My Vienna :: My school

This is where I've spent the better part of the last 9 or 10 months:


This is the language center for the University of Vienna. Before it was part of the university, this building and the others around it were the general hospital.

More precisely, this is where I've been spending so much time:


This is the classroom for the German course Brian and I have been taking since October. (We were an almost identical classroom a little further down the hall for our September class.) And yesterday, we visited this classroom for the last time. We have both officially passed the 7th level (M3) and are finished (for the time being, at least) with formal language study.

It's amazing when I think about the progress we've made. We're not yet fluent in German, but we can actually talk to people and understand what's going on around us. And when we're familiar with the subject matter, we can get along quite well. In preparation for our final exam, we had to read three newspaper articles and write a summary and our opinion for each one. During our oral exam, the professor selected one of the articles and asked us to discuss it. Brian talked about a legal document that has to do with the care of the children in the event both parents die. And I talked about the global food crisis caused by soaring food prices. Not simple subjects.

We've made some friends along the way, as well. Two of the girls in our class started the first level with us in September. And several others have been in class together for two semesters. On the last day of class, I brought chocolate chip cookies (using my Aunt Sue's famous cookie recipe). They were a big hit and a couple of classmates even asked where we lived and whether we would be staying in Vienna this summer. I think we'll be keeping in touch. :)

Yesterday we met for a few minutes in our classroom to wrap up some final issues then headed to a cafe in the courtyard for a little socializing before we parted ways. I think everyone was ready for summer break.

My Vienna :: My grocery store

And here's the next installment of a look around my daily life. Today's topic is grocery stores. I generally shop at two stores: Merkur and Lidl.





Merkur is pretty similar to grocery stores in the U.S. -- a large selection of products, wide aisles, bright lights. In fact, when my family was visiting last month, I heard my mom tell my dad that the store was "just like Albertson's."

Lidl, on the other hand, is a bit different. The environment is kind of like a warehouse store, but it's much, much smaller. Here, I'll show you.



This is the entire width of the store. All together, the store has six aisles in the back half and five aisles in the front half. You'll only find your basic food needs here and mostly off-brand products. But the cost is much lower than Merkur.

And even though they don't have a large selection of items, they do have some rather unusual things. There are two rows of bins that stretch the length of the store and each week new items show up in the bins. Take a look.



Sorry for the poor photos. I was trying to be inconspicuous with my camera.

Often, the items in the bins are seasonal. For example, during the winter you could find coats, ski pants, boots, snow shoes, and even ice skates. And now that spring is here, you'll find all kinds of gardening equipment, home improvement supplies, springtime clothing, and outdoor games. I always enjoy browsing through the bins even though I've never bought anything from them. (Not at this store anyways.)

One more interesting thing about Lidl -- and grocery stores here in general -- is that there is a lot of space dedicated to candy. Even though Lidl is tiny, they still have half an aisle of candy. And it's the only aisle that has primarily brand-name products.

One of the most unusual things about the grocery stores is that you have to pay a deposit for the shopping cart. The carts are chained together and when you put a coin into the blue box on the handle, the chain pops out from the back of the blue box. When you return the cart and stick the chain back into the blue box, your coin pops out.



Despite the deposit system -- and the signs that say you can be fined for removing the carts from the property -- it's pretty common to find grocery carts like this:



The other day I noticed someone who had three grocery carts in front of their house -- all from different stores. Somehow people figure out how to get their coins out without returning the cart.

A few more interesting things about grocery stores in Vienna:

• You have to provide your own shopping bags or purchase bags from the store and you have to bag your own groceries.
• Another interesting thing about the shopping cart, all four wheels can pivot (unlike the U.S. carts where only the front two wheels pivot). This is nice when you want to move your cart sideways, but it means you can't really pull the cart from the front end. I learned that the hard way while nearly taking out a whole shelf of bottles.
• There's really no such thing as one-stop-shopping. Sometimes you have to go to a certain store to find a certain item. Take cooking spray (like Pam) for example. I've only found it at one grocery chain even though other stores carry other products by the same brand.
• Organic and fair trade products are much more prevalent here than in the U.S. (or at least in Oklahoma).
  

My Vienna :: My u-bahn station

I'm going to try something new. I don't know how long I'll be able to carry on, but I thought it might be fun to periodically show you some sites from my daily life. I'll start with a place that I visit almost everyday -- my u-bahn station.

This is Aderklaaer Strasse station. It's a five to ten minute walk from my apartment. Eventually, there will be a shopping center in this large field in front of the u-bahn station.



This is a fairly new station and it's much cleaner than the stations on the other side of the river. It's not always so sparsely populated. I just happened to arrive right as the u-bahn was leaving, so the place was empty. The sign on the left side of the photo shows the names of the stops for each direction. You can see that this is almost the end of the line. There are electronic signs that display the end station and how many minutes until the next train. You can see one of these signs on the right side of the photo.



There are a lot of signs at each station. There are several signs like the one below -- I guess so you always know where you are.



There's usually more than one exit from an u-bahn station, so at every exit there's a sign that says the street name. This is the exit we take from the Aderklaaer Strasse station. Most u-bahn stations are underground, but this one is above ground. However, you still have to walk UP stairs to get out. Outside the door you walk down stairs to get to the ground level. Austrians love their stairs. I love their escalators, but unfortunately they don't have escalators at the smaller stations like this one.



And here's a quick glimpse of the inside of an u-bahn. This is the new model and it's completely open from the front to the back. You can walk the entire length of the train if you want to do so. The older models have individual cars, so you're pretty much stuck in the section where you enter.



I hope you enjoyed this little tour of my u-bahn station. I have several other places in my part of Vienna that I plan to show you in the coming weeks.