auf wiedersehen wien

wow. has it really been two weeks?

i've been wanting to write a final post for my blog... i wanted to try and bring together all my thoughts and experiences of living in vienna... as the 'new girl'... but in all honesty, i'm struggling to find the words.

i started this little blog as just a way to document the little everyday things happening in vienna so i could share them with family and friends back home in england. as time went by i realised how much i love taking photographs (even though i have no idea how to use my camera), and how thrilling it was to discover other people (other than those who knew me) also read the blog too. now i love that i have a permanent visual diary of our whole experience.

what surprised me the most was how through my blog i was able to meet some truly lovely people in vienna who became my friends. i'm so grateful for that.

i won't lie, at times (particularly in the first year) it was really really tough living in vienna. i felt extremely lonely, frustrated, isolated, lost, tearful, and sometimes just bewildered. the language was always a massive struggle for me.... but we stuck on through the difficult times and now they don't seem so important. in fact, i think they have enriched the whole experience. i have learnt so much about myself through facing the challenges.

living in vienna for two and a half years was truly an amazing experience and i will always look back on our life here with a smile on my face. memories i will treasure forever.

i guess its time to say goodbye to this chapter and move on to the next.... thank you for being here with me along the way.

i will now be posting over on my new blog rockinkez where i hope to rediscover my hometown of brighton and continue taking photographs of my everyday life. i'd love you to join me!

so, auf wiedersehen wien! i'll miss you.

lately

time has been going so super fast lately and my head is still in a spin over our move back to england. as i am typing this five removal guys are packing up our apartment. it feels very weird.

this summer has been so much fun in vienna. there has been so much sunshine, we've enjoyed some amazing times with friends, been to budapest and seen lots of live bands. including patti smith this week who was totally AMAZING (can't stop singing gloria in my head).

talking of music that is stuck in my head i absolutely adore cat power's new song ruin. but be warned, its very catchy! i can't wait for the release of her new album sun on 3rd september.

i'm not really sure what i've been doing with the rest of my time. the great gatsby was the last book i read but that was aaaaages ago. i've started the stranger's child by alan hollinghurst but its sadly been sitting unread. we have become obsessed with watching breaking bad though. its seriously brilliant. so maybe i've just been watching lots of tv!

i had to say goodbye to work colleagues this week which was also very weird. it feels like maybe i'm on holiday and i'll be going back in a couple of weeks. tonight is our final night in vienna and i'm not looking forward to saying our last goodbyes. sad times. but also exciting new times ahead.

frequency festival

sunshine, hotdogs, beer, red skies, laughing with friends, the cure performing the best concert i've probably ever seen = an incredible day.

(we won't talk about lying on the freezing station floor in the middle of the night and getting home at 6.30am after catching the first train home to vienna!).

blue skies

after the craziness of budpest and sziget festival i found myself with some time to spend alone on the recent austrian public holiday. i wandered around a little in the viennese sunshine looking at buildings and the blue skies and thinking about how much i'm going to miss doing this. our adventure is so very soon coming to an end.

i decided to visit the secession. something i'd wanted to do since we moved here but somehow never found the time. i love the building so much with the beautiful gold dome and now i can say i've finally been inside and seen gustav klimts 'the beethoven frieze'.

budapest (part 3)

on our last day in budapest we took the 'hop on hop off' bus before getting the ferry up the danube one last time to the sziget island.  good times.

sziget festival, budapest

so, the real reason we were in budapest was for the sziget festival. 5 days of festival awesomeness! it was so much fun. i loved it. the festival is on an island in the danube and it was so lovely getting the ferry up the danube each day (after a morning of sight seeing or chilling out at the apartment). we cheated a little and didn't camp but lots of people do the same because the festival is so close to central budapest.

i think i may have half destroyed 2 pairs of my favourite sandals. it was so dusty! but it was totally worth it. we saw so many bands over the 5 days. the killers, the xx, friendly fires, anna calvi, the stone roses, the horrors, beardyman, glasvegas, noah and the whale, hurts, fink, to name but a few....

we ate tons of hungarian sausage and traditional breads. we danced like crazy and even saw michael eavis!