There’s something very exciting that happens at noon every Saturday in Austria – and if you’re lucky enough to be near a fire station at the time… well all the more excitement for you!
The first time it happened my first thought was that war had broken out. Because every Saturday at 12, the fire stations test their sirens.
But yesterday it got even more exhilarating – because the first Saturday in October is THE ANNUAL NATIONAL SIREN TEST!
Hold onto your hats people!
With the end of summer approaching, we finally got around to ordering flyscreens for the windows in our house. A week or two before they were set to be installed, I was nonchalantly brushing my teeth in the bathroom, windows wide open to let out the shower steam, when I was startled by the sound of an approaching 747…
You guessed right – it wasn’t a 747 like I’d initially thought – no it was something much, much worse.
It was an evil hornet.
I have always been told I look young. Ok, it wasn’t so fun getting my ID checked at age 23 but still, I thought to myself, at some point this has to blow the other way. At some point, I’ll be happy that people think I’m younger than I look. And surely, I surmised, the inside matches the out – I eat (relatively) healthy, keep fit and am mentally just your average kind of person – everyone’s got issues, right? So I figured that even though I was heading for my mid-late 30s, everything was going to hold up at least for another little while.
And then things started going downhill. Continue reading
We’re all familiar with Uno – Uno is a worldwide phenomenon. But when I came to Austria I discovered a new and exciting variation – Fudln.
Ok, let’s be honest, I have a feeling that Fudln is confined to my small Austrian family. And quite possibly there are plenty of other families all over the world that play it and give it a different name. But our name is Fudln , and this is how it goes.
In early March, I was happily touring around southern India with my hubby when I noticed my lower back was sore. Nothing out of the ordinary, I thought – the bumpy roads, the beds – it makes sense. That evening I headed for a massage, hoping to find relief. But when I, grimacing, crawled onto the massage bed, my masseur promptly advised me to see a doctor.
When I first moved to Austria I had a lot of time on my hands, and this led to a lot of googling, which led me to the glorious discovery of the menstrual cup.
I can hear some of you saying “ewwwww” right now and clicking firmly off my blog. That’s ok. Society as a whole generally seems to view periods as disgusting things that should be hidden. And while I don’t think that it’s something that should be thrown in people’s faces – talking about your period and buying sanitary products should be normal, not icky.
Now that I’ve been living in Austria for over three years and married for w, I often have people asking me when I’m going to become a citizen.
The answer: Never.
It’s not that I don’t want to be. The red EU passport is something I’d love to have in my hot little hand.
But the thing is, I don’t want a red one, if I can’t keep my blue one.
Unlike what the rest of the world thinks, the Sound of Music is not Austria’s national film – barely anyone has even heard of it, let alone watched it!
To be fair, in Austria, the hills are alive with the sound of music, mostly the accordion, however in spring in the country, the hills come alive with something else entirely… they come alive with the smell of poo.
Renovations are stressful, costly and life-sucking. We (or should I say Thomas) packed a lot of improvements into the two very short months before we moved in. While the outside of the house was basically ready to go, the inside needed a bit of work – new kitchen, new bathroom… and then of course it seemed that every time we looked under something there was something more to do underneath!
Welcome to the weird world of Austrian apartments. In Austria it’s common for an apartment to be rented out completely empty, as was the case with the one we recently moved out of. Now, I know what you’re thinking… you’re thinking: “of course you expect to move into an empty apartment.”
But I bet your concept of an empty apartment is not the same as here. In Australia, it means the place comes with a bathroom, toilet, kitchen, hell, maybe even a laundry sink if you’re really lucky!
The apartment that Thomas originally moved into was brand new and had only the following – toilet, shower/bath and very basic washbasin.
And. That. Is. All.
an aussie in austria 