Austria-Welcome to Wine Country

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Welcome to the Wine Quarter of Lower Austria, where the wine runs deep and your glass will never be empty.

It has been quite a trip so far I must say. Before we left Melissa was faced with the choice between taking the Fulbright scholarship or going it alone through a contact we met through our church. The Fulbright would mean a higher paying job, help with getting our resident permits, and assistance getting established in general. After much prayer and dispite typical reasoning we felt it would be best to go it alone, and so far it has turned out to be a great decision.

When we arrived in Vienna (Wien) last month we were greeted at the airport by the Felzl family. Suzanne, Gerhard, Maximillian, and Anna-Katarina. This family has been a gift from God! They have been nothing but the best hosts we could have imagined. They have helped us every step of the way. Anyone who knows me and Melissa (my wife), knows that I call her "May" and she calls me "Mist". Our first night with the Felzl family Melissa said in English "Mist, will you pass the salad?". Two days later we found out that mist means fertilizer in Austrian-German, and the family thought she was saying something bad about the food.....Oops!

In the last months we have learned a great deal about the Austrian culture. When greeting for instance it is customary to shake hands and kiss both cheeks (except when men are greeting men). Another thing we have learned here is that Austrian's eat their main meal around lunch time then will just have a small snack usually for dinner. I have had a hard time adjusting to this because well...I'm hungry a lot. I do think that this eating schedule is better than ours in America though, because you are not eating so close to bed time.

I feel like I am learning the language at a pretty steady rate. Today, for instance, I went to several store and asked if they had chargers for the battery for my camera. I think it went pretty well until someone in line behind me asked me something about my camera and all I got out of the sentence was "camera?". Oh well! I'll keep practicing.

This coming weekend we are taking a train from Wien (Vienna) to Budapest for a night then from Budapest to Bratislava then back to Wien. I'll make sure to write all about it next week. For now no pictures as I think we left our charger back in the states so no pictures until we get something figured out.

Safe Travels!
The Red Traveler

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