Austria – First Impressions and Differences

Obviously my very first impressions were hard to decipher through pain and blurry tears, but that did not stop me from noticing how gorgeous everything is. Mountains, lakes, and fields of flowers. Old churches, adorable stone houses with flowers lining every window, cobblestone streets. Everyone always dresses very nice and has very good manners. It is difficult to pick up on all of the subtleties that make people the way they are because of the German speaking, but soon enough I will be able to once more have conversations on a deeper level.

People drive crazy everywhere they go but if something is a 20 minute walk or less, they always walk or ride a bike. They are big on conserving energy and recycling here as well. You always turn off the light and close any windows when you leave a room, run the water for the least amount of time possible, and in most places recycle plastics, etc. It is hard to recall small differences now that I have been here long enough to get used to them. The doors don’t close like they do in America. In America doors close completely where they are pretty much flat with the wall. Here, there is a small lip that stays over the frame after the latch clicks into the hole. It confused me at first because I thought the door wouldn’t shut all the way. The pillows here are all square. They have the same length as US pillows but the width is extended. The toilets are usually separate from the bathroom and they are built a lot differently. Everyone uses shower gel here. I don’t know about you but in the US, shower gel is the extra thing in the toiletry gift bag that sits unused in a drawer until one day you decide to do a deep clean and throw it away.

Food is also different. There is bread available for pretty much every meal and of all kinds. Lunch is the largest meal here usually and when you eat you eat with your family all at once. There are different kinds of food in general but nothing crazy or disgusting and I have liked almost everything I’ve tried. One thing I found very odd at first though was the sparking water. They drink a lot of sparkling water either by itself or with flavored syrup, juice, etc. I’m not a big fan of plain sparkling water but with other stuff mixed with it, it’s great! If I think of anything else, I will fill you all in.
That is about it for my stay so far in Austria. Of course, I can’t explain to you all of the little feelings and experiences that come from being here first hand. Plus, I can feel my English deteriorating already. I haven’t had to write so much English in awhile because here I am either speaking English filler words, speaking German, listening to German, or trying to formulate a German sentence in my head. You will probably notice this with my future blog posts if you haven’t already! And this post was a little boring in my opinion because it was just a general surface run down of what has occurred thus far (which many people have requested). But in the future, I will probably be covering only larger events and more feelings and people than anything. I will have one blog post per month MINIMUM. Thanks for visiting and talk to you again soon!

Aufwiedersehen!

Love, Vanessa