ha ha ha

THE bridesmaid dress arrived yesterday and i collected it from the post office today. it is quite THE dress! for those of you who haven't got a clue what i'm talking about.... a good friend of mine is getting married this summer (and i am one of the bridesmaids, yay!) and the fancy dress theme for the hen party is '27 dresses'. if you haven't seen the film, its about a woman who is bridesmaid 27 times until she is finally the bride. she has to wear all sorts of themed, random and sometimes quite hideous dresses.  and i've certainly got myself one in the last category! i was gonna keep the dress a secret until the actual event but i couldn't resist putting a picture up....

although the picture just doesn't do it justice. it is spectacularly 80's! its got big puff ball sleeves, lace, taffeta, velvet. AND its black (i'm going with the unusual bridesmaid look). it is so damn hideous i couldn't stop laughing!

today has been a beautiful hot hot hot day in vienna. 26 degrees (maybe more)!!! that's hot for an english girl! kev managed to leave work at lunchtime so we went for a delicious lunch at 'expedit' and wandered in the sun. we also had to stock up on supplies for the weekend as its a bank holiday here tomorrow and i discovered on a forum that all the shops will be shut!

anyway, i'm just about to crack open a nice ice cold bottle of white wine and cook dinner (bolognese in case you are wondering!). lovely. enjoy the weekend everybody!

head spinning...

aaahhhhhhhh. having a bad day. really struggling with the course today... and feeling totally like the dunce of the class. all the vocabulary is just not going in. i'm sure my memory never used to be this bad?! i hate it when i can't do something. i start getting really frustrated and feel like giving up (its a very bad trait of mine).

i would step away from the books but i have a test tomorrow. woo! lucky me. maybe a beer will aid the memory?

okay, i'm back

sooo... where do i start with the weekend?!  we were lucky that we had pretty good weather for most of the time. sunday was a scorcher! (which we spent exploring schönbrunn palace and gardens). see here:

however, i made a fatal error in wearing my new shoes on sunday. i was nearly crying in pain by the end of the day! silly silly girl. i got a bit carried away thinking 'yay, its lovely and sunny and summery...lets wear my new shoes, gotta break them in sometime'!!! but unfortunately i totally underestimated the massive scale of schönbrunn and the amount of walking i needed to do. i will never learn!

saturday we spent exploring the innere stadt (centre city) and then went out for the most delicious meal at 'halle' in the museum quarter. i ate lamb with cous cous and it was amazing!

i can never get that much flavour in cous cous however hard i try!

on monday we did a little bit more wandering and headed over to prater. i got to take my first ride on 'the riesenrad'! 

 

shame it was cloudy that day but it was great fun nonetheless!

rather than posting lots of photos of buildings and statues (which vienna is full of!), here are a few snaps of some other things we saw (or ate) over the weekend....

a funny little cardboard dog telling you (i assume) that you will be fined €36 if you leave your doggie poop behind! (shame more people don't seem to take notice).

pinocchio sitting outside a shop

a really cute little lizard in the desert house at schönbrunn (can't believe i just said a lizard is cute?!)

some unusual but cool graffiti

yummy sisi torte i ate in the gloriette cafe, and finally.....

a stormtrooper in vienna??!!!  very bizarre!

righty ho, an early night for me tonight.... my legs and feet are still aching from all the walking we did at the weekend! (was totally worth it though). nighty night.

yeehaa!!

we've FINALLY got blinds up at the windows and so maybe i'll now be able to get a decent nights sleep. yay! seems a pretty trivial thing for me to be excited about... but you don't know what hassle we had to buy and get these damn blinds up! its also nice knowing that the neighbours opposite can no longer catch a glimpse of me getting changed etc (eek!).

btw, we had an AWESOME weekend with sharron! was a lotta fun and we explored so much (so there was no time for blogging!).  kev loaded 200 pictures (yep, think i got a bit camera happy) onto the computer last night so i need to go through them. will be back soon....

the excitement continues!

OMG...  new shoes! my amazing 'swedish hasbeens' arrived in the post this afternoon. and i love them!!!! (although i'm a very bad girl for buying them - they were cheap kev, honest).

i was even too excited to wait to take my socks off before i tried them on!

i just received a text from my friend sharron to say she's arrived at Vienna airport.  yippeeeeeeeeee!

i'm so excited (and i just can't hide it....)

i'm so excited as our first visitor to our new home, our friend sharron, is due to arrive in vienna this evening!!!! (thats if her plane takes off from london gatwick).  i'm trying not to get my hopes up (just in case there are any problems) but i am just so excited about having a friend coming to stay.
there are 'simpsons' clouds outside this morning.  here is a quick snap from our bedroom window....

anyway, i'm off to school!!!!

windy city

i'm finding it really difficult to know what to wear at the moment as the weather doesn't seem to know what to do.  yesterday i wore a dress with tights but i was too hot.  then in the evening it rained and i was cold. i looked out the window this morning and thought... its lovely and sunny so i'll wear a dress without tights today!  however, when i got outside it was soooo windy (but too late to turn back and change) so not only did i constantly have to hold my skirt down to prevent everyone seeing my knickers (wouldn't be the first time!), i also had to endure everyone staring at my glaringly bare white (okay, transparent) legs as if they were thinking 'is she crazy'?!

random dinner

as kev is away working this week i found myself pondering what to eat tonight and got a sudden craving for mozzarella! i went to the shop especially to purchase some but by this evening i wasn't feeling so excited by the prospect. here is a picture of my rather random dinner.

somehow i ended up with a concoction of mozzarella with tomato, basil and olive oil, lemon dressed salad, bread.... and a few gherkins! at least there wasn't much washing up....

uh oh...

... i found myself talking to myself this afternoon! not good. or is it so bad? i'm not sure. but i desperately feel like i need to have a good old natter with someone that understands me!

i have to say, the one thing i have found the hardest over these past weeks is not being able to speak german. everything is difficult. even simple things like buying food at the supermarket. and i'm finding it extremely hard not being able to chat to people or express myself verbally. i don't expect people to speak english here... of course i understand and appreciate that i am now living in a german speaking country. but, this is the situation i find myself in and it feels incredibly isolating.
the 9 other people on my german course seem a nice interesting bunch but we are from all over the globe (china, korea, japan, india, turkey, russia, hungary and of course england) and so we find ourselves not being able to communicate with each other that well.  after all, we are attending a german beginners class so no one can speak german and few can speak more than a little english. and unfortunately i can't speak japanese, chinese, russian, hungarian etc. so it makes for interesting conversation!
i must admit, i am starting to feel a bit of a billy no mates! (although having said that, the sweet hungarian girl on my course has asked if i would like to do some sightseeing with her tomorrow after the course which is lovely).
in only 6 classes i have learnt sooooo much... but unfortunately my impatience is taking over at the moment. i just want to be able to speak german NOW!  i need to be able to explain myself and say exactly what i mean... rather than just say a few random words and hope they get the idea. it feels like i've suddenly lost the ability to speak?!
anyway, enough of my complaining.... its all part of the adventure, right?! and i must stop procrastinating and get on with my homework otherwise i'm never going to get any better!

by the way, my course is in a building opposite the staatsoper (the opera house) and here is a little pic...

apparently its one of the biggest opera houses in the wooooorld!!

hangover from hell?

oh yes, did i have a hangover yesterday!!! hence, why i've been a little quiet. i was feeling very sorry for myself and spent pretty much the whole of sunday in bed. very bad.
but kev and i had the most lovely day and night on saturday filled with sunshine, shopping, wandering, cafes, football, beer, mojitos.... and more beer! we met some very random people in a bar....  oh, and we ate the most amazing kebab!! (from naschmarkt). happy days. here are some snaps from our day....

i got told off by the barman in american loos bar for taking the last shot so i had to show you!

anyway, the hangover has now gone and i'm feeling much better.  i just wish the ash would now go away and flights get back to normal so that my friend can make it to vienna on thursday. pleeeeease!

differences

whilst i'm stuck in the apartment waiting for the shipping company to come and collect all the empty packaging (now we've finally unpacked everything!) i thought i'd mention some of the differences i've noticed so far between back home in england and our new home.
okay.....
1. everything happens so much earlier here. we live in a really quiet road (in what seems to be a pretty quiet district) but the most activity and noise happens between 6 - 8am in the morning! (workmen started loudly digging up the pavement outside at 7am last week!). supermarkets are closed in the evenings and on sundays but they are open at like 7.30am. do people not lie in?!
2. people don't cross the street at crossings when the man is red.  no really, most people don't! apparently you can be fined for jaywalking or something (but i don't know how true that is). i mean obviously i remember my 'green cross code'! but i find myself getting really frustrated waiting at crossings. i must learn not to be so impatient!
3. dogs are allowed into many cafes/restaurants where food is served.
4. austria is much more religious than i realised. there is a church we pass on our way into the city centre and we walked by one sunday and there were people kneeling outside on the pavement because the church was packed out. i've never seen that before.
5. newspapers are sold in plastic wallets tied to lamp posts on street corners.  people help themselves and put the money into a slot. that would never happen in england! the newspaper companies would go bust as no one would pay for them! (it was funny we saw an old lady a few weeks ago in her dressing gown and slippers buying her newspaper from the street corner).
i'm sure there are many more but these are what come to mind at the moment.

i realised that i hadn't shown you any photos of where we live but i haven't really taken any. this is a view up our street when standing outside the main door and looking left.  its not particularly an attractive or exciting road but i love our actual apartment (the old VW van is cool!).

this is the local park about 5 mins walk away from the apartment which i run around (well, okay... i've run around it a few times).

i hope you are all having a good friday!  i'm about to attempt my german homework......

rain rain go away...

okay, i'm rather bored of all this rain now. its preventing me from getting out and exploring! instead i'm stuck at home becoming internet obsessed and looking at all the things i cannot buy (step away from the computer!). what could i do instead?  hmmmm.... all my shoes need cleaning. now that is getting desperate.
whilst i'm here i thought i'd share with you some pictures of my homemade pie. i had to improvise as i didn't have a proper pie dish (thats on my list of things to buy!) but it tasted absolutely delicious. i will definitely be making it again (thanks again sherry!) kev was very impressed!

  and that is kev's plate with 5 roast potatoes!!

a rainy monday in wien

...drowned rat springs to mind!
so, i should have woken up all bright and breezy this morning ready to start learning german! instead i woke with a headache following a restless nights sleep and thought... i don't wanna go!!!!! but i did go and it was fun (if a little scary!). we learnt how to say the alphabet, numbers, how to ask/say your name age etc.  so proper beginners... but thats exactly what i need. and i've got homework to do!  funny, i feel like a teenager again.
after the class i decided to wander round the shops in the innere stadt and try on some summery dresses (to make the rain go away!) but i've come to the conclusion that pretty floaty flowery summer dresses really don't suit me however much i may like them!! (and the rain is still here).
anyway, i'm now off to cook chicken and leek pie (as recommended by sherry!). nothing better than a comforting yummy pie to make you feel better on a miserable rainy day.

'the magic of the FA cup'

okay, what do i say...?!  some of you may think it rather silly to get so emotional about a game of football.... but i am really trying not to swear my potty mouth off right now! those of you that know me, will already know that i love football and i love tottenham hotspurs.  kev and i went to an irish pub this afternoon to watch spurs play portsmouth in the FA cup semi-final only to see us have a perfectly good goal disallowed and a penalty awarded to portsmouth (that was not a penalty!). we lost 2-0. boo. i am trying to make sense of the match... but i guess i just have to tell myself (through gritted teeth!) that it wasn't meant to be.

on the way home i was then forced to buy a slice of pizza in an effort to cheer myself up!

a delicious slice of salami pizza for only €1.  this is a bad discovery!!!!!!

art and cookies!

on friday i went out for a wander in the sunshine and ended up visiting the Museum Hundertwasser at the Kunst Haus Wien (which houses lots of paintings, graphic works and architectural designs by the artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser). i loved it! he was born in vienna but travelled the world and was finally laid to rest on his land in new zealand. he designed the building (and a public housing project Hundertwasser haus just down the road).  here are some pictures.

the entrance

kunst haus wien

some postcards i bought

hundertwasser haus (how cool would it be to live here!)

i left feeling really inspired and decided to go home and make cookies (not sure how that works?!).  however, this turned out to be quite problematic as they didn't have the correct ingredients in the supermarket so i ended up having to forget the recipe and freestyle it.  the cookies couldn't have turned out too bad though as kev has scoffed the lot already!

cookies with plain chocolate and hazelnuts

the biggest shot of limoncello ever?!

kev and i went out to dinner last night to a cute little italian called 'la norma' in the innere stadt (1st district). i had a great pizza and we had a really nice bottle of ribolla (well two actually!) and then instead of dessert we asked for two limoncello's (to aid the digestion obviously!) and this is what i got....

the glass is nearly as big as my head! (and i'd already taken a few sips!). 

a snap of the ceiling inside the restaurant.

feeling quite tipsy we then walked home and saw the fountain all lit up in pretty colours! (i've got a feeling you might be seeing quite a bit of this fountain!).

we also saw lots of candles lit for the polish president Lech Kaczynski. very sad. the candles look so beautiful.

accidental exposure!

have you ever had one of those moments when you feel that people are looking at you a bit strangely in the street but you can't figure out why?  and then you realise its because the side of your dress is caught up and you are exposing all your thigh right up to your knickers.  yeah, i had one of those today.  whoops!

sunshine

aaahhhh, beautiful warming sunshine!  there is something about the appearance of the sun after a long and cold winter that seems to cheer everyone and bring a smile to their faces.  after reading friends updates on fb yesterday, it reminded me that the sun has this amazing power to somehow make everyone happier, more hopeful and feel more alive.

not wanting to talk about the weather too much, unfortunately from the forecast it looks like we might be expecting some rain here so i'm gonna get out and enjoy this bit of sunshine whilst i can!  i hope the sun is still shining where you are.

happy friday everyone!

here are some snaps of the sun i took back in january and march in my home town of brighton.  i really miss the sea.  thats my friend jack in the second picture (hey jack!).

random sign

i woke up feeling pretty unmotivated yesterday but the sun was shining brightly and i thought... you really should get out and enjoy it.  i found myself walking in the direction of the naschmarkt (a really cool huge market here where you can buy fresh produce and also sit to eat/drink at the many cafes etc) and on the way i passed this sign....

it really made me smile (in case you can't read the small writing it says 'be happy, smile, be joyous, stop looking so bleeding miserable').  ha. bobby's foodstore (schleifmuhlgasse 8, 4th district) is a shop that sells english/american imported food/drink.  they sell pickled onion monster munch AND cans of strongbow!!!!! (although a little on the pricey side so i might only buy a can in desperation!).  i sat at the naschmarkt and drank a couple of beers in the sun and then on the way back home i saw a rainbow in the fountain...

not such a bad day after all!

nigella would be proud?

as my boyfriend kev didn't have a cake for his birthday (and he LOVES chocolate) i decided to attempt my first proper cake as a combined birthday/easter effort.  the recipe was 'easter egg nest cake' from nigella lawson's book 'feast'.  i have to say, the cake was delicious and i was really chuffed with the results (even if i thought my arm was gonna fall off whisking the egg whites by hand!  i have no electric whisk/mixer.  boo).  see the results for yourself!

here goes...

okay, where do i start?! i'm not really sure what my intention was in starting a blog (its not something i ever considered doing before i moved to a different country) but it seems kinda fun, like a diary that other people can read! (hopefully some friends back home will enjoy keeping updated with what i'm up to), and so i'm gonna give this blogging a go and see where it takes me.... and hopefully some people will follow me along the way!

its been exactly 31 days since my boyfriend and i embarked on this adventure together and moved from england to vienna without knowing another person in the city. it was a sudden move as it was only 6 weeks from my boyfriend being offered (and accepting) a new job here and us boarding the plane. i can't quite believe its been one month already (although being back in england at my old job seems like a lifetime away now).

to be honest, i feel a little in limbo at the moment. i'm jobless, have no friends in the city (other than my lovely boyfriend obviously), and i can't speak deutsch. i've no idea what i'm going to do job wise, but i've taken the first step by enrolling in an intensive 4 week course to learn basic german (which i start on monday - eek!). i'm feeling quite daunted by this but also excited to start learning the language (which i know is really important) and also i hope to meet other people in a similar situation to me? we'll wait and see....

i'm also excited to explore and discover this beautiful city! its all one big adventure.....

help...

this blogging malarkey is all a bit new and alien to me at the mo..... but i'll get there hopefully! (computer technology isn't my strong point!).