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.
Winter in Australia is… well… somewhat mild compared to Austria. And while there are some absolutely freezing days in Melbourne, especially when there’s a cracker of an icy wind blowing, it’s definitely not on the same scale. So here are 10 things I never knew I’d have to learn about what a real winter involves.
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.
I recently had a good friend come to stay for a week and half in our tiny little town. A word for the wise – that is too long for most in our tiny little town. Being autumn and getting colder, although the weather wasn’t terrible, there is still a limit to what we could do. On days where the sun takes until lunchtime to pierce the fog, it still feels dismal and cold and motivation is low.
This year I was convinced that I wouldn’t get sad on my birthday.
Spring is a glorious time in Austria – after enduring a long, cold, dark winter, the change is slow at first and then seems to happen all at once – birds tweet happily in the trees, buds burst open, everything turns green, the sun shines and the gloom disappears.
To celebrate my 100th blog post (yay) I thought I’d attempt to answer a question I still get asked a lot: What are the real differences between Austria and Australia? And it’s a difficult one to answer, because it’s a kind of same/same but different thing – all the little factors weigh up to create a big difference.
There are the obvious ones – the language, the food, the location, the culture, the weather… I’m not going to focus on those… I’m going to let you in on some of the more subtle differences between Austria and Australia.
