Riding the Waves

My first night in Wien was simply spectacular. I needed to pick up my room key from a friend who's here with Central College Abroad for a year directly upon my arrival, and so I sat outside the Westbahnhof U-Bahn-Station for twenty minutes. The weather was gorgeous, there were pleasant smells wafting from cafe across the sidewalk from me, and I kept hearing snippets of conversations in the beautiful, lilting Austrian Dialekt I've come to know and love. I was also glad to (finally!) unpack my suitcase after 10 days of traveling. And that night, I met up with Marshall, another Central College student I knew from last semester, for döner kebab and a beer at a park near our Wohnheim. As we walked through the gorgeous, familiarn side streets of the 6. Bezirk (district), I wanted to scream "Wien! Ich bin wieder da!" at the top of my lungs. I couldn't believe I was finally back.

My first day at work also went swimmingly. After a tutorial in SPSS (another type of statistical software), I was given some Excel-monkey-type tasks, but I didn't mind, because the study was about learning strategies and I was interested in both reading the codebook to see how the study was conducted and in looking at the preliminary results. They also wanted me to correct the grammar of some papers that they had written in English and were preparing to submit for publication. Again, I really enjoyed doing that, because the topics were interesting and I felt like I was making an impact. 

Also, everyone at the Institut was incredibly friendly. I ate lunch with the other junior staff in the Mensa (cafeteria) on the floor above us, and I was told that everyone generally eats together every day. What a change from last summer, when it was the norm to eat quickly at your desk while continuing on with your work! And after lunch, we had an Abschiedsparty for two workers who were leaving the Institut, complete with cake and champagne. Drinking during work? Not a problem in Austria. The pace of life - even working life, apparently - in Austria is definitely slower and more relational here, and I love it. I'm excited to learn more about the Austrian working world this summer, because I feel like my experiences last semester were limited to student culture.

Then, after work on Monday, all hell broke loose. I returned from work to find three missed calls from Andria, the girl who had lent me her room, and a text telling me I needed to move all of my stuff immediately. My roommate, who had told Andria it would be fine for me to stay with her, had simply waited until I was gone for the day before reporting us to the Heimleitung (dorm management), so that she could have the room to herself again. So I moved in with Andria, her boyfriend, and his roommates for a few days until the room I found in a different dorm (which is actually closer to my work) opens up. 

And that has been my first 48 hours in Austria. The living situation problems put a damper in my plans to meet with old friends again, and I've been speaking quite a bit of English at home, unfortunately, because I'm living with an American, but I'm hoping that all of that works itself out when I move into Haus Niederösterreich tomorrow.