least now I have a functional phone again, and if I get lost in the city can use Google Maps or this cool transit app called Qando Wien to find my way back where I want to be.

From there I rode the U-Bahn out to the 14th district to check out the neighborhood surrounding our permanent-apartment-to-be. It was easy to find, right across the street from the U-Bahn stop, and it seems like a nice, quiet neighborhood. There wasn't a grocery store *right* nearby, unfortunately, but there were some produce stands, a store with some basic food stuff, a pharmacy, and (inexplicably) several florists. And since it's so close to the U-Bahn it won't be hard to get to a "real" grocery store within a few minutes, certainly no further than the average commute to the grocery in a car. I need to get one of those rolling grocery carts so I can commute with my groceries like an old lady.

After stopping back at home to regroup, drop some unnecessary things off, etc, I headed out (in the rain) across the street to the Naschmarkt, with vague plans of buying lunch for myself and dinner supplies. It was much less crowded than when we'd walked through on Saturday, but it was also pouring rain and freezing. There are about 20 identical falafel/hummus/grape leaf/stuffed pepper/etc stands that try to entice you with free samples, and the first one I went to completely won me over by giving me a still-warm bit of falafel dipped in an eggplant hummus. The falafel was really interesting, almost sweet, and vaguely reminiscent of carrot cake in flavor. And it was 8 pieces for €1, so I got some, along with a scoop of the hummus, some stuffed grape leaves, and a hot pepper filled with a mild cheese. I wandered the rest of the length of the market comparing spice stands, trying to decide on things, and ended up with a little roll of goat cheese wrapped in prosciutto. By then, I was damp and cold (I'd underestimated how cold it was, and so had gone out without my raincoat) and bought a cup of Glühwein (mulled wine) from a stand, which was perfect for the circumstances and warmed me up considerably.

The goat cheese with prosciutto turned out to be inedibly gross, but the falafel and hummus and grape leaves and pepper and Glühwein get firm thumbs up.

The hills are alive with the sound of new attempts at blogging

So, despite my history with blogs (ie, not keeping them up for more than a few posts), I am going to try to keep one related to my time here in Austria. Because this will doubtless be an interesting couple of years full of adventures and craziness, between being newlyweds, living in Europe, starting my 30s, being unemployed, etc (like Julia Child! I just have to tell myself that Julia Child was a woman with her own career who became Julia Child because she moved to Europe for her husband's job! Thank you for reminding me of this, Emily).

Maybe I will master the art of Austrian cooking? I think Travis might have an infinite capacity for trying my attempts at preparing schnitzel and würstel, but I'm not so sure about things like tafelspitz. But Apfelstrudel should be right up my alley. There are also plenty of international spice stands at the Naschmarkt, an enormous sort of semi-permanent farmer's market/flea market right across the street from our current (temporary) apartment, so maybe I can master the art of Indian or Moroccan cooking too, while I'm at it. I will definitely-- and I feel reasonably confident about this one-- master the art of Austrian eating.

Or maybe I'll find a job teaching English, or maybe I'll learn to code and write SLP apps-- right now my mind is pretty full with just trying to learn German and navigate the city.

I have a good introductory German class with people from around the world, all of whom seem pretty interesting. And I'm not the oldest person in the class, which I wondered about. There are people ranging from a French lady who seems about 70 to a handful of 30-to-40-somethings and then a lot of 18-25-year-olds. They're from all over-- Spain, France, Sweden, Turkey, Iran, the Czech Republic, Syria, and the US. The teacher is nice, and generally good at making us understand, and fortunately the "language of clarification" is English for nearly everyone. It's definitely intense, but when it comes to languages I generally want to learn everything *immediately* so I'm feeling sort of insatiably hungry for instruction. Duolinguo is a nice supplement, too-- they just re-vamped the German instruction, too, and many of the new words/activities they added match exactly with things we're doing in my class, or vocabulary I've needed to look up or ask Travis about in the last couple of days. It makes it seem like they have been spying specifically on me, but hey, if our robot overlords and the NSA are teaming up to help me get better at German, I'm not going to complain.

My first sign that being in Vienna will be fun: Hamburgerstraße (Hamburger Street)! (the ß symbol is a double-S)

 My sweet husband's "welcome package" for me, including a delicious local pastry, coffee maker and supplies, German class text/workbook, SIM for my phone, chocolate, umbrella, and a pretty scarf (in the bag).

 The math department at the university! I asked, "Wirtschaftswissenschaften" means "Engineering."

 The view from our temporary apartment.

 Troubling snack names, but they are indistinguishable from Triscuits in both texture and flavor. I plan to try the pepper/olive oil flavor next.

 Mayonnaise comes, oddly enough, in squeeze tubes.

Stephansdom! This is the main cathedral in the city. It dates from the 12th century.