The State of Things, Including Me

The other day I spent approximately two and a half hours scrubbing the wooden stairs in our apartment. Scrub brush in hand, and a bucket of water beside me, I knelt scrubbing away and wondering about all of the other women who had scrubbed the same stairs over the five hundred year history of our building.

By the time I got to the bottom of the stairs (there are only sixteen of them and yet so much time had gone by) I knew that I'd been wrong, that there had been no other women. Nobody could have ever washed those stairs before. The wood is an entirely different colour than it was when I began, and there is still a grey film over them that I know I should get rid of with a second wash, though I can't bring myself to further abuse my poor, sore knees.

Before:



After:


















Our apartment renovations are coming along, though. The bedroom is nearly completely finished: the trim still needs to be painted and the floor in there needs to be scrubbed too. The office is the only reminder that we still have work ahead of us, but Christian and I have decided that having someone else do it for us is looking increasingly appealing. I cannot bring myself to rip that wallpaper off the walls and then have to deal with what is underneath it, again.

Anyway, we went to Ikea on Thursday for a few things we'd forgetten the first time and managed the entire expedition without a breakdown or an argument, which is probably a first. (I've told plenty of people that I genuinely believe Ikea should have relationship counselors wandering their stores.) Getting some stuff to decorate rather than renovate was fun for a change, and it's nice to know that our elusive Housewarming Party is not just a chimera.

I am procrastinating by writing this blog post. I should be either washing the mountain of dishes that are on my counter or else working on the oral presentation I have to give on Wednesday which I completely forgot about. However, we went out on Friday and Saturday this week and I am having a bit of trouble doing anything other than sitting. I just got back from having coffee with (my new friend) Adrieanna, but two coffees and Baileys later (her idea), my hands are still a bit shaky and everything I do is done v e r y s l o w l y. On the Katie Peacock hangover scale, I'd say, I would hold a baby, but I wouldn't... am too slow at the moment to think of something more breakable than a baby. My dad's four hundred year old liqueur glasses from Amsterdam? I wouldn't hold those.

OK this needs to end. I will probably write something about Brussels soon, or at least post photos. Here is my new favourite part of our apartment.





PS Learned an excellent party trick last night: we were in a building which is normally a Boyscout Club House, and the hosts had taped plastic over the walls, like the kind that you would use to protect the floor while painting. It wasn't very noticeable since the room was so smoky and dark, but prevented marks and spills from ruining the walls.

PPS I don't think my mom is very impressed by that party trick.

Schmiedgasse 25

Ok, so, clearly there is much to be said about what has happened since finding our apartment and signing the lease and getting the keys and now being in the process of giving it some love. But. Before I do all that, this is what has been on my mind today: the house I live in (or, that I am going to live in) is four hundred and sixty years old!

It just sort of blows my mind. The doorway in the kitchen is only 162 cm high, so that even I have to duck to pass through it, and I can't help but imagining little men and women from 400 years ago passing through the same frame-- without hitting their heads.

I guess it probably has to do with my being Canadian: most of the over 400 year old buildings that I have seen have been churches or little stone things in Ireland and those always have that ancient air about them. I have just never imagined living somewhere that feels like it should have an entry fee. It doesn't seem to affect Christian so much, but then again, his house in Eugendorf has a well.

[I have sort of got the impression that,] my parents are worried that the apartment is a bit of a hole, which I guess is reasonable when you hear that "it has really low doorways, a wood burning stove, an oil-heater, exposed roof beams, uncovered wooden stairs, and a toilet smaller than my closet. Oh, and it is in the narrowest house in Graz". But, these are all things that contribute to its charm.

Instead of writing more about how I like it despite all its idiosyncracies, I'm just going to post some pictures to give you an idea. OK? OK.

The only thing we have in our fridge at the moment is...


Christian built the first fire in our wood burning stove.



I measured: this doorway maxes out at 162 cm (5"3).



This is the living room which faces the street and is at the front of the house. I think it looks much narrower from outside than it feels on the inside.



This is in the stairwell at the first floor. It still works and I think that it's lovely.


Apologies for the night-time photos, but it gets dark at 4:30 here and I haven't gotten there before twilight yet.

While I am waiting for the photos to upload, I am doing research about how to build a fire that will last all night. The upside-down fire is looking most promising at the moment, but if you have suggestions, I would appreciate them.

And on Friday the 13th, of all days.

There has apparently been some strange backlog of the luck that was destined for me, which seems to have resolved itself in the past 24 hours. Yesterday was Christian's and my four year anniversary, which is to say that we have been dating for a ridiculously long time, and it was already a bit of luck that we still like each other after so long.

C. had yesterday afternoon free, so we were going to the bookstore together to check out (i.e. read and not buy) some books about Slovenia, as we are planning a trip to Ljubljana this weekend, a belated birthday present from Christian to me. Right as we were leaving my cell phone rang. It was a man speaking German, and I understood about half of what he was sloshily (his dialect, I mean) explaining to me. As the conversation seemed to be concluding without me knowing anything except that he had seen my CV and wanted to meet me today at 6 pm, I finally asked straight out what he was talking about, and figured out that I had just set up my very first lesson as an Teacher of English to Speakers of Other Languages. So, luck strikes a second time.

Our dinner at the Starcke Haus, a little cottage half way up the Schlossberg, was lovely. Since that was basically contingent on the success of our relationship, we'll just count that as part of Luck's first strike.



Thennnnn, this morning, we were, as you know, supposed to visit a little apartment at Schmiedgasse 25. I don't want to jinx it, as we haven't signed a lease yet, but it seems we have found a home... Third strike of luck.

After a nice cafe breakfast - which we thoroughly deserved after arriving at the apartment punctually at 8 am - we came home and made arrangements to sign the lease next week. Christian left for school, and I was tidying up our cake and wine from last night. I went upstairs with some dirty dishes and... was greeted with the sight of a huuuge parcel from my mother: sent over a month ago, presumed missing or at least sent back, containing clothes, cookies, and comfort. Sighhh...

I have this lovely image of some cosmic drain pipe directed at me that contains all the luck/happiness that is destined for me, that has had some clog or hairball or something for the past couple of months, that is now clearing. I have a boyfriend who loves me, a lesson to teach, a place to live, cookies to eat! Relief.

By the way, Schmiedgasse 25: the narrowest house in Graz, and 460 years old.


That top window you see will be our living room, and then there is a small kitchen, a staircase, and two more rooms at the roof level. Pictures will follow keys. Until then, I am glowing.

Dear Internet,

I have been feeling guilty for a few days about not having anything new to say to you. It's just that I have been a little down, and when that happens I tend to hole up rather than reach out. But, I had a really nice dinner with Bernd and Martina tonight, and drinks with Martina afterwards, and then I read a little something by Ms. Kate Preston McCarthy a.k.a. Ms. Gingham (who also recently moved to a new city) and realized that I needed to shove my moodiness aside and update my damn blog. So, here I am. Also, apologies to Ms. Gingham, who would undoubtedly never be so uncouth in an introduction.

Today was not wholly productive, but under the terms of my new don't-punish-yourself-when-you-do-something-dumb, don't-reward-yourself-when-you-do-something-right, just-live-your-life-without-feeling-guilty plan, I made the best of it anyway. So, after a late start, I stopped in briefly at Tribeka for a latte and a bit of The Magus by John Fowles, which I poached from Christian's parents in Eugendorf over the weekend. When it started to get to crowded there, I biked through the inner city to check out the building where we are seeing an apartment early Friday morning; we are meeting the owner at 8 am, and I figure that if we make such an effort to go see it, it is more likely to fortuitously be the perfect apartment for us. After scoping out Schmiedgasse 25, I continued to the university, where I handed in an application to study there next semester.

CLICK FOR SEGUE

Doing a Master's in English, in Graz, is not what I had planned. But in the past 9 months, almost nothing has gone according to my plans, so I can hardly hold that against an M.A. Being a student allows me to stay in the country, take German courses at the Vorstudienlehrgang, work part time during school, and full time over the summer months, and, at the same time, puts me in contact with exactly the kind of people that I was hoping to teach. Not to mention that the courses I took here were the most engaging of all of my undergrad courses, if only because I was thoroughly intimidated and therefore tried correspondingly hard. As a result of this decision, the job search has been suspended while I focus on getting accepted to Uni Graz so that I can get accepted for a Student Visa so that I can get accepted at the airport when I try to come back here after Christmas. Then the job search can start again, except that this time.. I will have The Papers that have been so elusive over the past 2.5 months-- the ones that make employers say, "Yes, we will hire you," instead of, "Hm.. If only..."

It has been hard to accept the fact that my very rosy picture of how life in Austria was going to be has not really developed at all: We don't have an apartment yet, I haven't made any money, I haven't traveled in the past few months, or even spent very much more time on the hobbies I was excited to finally have time for--drawing excepted, but only because you can do that comfortably while drinking a latte. But... I am still making progress; even if it is just speaking German with friends at dinner, or going to an Immigration Office without my Translator, or just figuring out how to grow up a little bit. With how my "plans" have been going lately, maybe it is a good thing that Iam doing something I had absolutely no intention of doing.

...

Can you tell I haven't really even worked out how I feel about it yet? Well. In the meanwhile, it is getting cooler here, and they have finally put the Christmas decorations up. Once they start turning the lights on, I won't be able to feel bad about anything that means I get to come back.

Lost in Translation

Austrians do not get knock-knock jokes.

Exhibit A: told C. various gems from my childhood. He did not laugh.

Exhibit B:

I said, now you try.
Christian said:"Knock knock!"
"Who's there?"
"Christian"
"Christian who?"
"Christian Witternigg"

Much giggling ensued.

Not much to report from this week. I don't have more pictures from the party yet. I spent a lot of the week on the internet looking at apts. and then visiting said apartments. I saw a couple that I like, but we have been looking for so long that Christian thinks our standards should be correspondingly high.

In being-allowed-to-stay-in-the-country-news, C. called the interior ministry and spoke to a very helpful man there, so I that I will hopefully be able to make some concrete progress on Monday. Not having anything to do here is starting to get to me, especially as my friends, who were previously more than happy to have coffee with me at any hour of the day, have now gone back to school or begun studying for exams.

We are in Eugendorf again this weekend, holing up away from the city. I am missing my family a bit right now, as I know that most of the Peacocks are in Waterloo celebrating my Grandma Peacock's 90th birthday and doing other entertaining family reunion things that I hate to miss.

Finally, that red velvet cake... was sort of a miss. Did you know that Europeans do not use measuring cups? Let's just say I need more practice with this whole "scale" thing. Also, Euro cream cheese ≠ N.A. cream cheese and that = cream cheese icing that ≠ good. After sneaking finger-dips into it for a week, I finally threw it (and the cake) out yesterday. Baking was honestly so ridiculous that next time I will try to photo-document it. I have much respect for generations of Hausfrauen that have made such lovely pastries either by free-pouring or weighing their ingredients. Anyway, sad face at inedible cake. Sighs of contentment at having C's grandma's raspberry/whipped cream roulade cake to supplement it. Oh, and, did I mention I almost had a breakdown in the supermarket - after being there for over 90 minutes - because everything has a different name here.....

Anyway, lots of nice things have different names too. For example, the delicious double Americanos that they make are called "ein Verlängerter", and the 1 Euro gelato you can get everywhere is called "Eis". Just to end on a positive note. Bussis.

PS. Most of these are really not that funny.

PPS. Except for this one.

UNDER DEVELOPMENT

Christian is going back to school tomorrow, so today was somewhat a tying-up of loose ends. We tied up summer and made valiant efforts to find an apartment, which is going at a slightly better pace than before, but is hindered by Christian's new work+school schedule. Luckily, I am over needing him to go with me, so I will be visiting some places by myself this week, and obstinately expecting the landlords to understand/answer my still-somewhat-garbled German, that has not yet completely come back to me.

Our summer send-off included climbing the Schlossberg and having a picnic on this stretch of grass above a well, that you have to climb over a fence to get to. It is perfectly south-west facing and tilted at just the right angle to feel like the incline of a beach. With brie, and baguette, and beer and books, and tomatoes and some paté-like meat called Streichwurst, we lay in the sun for the mid-afternoon until going to check out an apartment on Annenstrasse.

After the apartment visit we split up, and while Christian went looking for school supplies, I went for a "grosse Braune" on the Murinsel, and then read my book until the sun went behind the trees and the teenage couples around me got too close. Since then I've been looking at more apartment ads - they all start to look the same after a while - and then we are going to C's parents house for dinner and our Tuesday night TV program, which is so shameful I cannot even mention it here... on my blog.

Anyway, we'll see how I do on my own tomorrow. Project Find-Christian-a-completely-amazing-25th-birthday-present is still underway, as are a ridiculous amount of other projects.