We have lived in Vienna for 7 weeks already! Amazing how time flies when you are feeling your way in the dark with a new city, new language, new culture. We arrived in Austria in early March and were greeted by gloriously sunny days, and had a long list of neighborhoods and apartments to explore. Each day we were exploring subway maps, figuring out how to interpret an Austrian address (i.e. Roterngasse 26/21 means building number 26 and apartment number 21 - which in no way infers it is on the 2nd floor!). After weeks and weeks of searching, the rain and clouds came back, and our moods shifted from optimistic to downright desperate. We were living in temporary housing, which was fine, but we didn't feel like we could relax until we had our own place.

I should now mention an Austrian complication. TWO Austrian complications. Here they have this thing, where they advertise apartments through agents, (and those Gucci wearing, Armani suit, jerk rods) take 2-3 MONTHS RENT to just show you the apartment. So, for example, if we were renting a place that costs 1k euro, we would pay the deposit (3 months rent-which you get back), the first month rent, and an extra 2-3 months rent to the agent, so they can presumably, buy more Hermes scarves. So, if you do the maths, that means, seven thousand euro to get into an apartment that costs one thousand per month. Ahem. Maybe it is because we are fresh out of graduate school, but that be hella coin yo! The second Austrian complication is wir sprechen kein Deutsch. Which means, we speak no German. MISTAKE. In retrospect, we should have taken three years of German, whilst squirreling away many greenbacks to prepare ourselves for this move. WHOOPS.

However, like most fairy tales, it all worked out in the end. Literally, our last appointment was in the 2nd district, and the place had no pictures posted on the add, so I was not optimistic. It was however, advertised privately, meaning no insane agents fee, so we were motivated. We met Barbara, the loveliest woman ever, at the front door. She dresses in a style I will attempt to now mimic, ballet flats, chic dresses (red pleather !), loud scarf, and great jackets. She is who I want to be in 35 years. She opened the door to a 2-story, sixth floor apartment with a  terrace, a massive bathtub, open kitchen, and gorgeous windows and wood floors. I almost kissed her. Right then and there we said we would take it and we moved in 5 days later. Here are some pictures of our  apartment which we love and love and love.

Once our shipment arrives in a few weeks, we will have our stuff, and it will look a little more like us (bikes stashed everywhere), but for now here it is and we are very happy. I will blog more about our neighborhood later but for now, I will only add a few pictures of the Prater, which is a very large park few blocks from here. It is where I do my morning jogs now, and I am so grateful to be near green space I could smile while I run for an entire hour on dirt! In a major city! How about that for luck? The trick Nils says, to getting what you want, is hard work and patience. As he would say, "It is like relationships, you just have to keep looking...sometimes for a very long time". I'm beginning to see the light.