Movin' on in

I still have the Jeffersons theme song stuck in my head.

Brian and I (with the help of the Haskews) are moving our stuff into our apartment today. I kept telling myself that since the apartment is furnished, we wouldn't need to buy anything before moving in. Of course, I overlooked the fact that we didn't have any bedding. And that all of our dishes and silverware and cooking paraphernalia is sitting in the container in a warehouse somewhere, so we have nothing to cook with, eat on or drink from. And the most important thing I overlooked -- THERE IS NO INTERNET CONNECTION YET. So we've been putting off moving over there.

However, it's time to stop dilly-dallying and just move in. And that's what we're going to do. I have no idea how long it will take to get internet service set up. The previous tenants haven't cancelled their phone and internet service, so we have to get that cancelled before we can set up our own account. (I know what you're thinking... If the previous tenants still have internet service at the apartment then we have internet service at the apartment. It's not that easy. When you sign up for service, you have to register a specific computer to the account. So our computer wouldn't work even if service is still available to the apartment.)

So this is just a lengthy way to tell you that I may not post anything for a few days. Of course, there's also a good chance that Brian and I will tote our laptops back to the apartment where we've been staying so we can use the internet. But if I don't respond to your comments over the next few days (in case you don't look back in the comments -- I always try to respond to them), I'll catch up once we have service at our new place.

Bis später!

P.S. Brian said the lights in the living are going to stay.

The good, the bad and the lovely

THE GOOD: The apartment is furnished! Generally, when you move into an apartment in Austria you have to buy all of the furnishings -- even the light fixtures and the kitchen cabinets. (In Vienna, almost all of the apartments come with a furnished kitchen, so that was a nice surprise.) Our apartment, however, is fully furnished. Including...


A bed, dresser and schrank (like an armoire) for the bedroom,





EVERYTHING we need in the kitchen...




A refrigerator with freezer, This may seem normal, but compare the size of our refrigerator and freezer to the size of the fridge at the apartment where we are currently staying (pictured to the right or below of the photo of our fridge). The size in the second picture is much more common. (Notice the tiny freezer.)





A dishwasher (a little on the small size, but a great size for us), oven and stove, a counter (almost free of appliances) and cupboards,





And a washing machine (yes, it's in the kitchen).




Plus, look a this cute little booth in the kitchen!



The landlord should bring over a microwave next week. There's a little stand for it attached to the wall, so it won't have to take up counter space! (I really like counter space.)



THE BAD: We're not wild about the living room furnishings. The couch isn't really our style and there's a large built-in desk with a record player. (We would be happy about the record player if we had brought our records, but we got rid of them. Who would have thought that we would have a record player!) Also, the lights are kind of strange. Can you see them hanging down over the coffee table? But really -- even this isn't so bad. I just had to come up with something for the catchy title.





THE LOVELY: Take a look at this view! This is the view from the balcony off of our bedroom. Trust me, the pictures don't do it justice.





You can check out more (and larger) photos at Flickr - apartment photos.

And just in case you don't have the theme song to The Jeffersons stuck in your head yet -- check out the clip for the upcoming sequel -- The Rushers.

Movin' on up

Well, we're movin' on up

(We're a movin' on up.)

To the east side.

(Mo-vin' on up.)

To a de-luxe apartment,

In the sky.

Come on, guys. Sing along!

Mo-vin' on up

(Mo-vin' on up.)

To the east side,

(Mo-vin' on up.)

We finally got a piece

of the pie.

Now wasn't that fun? It would have been, if you had only joined in! In case you haven't figured it out, we have an apartment now. I don't know if I would call it "deluxe", but we certainly are "moving up" -- it's on the 7th floor!

We got the keys yesterday and the landlord was supposed to finish cleaning it today. We're going to take a look at it in the morning and hopefully move in sometime this week. I promise more details and photos tomorrow. But for now, you'll just have to imagine.

Oh, and if you want our address, just send me an email or leave your email address in the comments section.

BEWARE of the laughing rats

Do you want to see something scary? Take a gander at the sign that greets you as you enter the park near our apartment.

That is one sneaky looking rat! A bit obese, as well. (Really, can something be "a bit" obese?) The sign says something like: "He who feeds the pigeons -- feeds the rats!" Fortunately, we've never run into a rat. But every time I hear something rustling around in the dark when we take Sharkdog out after dark, I imagine this rat. That's one of the reasons I don't like to wander around outside after dark. (That, and the risk of stepping in dog poop.)

OLE

If you've traveled on public transportation in Europe, you may have experienced an OLE. Of course, an OLE can happen almost anywhere -- the grocery store, the park, minding your own business walking down the street -- but it seems to occur more frequently on public transportation. An OLE (that is, Old Lady Encounter) is an event where an elderly lady tells you -- often if a very loud voice -- that you're doing something completely wrong. Of course, these occur in the U.S. as well, but it's always a bit more traumatic when you're being scolded loudly in a foreign tongue. An OLE may occur because you're standing when you should be sitting, or sitting when you should be standing, or because you've opened a window and let a "draft" in, or because you're not wearing a scarf when it's cold outside, or you're drinking something you shouldn't (more on this later). The possibilities are endless. I know there are many of you out there who have experienced an OLE. Last week Brian and I had our first encounter with an old lady on the u-bahn, but fortunately, it was quite pleasant. It went a little something like this:

Brian and I are sitting on the u-bahn heading into town when an old woman comes and sits across from us. After a few moments, the women draws several hard candies from her bag and offers one to each of us.
OL: something in German that I don't remember (or didn't understand)
me (waving my hand, kindly, in the international symbol for "no"): nein, danke (no, thanks)
OL: sicher? (sure?)
me (still smiling and waving): nein, danke
OL (holding both of the candies out to me): für später (for later)
me (taking the candies and placing them in my bag): OK, danke

It was at that moment that I realized what she was offering. Ricola -- generally used (in the U.S., at least) as a cough drop. Not necessarily my idea of candy, but they came in very handy later on when I had a cough.

Blue Danube

Ah, the blue Danube. I took my camera with me to the river today. It's really hard to take pictures when it's so sunny outside -- especially if you're trying to be inconspicuous. The LCD screen is almost impossible to see when it's bright. Why have they stopped putting the viewfinder on digital cameras? Am I the only one who has this problem?


In any event, for your viewing pleasure, here's our swimming hole.

You can't see if very well, but in right in the middle of the picture above is a guy who is windsurfing. I don't think he was very experienced because he almost ran aground several times. He surfed from one side of the river to the other, back and forth. One time he almost ran right into another boat. It was fun to watch.

The picture below may just look like a shot of the river, but do you see that dark speck in the middle of the river? That's Brian.

Here's Sharkdog enjoying his piece of shade. He fell into the river today -- that's right, fell in -- and it was pretty funny. There were several other dogs nearby playing in the river, but Sharkdog was content to sit on the shore.

Sweet relief

In case you haven't heard, Europe is experiencing a bit of a heat wave. (If you've talked to me at all this week, I'm sure you've heard.) The temperature in Vienna reached 100 degrees yesterday, but today, fortunately, the heat is starting to tamper off. For those of you interested, today's high should reach 93 degrees. And next week -- highs in the 80s.

But this past week has been almost unbearable. So what do you do in a city with no a/c when it's 100 degrees outside? The popular answer seems to be "go swimming." So swimming we did go! The Danube River is the pride and joy of many Viennese and, fortunately for us, the portion of the river known as the Old Danube (Alte Donau) is just about three blocks from where we're staying. (Click here for a visual.)

The river has been very nice. The water is cool. It's not too crowded. It's clean except for the reeds. And the majority of the people have been surprisingly modest. Sharkdog doesn't seem to like the water, but he's pretty content sitting on the shore. Sorry for the lack of pictures today. I wasn't sure if it would be appropriate to snap photos at the river. But if we go back today I'll try to remember my camera. In the meantime, I added a lovely weather thingy to the sidebar so I won't have to tell you how hot it is in Vienna.

A few photos

I'm not sure whether Shark Dog has excellent vision or if it's just his natural hunting skills, but he's always finding something hiding in the grass when he goes for his evening walk. Can you see what he's been hunting?

Here's a close-up. It's a hedgehog! One night we saw about five of these on the evening walk.

Saturday night there were two firework shows at the Danube River -- one of which we could see from our windows. So I decided to try out the "firework" setting on my new camera. A couple turned out nicely, but I think they would have been better if I had been using a tripod.

One last photo...

That's a corner full of scooters (and one motorcycle). And I think 5 out of 7 are Vespas. Our pretty little scooter is going to fit right in!

Mission: Impossible

That's such a cheesy title; I'm sure it's been used hundreds of times in the past. But it describes our situation yesterday pretty well.

Yesterday morning, Memorial Road Church of Christ had their annual Mission Sunday -- and we were asked to participate. Several missionaries from around the world led prayers throughout the service via phone. One of the guys in Vienna was selected to lead the closing prayer. However, instead of calling us, the church used Skype to connect to Brian's computer so that when it was our turn, this is what the church saw:

That's our entire team -- 8 adults and 5 children -- crammed into the corner of our very hot little kitchen (taken by the webcam on Brian's computer). We sat like this for about 30 to 45 minutes waiting for our turn. We had closed the windows and at one point even turned off the fan so that there wouldn't be any extra noise in the background. (After about 5 minutes we realized we weren't going to make it and cracked one of the windows and turned the fan back on.) But once we were connected with the church and could hear the singing, it was all worth it.

So, which part exactly was the "impossible" part? Convincing five children to stay seated in the hot, cramped kitchen for half an hour? Convincing eight adults to do the same? (The adults actually have a choice!) Arranging everyone so that we all fit within the camera's view? Getting all of the technical stuff worked out just right? For me, I'd have to say: all of it!

Domestic Diva

Yesterday Brian and I stayed in since we've been doing a lot of running around over the past week. So I decided to do a little cooking and cleaning. I washed a load of clothes -- which takes about two hours (for the machine, not for me) -- then hung the clothes to dry. I did a lot of laundry during the summers I spent in Germany and one of the big differences is that in Germany you hang the clothes outside to dry and in Austria (Vienna, at least) you hang the clothes on racks inside. I imagine this difference is due to the fact that Vienna is such a large city and densely populated more so than the difference in laundry techniques between Germany and Austria. I also ironed some of our clothes -- practically everything has to be ironed since we're not using a dryer.

Yesterday was also the first time I attempted to cook a meal at home -- tortellini and pasta sauce. I didn't actually make the tortellini, but I made the sauce from scratch so I'm counting the whole meal. It was pretty tasty.



On a different note...



It's amazing how many churches and cathedrals you see around here. The picture below is a church in the neighborhood where Brian and I are staying. We generally walk past it a couple of times a day when we take Shark Dog out. I was always impressed at the number of cars park around the building and thought they must have a pretty active group that meets there. That is, until I realized one night that nothing was going on at the church. It looks like the cars belong to people who live in the surrounding apartment buildings. It's sad that the church has become nothing more than a parking lot.

I was lost, but now am found

It looks like we've made it through the first week. So far, various families on the team have lost: a lot of luggage, a dog and a wife and kids. Fortunately, everything has been found.

I wanted to write about some observations that I've made over the past week, but it's just not coming. Today, Brian and I were able to worship with the church that meets at Inzersdorf in the southern part of the city. It was nice to (try) to sing hymns in German and meet other Christians in the city. The only bad part was that it took over an hour to get there by public transportation.

This evening Brian and I went into town to visit a highly recommended eissalon (ice cream parlor) -- Tuchengasse Eissalon. I got a strawberry split and Brian got something covered in caramel sauce. Yummy! I should have taken a picture, but I didn't. So instead, I'll leave you with two pictures of Stephansdom at night.

Stephansdom (aka, Saint Stephen's Cathedral) is surrounded by other buildings, so it's hard to get a good picture of it in it's entirety. The tower on the right is one of the symbols of the city of Vienna.



Brian likes to look up at the tower while walking towards Stephansdom. This picture was taken fairly close to the cathedral, looking straight up towards the tower.

Number 4

Today Brian and I celebrated our 4th anniversary. How does one (or two) celebrate a wedding anniversary in Vienna, you may wonder. Well, we celebrated by going to an American restaurant for lunch -- T.G.I. Friday's! I wanted to go to Friday's because two years ago when we were in Vienna on our survey trip Friday's offered free refills on the sodas during the lunch hour. I was quite disappointed to find out that they no longer offered the free refills. On top of that, the sodas were only .2 liters (just under 7 ounces) and cost nearly 3 bucks. But we had a good time. After Friday's we walked around town for a while and then stopped by Cafe Hawelka for some coffee. It was a nice afternoon.

This is Cafe Hawelka. It looks a lot brighter in this photo than it did this afternoon:

By the way, T.G.I. Friday's does have the Oreo Madness dessert, which is a Gragg family favorite, but Brian and I didn't get it. We were going to get some ice cream later in the day, but that didn't pan out. Maybe tomorrow.

We have arrived!

After a short flight from OKC to Chicago, a long layover in Chicago (over 8 hours!), and an even longer flight to Vienna, we have finally arrived!


We were the only ones on the team to arrive with all of our luggage. Fortunately, all of the dogs arrived in good condition. One of the Lockwood's dogs made a run for it later in the day, but was found today (Tuesday).

The apartment we're staying in this month is very nice. Everything we need is nearby -- public transportation, grocery store, and a park (for Shark Dog). There's also a nice view of UNO City where the United Nations is located. This is a shot of UNO City that Brian took from the airplane.



And here are a few more shots that Brian took from his airplane window.

This is the Danube river and District 2.

This is another part of the Danube and District 22. This is the area where we will be living and working. The tall buildings you see in the middle is UNO City.

Another shot looking across to District 22. UNO City is located in the lower right corner of the picture. (The tall buildings make a great reference point.)