Sign of life...

Hi everyone, we are still alive over here in Europe and still on vacation. We left Germany on September 14th at 5 am to Vienna. Together with my dad and his partner we drove the 900km to Vienna in two cars with all our stuff. We arrived at our new place at the Krottenbachstrasse 50/3, 1190 Wien, Austria. No, we couldn’t move into the apartment. We can move in on October 1st but our landlord offered us to store our stuff in the basement. My dad and Uli left to their vacation place south of Salzburg and we went to Veronika’s house to stay there till the end of the week.
On the 15th, we got up early. It was the day we were supposed to start working. Instead of going to the construction site called our lab or office, we went to the MA35 building. There we got two numbers, one for Joel to apply for a visa and one for me to register in Austria. After 1.5h we had my registration and Joel is supposed to receive his visa in 2-3 weeks. SUCCESS!!! Afterward, we met with Veronika at the institute and she talked to the human recourse people and we all agreed that it would be best to have us start working on Sept. 30th, when we have an office to work in and Joel has a visa and we have a place to live.
Since we could stay at Veronika’s for some more days, we decided to stay and try to get some things like keys, office equipment or lab chairs organized. Well, on Wednesday we did nothing ‘cause a cold knocked me out and I wasn’t able to do anything. On Thursday we talked to the IT guy and now I am the IT person of the lab. Woohoo.
On Friday we marked all the office equipment we want to have in our office and then we found out that you aren’t allowed to have a cell phone contract until you have lived in Austria for three months. WTF!? Ok, let’s get some ice-cream. It was good but couldn’t beat the chocolate shoppe’s Zanzibar. Back in Weidling, we put the gigantic mattress into our little red Hyundai I30 and drove it to our basement unit.
On Saturday morning we drove back to Germany, without telling anybody there. We stopped at my dad’s in Miehlen and discovered that my dad and Uli extended their vacation for another two days and weren’t back yet. Ok, we went on to Eschbach and found the house of my grandparents empty. My brother came home from work first and asked surprised whether we already got fired. My grandparents came after my brother from a choir fest in the town hall and were happy to see us back “home”. We finally could go to bed.
Sunday we drove to Nassau and had lunch at the restaurant my brother works at. Joel chose the pasta with pesto, because my brother made the pesto the day before. It was really yummy. We walked around till my brother’s lunch break and spend his break with him on the river Lahn. We watched some canoeists going through a lock and got really excited about canoeing. We decided to go canoeing on the Lahn on Tuesday.
On Monday we waited for my dad to get back and meet him. They were as surprised as the rest of my family. They heard that the car makes strange noises when you brake and we decided to get that checked. So that on Tuesday morning we exchanged cars in Miehlen and drive with their car to the put in on the Lahn at Laurenburg. We paddled down the Lahn for 14km to Nassau. On the way we had to go through to locks and had a lunch stop in Obernhof. Today I cooked a vegetarian dish (Risotto with Squash and mushrooms) for lunch. My grandparents were surprised and liked it. Wow, success!