Please remain calm

I forgot how stressful a move is in its final stages. A month from now I will be in Denmark with Silja - Bjarni will join us there shortly after. But this last month.... Craazy. I think we were slightly overambitious when we planned that we would leave right after I finished my MA studies. As an international student I'm currently running from office to office, filling out bureaucratic paperworks and making sure I'm adhering to deadlines and guidelines and what not. But in between my broken German and secretaries', at times, rusty English, misunderstandings still happen. I submitted my thesis in the beginning of this week, but learned at the same time that I need a grade for the thesis two weeks BEFORE I can register for the final exam. My advisor, who is relatively new to Uni Wien didn't know either. She now has less than a week to read and grade my 100 page paper, if I'm to take the final exam before we leave. This whole mess has now left us trying to postpone the exam to the last minut, one or two days before I leave Viennea. Worst case scenario is that I have to come back to do the final exam over the summer, but man, I hope this works out before we go. I was hoping for a little breather after I had submitted my thesis, but it doesn't feel like it now. I will be studying and packing/organizing right up until we leave.

On a positive note, Silja finally received her US visa, and we decided to ship our belongings straight from Vienna, making that part considerably more easy. What else? We are drinking the expensive wine, because there is no need to save things like that for special occasions. From now on its clearing things out, which has its nice moments to it too.

Phew, I hope to check in sooner than later, but we'll see how it goes.

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Frozen Morning

We were early for our visa interview at the US consulate this morning, and went for a walk in Stadt Park to kill time. Although the Siberian winter conditions have left Vienna, the city is still frozen. According to the weather forecast the weekend will bring sun and 6 (S I X) happy degrees.

We got the visas. Well, except from Silja, whose newly issued passport has been delayed from the Danish authorities. Hopefully it will get here soon though, so she can come along. Vienna is nice, but we don't want to leave her behind. Next on the to-do list is to find a rental van to take to Hamburg (and leave there) with all our stuff that will then be shipped to Boston. Oh, is it nice this endless to-do list is getting shorter.

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Moving Schizophrenia

As we are getting closer to leaving and things slowly fall into place I get into this standard moving schizophrenia mode. I say standard because I know this is a completely normal reaction to a move (of course it's called something else), and I have tried it before, and I know all will work out in the end. It's just a phase...

Nevertheless this is the time - for me at least - of fluctuating between feeling invigorated and optimistic about new beginnings, a fresh start, and new adventures in one moment and sad and nostalgic the next about leaving behind the safe base we have built up here over the last two and half years.

We cannot take all our stuff with us when we move, it's simply just to expensive and honestly a lot of the stuff are not even worth shipping all that way. So, we will bring all our personal belongings, but we will leave behind almost all our furniture. The other day we got an email from the owners of the apartment saying they would like to buy it all: tables, chairs, TV, bed, couch, closets. Everything! Do you know how much trouble that saves us?! It basically means we can just pack everything else up in boxes, scrub the place down and when the time comes,

just get up and leave like were we just going to run to the super market and be back five minutes later. But it also means that we are literary leaving our home behind us. Things we have carefully selected even before we moved in together, and things that for us have a history. So while I can't wait to get a new sofa, because the one we have is totally uncomfortable and I've been dying to replace it for a loong time, it is still the sofa we bought, when we got out first apartment together. To cut the ties to these material things all at once suddenly feels more difficult than anticipated, although I know that a lot would slowly be replaced if we were to stay put. Now it's like ripping of a band-aid all at once -- rhiiipp -- and then plunge into a whole new start - along with a crib and boxes full of clothes, and books, and toys and all that other moveable stuff that lucky also has a history and significance for us.

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Dreikönigsfest

Well, turns out today is Epiphany, which in Austria is a public holiday: No work, no Kindergarten... A whole day off and a long weekend! Thank you. I realized it late last night, and was surprised how it was all of sudden weekend already. I will miss all these public holidays that are conveniently spread out over the year, when we leave Austria, but then there will be Memorial Day, Labor Day and so on.

We went for a sunny but freezing walk in the park, and came back for hot chocolate and house searching in Boston. We are in the middle of quite big logistic puzzle that requires long lists and a cool overview, and sweet Bjarni is so on top of it!

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Lately (according to my phone)

Sometimes at night when we take a break from working/studying, we end up searching for apartments in Boston. Mostly to get a feel for the different neighborhoods, and what apartments in our price range look like. Bjarni can get subsumed in Google maps/Google Earth, and have to show me bike trails, playgrounds, distances from here to there and what not. Three minutes into the map explorations I'm lost, and start doing other things, like playing around with my phone and Instagram (pretending I'm still paying attention..). Although I'm not the most dedicated person to examine and prepare for a new place in that way, it's kind of crazy how one can prepare. We can for example find an apartment ad online with an address, go to Google street view and "walk down" the street to see how the surroundings look like in that particular area, although we are practically sitting on the other side of the world. Pretty neat, I think.

****

Today was proof-reading of Bjarni's dissertation and tending to a kid with fever. Again. She was put to bed tonight fever-free, so fingers crossed, it'll stay that way tonight and tomorrow.

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