Austria

I have been in Stockerau, Christof's home for four days now, and what a relief it is to be in an EU country (we sailed through passport control) and to be able to read and understand the basics of the language, to find people's behaviour fairly normal!  I have spent the last few days sleeping, and feeling terribly stupid about my ignorance of the German language!  I can't follow most conversations and I understand so little.  I find myself appalled that I did six years of German in school, and can't remember most of it.  When I am not feeling frustrated and stupid, I am finding it much nicer than I anticipated.  The town is beautiful, lovely old buildings, lots of trees and plants and bird song.  The town is also small enough to get out to the countryside easily, and I have started running again which is wonderful. Christof's family have been very welcoming, and Christof's flat is nice and sunny.  This afternoon I am baking a cake (I have missed cooking) and you can't buy vanilla essence, only vanilla sugar! Eggs obviously come in tens - it's all metric here! And it seems you can't just buy bread - there are so many speciality breads, it's wonderful.


My running track, just five minutes away!

The top windows on the right of the yellow house are where I am now!