Some of the things we love about Vienna

1. The trains. The trains in Vienna are insanely nice and usually have bike storage. They go everywhere, and have pretty good food and drinks in the dining car. Completely lovely.

2. Museums quartier. Hanging out on bean bags, or the cool lounge chairs they provide after seeing an exhibit is the best way to just let it all sink in. Cute cafe's abound, but the fro-yo was a little taste of home. 

3. The food. This is how the noodles are made at Ramien, a great Ramen shop in the 6th. They shave off bits of this dough ball and make amazing curry noodle soup. Plus you can eat a schnitzel that is bigger than your torso. Very exciting.

4. The prater. We live nearby a massive park with great dirt running trails. There are tons of families and kids playing outside all day, and loads of places for adults to stop and enjoy a coffee or beer while the kiddies romp around. For some reason, the adults get the shaft at parks in the US, the least they can do is give you a nice espresso stand! Not to mention a glass of prosecco...We went there and tried to read in the grass but the people watching was so good we just stared at everyone the whole time.

5. From the city, there are amazing day trips to great hikes. Here are some pictures of our trip to the Schneeberg two weeks ago. We took this adorable salamander painted train up to the top, had lunch, and hiked down. After stopping at two  food huts for a huge lunch and then a sweet dumpling covered in vanilla sauce, this is probably the first hike where I have gained weight. Oh Austria, you and your comfort food.

6. Vienna is a bike town! Who knew?

7. Our neighborhood, the 2nd district. We had quite a hard time figuring out where to live, but here we have an Asian store with fantastic frozen dumplings, a large park (see above), and the best farmers market you have ever seen. 

Things are different here

In Vienna, a few things have struck us as different, unique, culturally entrenched, or maybe better described as just plain odd. Here is the list, and I'm sure it will grow as time goes on. 

1. While walking down the street, nobody moves out of your way and would in fact, rather shoulder check you than move slightly in either direction.

2. People still smoke, roller blade, and tan, kind of like in the '80's. 

3. Thou shalt not cross a street if the light is not in your favor, lest you be barked at by an elder. 

4. Customer service is purely an American tradition. 

5. The check out process at the grocery store is a competition to see how fast you can simultaneously bag your groceries and pay, while being spoken to in gruff German, in numbers that are backwards to the native English speaker (e.g. 58 is ocht (8) und funfzig (50), so you hear the 8 then the 50, leading my sad little brain to think EIGHTY! until I realize it is fifty. 

6. Whipped cream is the new salt and pepper.

7. If you are younger, you have to say hello first. 

8. If you meet someone, you have to shake their hand.

9. If you leave a place, you have to say goodbye. No sneaking out the back like a wimpy salamander.

10. Bags are not provided at the grocery store. I often carry piles of groceries home teetering on top of each other. 

11. Men pee in public, usually in a corner. Modest! 

12. Children drop trow and pee in public constantly. Usually on a tree.

13. Bras and thongs are worn under exercise attire. 

14. Drinking cans of beer on public transportation is normal and classy. 

15. Large amounts of bread, whipped cream, and cured meats can be eaten and you will not become obese if you are Austrian and you hike regularly with fancy Alpine walking sticks. 

16. Dogs are better than children. 

17. It is important to always have alcohol on hand in case anyone stops by after 10am. 

That is all I can think of for now...Tschuus!

The importance of meeting your people

This past weekend in Vienna, we were non-stop social. On Friday night, we met up with a couple a family friend set us up with. Kind of a two on two blind date. Except they brought another couple, so it was a four on two blind date. As it turns out, both the women have PhD's in science and are amazing and hilarious. One is from Iran and the other from the UK, and both have found jobs after about six months of looking. It was refreshing and intimidating to realize how there are all these great people, with PhD's, applying for the same jobs as I am! Yikes. The next day, we went to the Vienna wine walk in the hills with our good friends Kira, Chad, and Kellie. We walked up into the vineyards and had crisp glasses of local Gruner Veltliner and Riesling...until it started pouring rain. Then we walked down and caught a tram home before meeting some other friends for Bolivian food later (can you believe how many people we saw? so unusual).

Kellie, me, Chad, and Kira

I want to tell you about Sunday, but first I have a story. Last Wednesday, I went on a bike ride by myself around 4:30 in the afternoon. We have a good loop in the hills that takes 1.5 hours, so I was going to do it and be home in time to make dinner. This ride requires that at the one little cobble stone town, you go left and not right. Well, I decided to go to the right. Thinking it would connect back up to the main road, I just kept going, and going, and going and then I came across a dirt road. I thought, perfect! This must take me to that other dirt road so I'll just keep going. Well. Two hours later, I am descending a mountain bike trail on my carbon fiber road bike and trying to search for a cell phone signal to call Nils and tell him I'm not dead (yet). As I dismount and climb over roots and rocks, I finally get through and he tries to download a cell phone tracking app to find me and come get me on his bike. To make a long story short, I finally get to a road and tell Nils he can stand down on the search and rescue. This road takes me to another fork, and I have no idea which way to go until two nice cyclists with bright lights come and offer to escort me home because it is too dark to ride (damsel in distress!).

They were the nicest people, Robert and Martin, two super awesome cyclists from Innsbruck, and we were sort of laughing about the whole thing by the time I got to my street. We exchanged information and they offered to take us mountain biking Sunday. We met up with a whole group and had a great time in the trails above Vienna until Nils' rim separated and we had to split off and go home. All in all, it was a great weekend. Meeting new friends is hard as an adult, but somehow we just keep meeting all these great people, which makes Vienna feel a little more normal for us. Not quite home, but normal, which is an improvement from alien. To friends! Cheers.

Visit to California, dissertation defense, and bike racing

In August, I flew home to San Francisco to defend my dissertation and graduate from my PhD program at UC Davis. Here is the best part about finishing: nobody will ever ever ever ask again, "How long until you are done?". It is like asking someone, when are you finally going to lose that last five pounds? It is a sensitive issue for most PhD'ers because to be honest, they don't know. What it takes to finish a PhD, is a long, incredibly thorough thesis (mine was 115 pages,  my husbands was 270 pages) of original science. Original! Meaning you came up with the idea, figured out how to do it, and executed original science. And I would like to take an Ann Romney moment here, and tell you that it is hard. Not harder than a lot of things, but hard enough to feel like you were run over by a truck on a semi-annual basis with no more than a sympathy pat on your back from whoever will listen to you complain. The other thing you need are signatures from your entire dissertation committee. This was no easy task, and involved my advisor meeting one of the committee members at a conference in South Carolina and over-nighting my signature form back to California the day before it was due. I will add, however, the benefits of doing a PhD outweigh the costs by a narrow margin, and for the most part, I had a great time.

Having family at my defense was really helpful. My in-laws, Morris and Anna came and helped me set up snacks, listened to the whole thing, and then took me and all my friends out for margaritas and Mexican food. How awesome is that? The best part was when my husband flew in the Saturday after my defense and we got to relax a little by the pool, enjoy some California sun, and see some old friends. And to celebrate we all took a trip down to Half Moon Bay and enjoyed some excellent sea food and locally brewed beer.

Our last week, Nils competed in the Masters Nationals Cycling Championships in Bend, Oregon. His team is a great bunch of guys (Folsom Bike/ Mercedes Benz), and we rented a big house with everyone and hung out in the best town on the west coast. Nils came in at the middle of the pack, but after not racing all season, I'd say that is a pretty good finish. I had a celebrity sighting (Allison Tetrick Starnes), and naturally we enjoyed a great meal at Deschutes Brewery with our friends Greg and Janeen, and their amazingly funny son, Chimali. Here are some pics of our trip.

View from my in-laws house

Trees in Half-moon bay

Anna and Nils in a labrynth

Nils' Dad

Nils & parents

Nils & Mom

This is what my Father-in-law made for my defense :-)

Großglockner with Kira and Chad

In  between Italy with the fam, and my last push to finish the dissertation, we climbed the biggest mountain in Austria. It is 3,798m above sea level and requires a guide. It was a whole weekend adventure, starting with an overnight stay at a nearby lake, an early morning drive out to the trail head, and a one day hike up to the highest hut in Austria before the early morning summit on Sunday. As it turned out, right after we arrived at the hut on Saturday night, the windiest, fastest snowstorm moved in and quickly iced over the windows. We sat in the hut for hours eating and drinking and playing cards, and went to bed for an early wake up for the summit. About 5am, the guide came through and told us the weather didn't look good, and we could wait 1 hour to see if it cleared up. We waited and nervously listened to the howling wind. He came back and said it was a no go. I was secretly relieved, but Chad was really bummed. As we descended into the beautiful valley, it was a perfect summer day, and nobody could believe we were turned around from bad weather. We had to cheer ourselves up with recovery strudel at the lower hut, and despite the failed summit, had a great time overall.

Nils being outfitted by the guide

Kira, Christoph (guide), and Chad

The snowfield trek

Climbing up to the hut

Slumber party!

The crew at the very foggy hut

The walk down

Nils enjoying the view

View from the lower hut

Ortisei with Julie and Jeff

Man, it has been a while! So much to catch up on. Let's start in July. Nils and I went to Ortisei, Italy, with my Aunt Julie and Uncle Jeff and spent an entire week together eating, hiking, eating, and seeing Ötzi, a 5,000 year old mummy found in South Tyrol, Austria by some German hikers in 1991. Julie and I are very close, and it was great to have time for her to get to know Nils a little better. Her husband, Jeff, is a string theory physicist and always explains the coolest things to me when I ask about ideas in quantum physics I have heard of but don't really understand. My favorite thing about spending time with Julie and Jeff is I always walk away motivated to be more generous with my friends and family. Julie was the first person to show me, if you work hard, you can help a lot of people. She is currently sponsoring 8 Tibetans to come to the U.S.. EIGHT! Here are some pictures from our trip.  

Hotel Hell! It was actually the opposite of hell....

Mid-hike beers with Uncle Jeff

Ortisei

Jeff and Nils

The saddle of Sassolungo

Julie in Ortisei

Tram down the mountain

The last few weeks

Wow, so much has happened I don't know where to begin! A couple of weeks ago I left to meet my bestie Kate in Bristol, and then we flew over to Zurich. She had two conferences so I just tagged along asking questions and poking her in the arm when she was trying to concentrate on her talk. Kate and I have a ridiculous amount of fun together, and we usually end up in some amount of trouble, either by breaking large objects in restaurants or by ghosting the wrong person. If you aren't familiar with ghosting, you can check it out here. Here are some pics from our trip.

 

Kate and her famous PhD advisor, Dr. Tom Valente

We went to Europe's LARGEST waterfall and scaled a rock

Kate and Natascha

This is what I feel like most days, but it is totally unrelated to this post

Ramona & Natascha were added bonuses to our Zurich adventure

NEXT, Molly came to visit, and it was so great to have her here. She was such an amazing and generous house guest, she makes me feel bad for every time I have ever stayed at someone's house. She cooked, she cleaned, and she brought us the most thoughtful gifts. I'm really sad that she left today, but luckily Elena Hillard is flying in tonight as a replacement. In between this I have to officially report that I turned in my dissertation to my committee, so unless they think it is complete junk I should get my PhD at the end of August, woot! Here are some pics of Molly's trip.

Sangria on a warm summer evening

Good friends don't mind a little post bike ride snuggle

Nils discovered photo-bombing. Isn't he funny?

Tour of Austria!

Mols and I on our bike ride to the Wachau Valley

Nils resting his dogs in Langelois

Spitz, Austria

Melk, Austria

It was so good to have Molly here to explore some new bike rides, shops, and cafes. She is a great friend and will be missed. Next week we get to meet Julie and Jeff in Italy for some hiking and biking in the Dolomites. Can't wait!