It is hard to believe that I am now well into my third year of living here in Austria. Considering I was completely opposed to the idea in the first place, this is somewhat of an achievement!
Funnily enough I am now the one who loves it the most and seemed to have embraced the change and adjusted well to my new life and the challenges that I have encountered along the way.
I am very lucky to have met lovely people and made some great new friends whom I know we will be friends for life. This for sure has made the transition of living overseas far easier and enjoyable too.
Though there have been times when I have met challenges that have made me want to pack my kids, dog and handbag into the car and speed up the Autobahn to my safe little island of the UK!
As I explained in my intro, we had never really planned this.... it sort of all just happened! So I never really had time to think about the what ifs...
We were lucky enough to buy this old guest house, badly in need of restoration or rebuilding as it turned out, and when we finally managed to get planning permission, which is no easy task in this region of Tyrol, where the doors to foreign buyers are pretty closed at times. However, we did manage it and before we knew it were building the house of our dreams! Well more my husbands dream of living on the side of a mountain at 1380 meters. My dream of building a beautiful wooden clad house, like something you see in the sound of music, only with a glass kitchen roof and my beautiful blue AGA, imported from the UK. The house soon became my project and I loved the idea of styling it with old Austrian finds verses modern pieces too. It started to turn into a family home very quickly and before I knew it we had made the decision to up sticks and move over here full time. Although my husband's business would still be based in the UK, therefore he would need to spend one week in three over there, we decided to also keep our UK house too, just in case! I always felt this was my safety net, in case I did actually decide to pack up my kids, dog, handbag and drive like hell to the North Sea Ferry!
SCHOOLING..... In another language!!
There was no option of an international school here, where the children could have continued their studies in English. So we put them in the local school, where all lessons would be in German and not a word of English spoken. Considering that both my children did not know even one word of German, this was going to be a challenge for us all, and looking back it was somewhat cruel of us to do this to the kids but the rewards have been fantastic and now I have bilingual children, who converse with us in English at home and yet in school and with their friends they speak Austrian/German and with a very strong dialect too!!
I am very proud of them both for this achievement and looking back I remember thinking that this was complete madness to take them away from our lovely little village school in rural England and put them in a small rural school in a mountain village in Austria. What I have learned it how easy children adjust to change and how adaptable they are, in the right circumstances of course!
In the beginning my son, then aged 8 years, attended the local Volkschule (peoples school) in the second class, where he had a marvelous male teacher who embraced the chance of having an English child in his class, and helped James learn the language with ease and understanding, as well as the other class members learning English, which is a major subject here in this town that relies on Tourism as its main business. Most people speak very good English here, despite many of them never having visited the UK at all! This is when they go to secondary school they study English every day as part of the curriculum and I am amazed how quickly they learn to speak it. Shame on us Brits who do not learn languages at school, or like me do learn French at school but what we learn in 3 years, they seem to cover the same equivalent in less than half a year! ( I must add that I have now forgotten most of my French and struggling with German at present, I could kick myself for not choosing it as a subject at school).
My daughter then aged 4 (she is a June baby so young in the school year) had been at school in the UK for a term when we decided to move here. She was too young to start school here, so she went to the local Kindergarten. Austrian children do not start school until the year in which they are 7!! Can you imagine this in the UK?
In Kindergarten they learn to play properly which builds the imagination, they paint, draw, weave, knit and make lovely things which stimulates creativity and they do all the learning at school later on when they believe that the child's mind is fully developed enough to take it all in.
My son also went to school knowing much more than his contemporaries too as he had spent 4 years in the British junior school system, where we push children at an early age to know everything!
However I did have my fears. I kept comparing my daughter to her English cousin, of a similar age, who was racing through reading books, writing perfectly and learning the times tables, whilst my daughter continued to make lovely things and paint beautifully! Would she ever catch up?
The answer to this is simple, YES, she has and she also speaks another language, can read in both English and German and can do all the times tables aged just 8 years in both languages! The joy of the young mind!!
And the pleasure for me was having my children at home longer, which for sure makes us closer.
Another big difference is the schooling times, the junior school here (Volkschule) start at 8.00am but they have to be in school by 7.45 am but they finish daily at 11.40 three days of the week, and 12.30 the other two, and no school at weekends! That is when us mothers must lay in bed and recover from the daily early start! It gets worse when they go to the second school at 11, the kids have to be in school at 7.15 am and finish at 1.00!! Shocking for those of us who stay up too late and are very slow in the mornings!
Everything in the Alps evolves around lunch! This is why the kids come home so early, they must eat a good home cooked lunch, around the table, with the family, family time!
At first I found this so funny, seeing everyone race home between either 12 and 1 or 1 and 2pm. Workers on building sites, ski school, doctors, teachers, shop assistants, you name it all stop and go home for their lunch!!
Having eaten my main meal at tea time all of my life this was going to take some adjusting too. But no point fighting it, as they say.... When in Rome do as the Romans do!
PARENTS EVENINGS or ELTERNABEND
I have never been fond of parents evenings really, but sitting listening to a teach babble on in another language is something else!
Teachers love being teachers, and love teaching people regardless of age, they always have a way of making you feel inferior. This is somewhat magnified when you only speak basic German and they speak better English than your German, they enjoy seeing you struggle to make a basic sentence and at times even unable to comment at all!
The frustration is immense!
Over the years I have somewhat learned to turn it around, to my advantage. When I don't understand completely but get the general gist of what they are trying to say, I can only make up the rest, so being an optimist I tell myself that all is fine! Because when all is NOT fine, they make it very clear!!
My son changed schools to the secondary school this year, so at the last parents evening, I worked my way through the teachers, understanding this and that but then the joy of seeing the English teacher, who loves speaking English, with an English person was fabulous! I also love having the upper hand for once and being able to correct them when they get it wrong, it makes me feel slightly normal again.
SHOPPING AND THE SUPERMARKETS
After living in the UK we take it for granted that the shops are open 24 hours, especially the large supermarkets, and if not 24 hours they are open most of the day and all weekend too. If you forget to buy a pint of milk or have unexpected guests then you just nip out at any hour and restock. Here it is a different story. The shops open between 8.30 and 18.00 daily (they also always use the 24 hour clock, so if you say till 6.oo this would mean 6 am here), and usually close for lunch from 12.30 till 14.00 and often only open on Saturday mornings only then re open on Monday! Again at first I thought this was going to take some getting used to but with time I have grown to appreciate the peace of shops being closed and as a consequence become more organized. What you run out of you have to live without until the next day!
Supermarkets are very basic here, but full of good local Austrian produced products, rather than perfect food that carries masses of air miles!
The biggest difference is the lack of ready meal isles, you know the ones we have in the UK that dominate the whole shop. Supermarkets in the UK have ready this, ready that, finest range, budget, low fat, low calorie, gourmet pub, luxury, deli, Indian, Chinese, Thai, French, Italian and so the list goes on, but here in Austria we have only a ready made lasagna and garlic bread, occasionally a vegetarian tortellini dish and then everything else you are expected to prepare yourself. You have to cut and prepare your own veg, no ready prepared, washed in bags, you have to remember how to cook which is actually great!
Fresh bread daily from the bakery is also part of every day life here, and whilst you are there you tend to stop for a quick cappuccino and chat, as there is always a familiar face there willing to converse for 10 minutes or so.
The Austrians also eat a lot of meat, they love meat! Having spent several years as a vegetarian myself, I still do not eat much meat, but it is refreshing to know that most of the meat sold here is locally reared and produced.
They are still rather perplexed at the idea that anyone can eat a piece of fish dipped in batter and hot fat, covered in crushed peas and vinegar, but I still go back to the UK and our first stop is at the Fish and chip shop. I guess it is hard to explain unless you have grown up with it.
They have the same love with sausages, boiled white sausages or frankfurters, served with dijon mustard and a crusty roll or potato salad.
FREEDOM FOR CHILDREN
My biggest plus of life over here, is how much freedom the children are able to have. It reminds me of my own childhood, where we were allowed to play in woods and streams, make tree houses and play in the fields without your parents knowing where you were and without a mobile phone or the usual technology children feel obliged to have these days.
Children are allowed freedom and to grow up appreciating nature and the world. Most children walk or bike to school here, and when you consider how early they start that is something! Kids play outside daily, they are used to hiking in the summer and skiing in the Winter.
I am always so nervous when we are back in the UK as I have to be conscious of where they are and whom they are with, and then you are tempted to let them stay in and watch TV so you know where they are.
Also here everyone is very easy going about other peoples children, they are always welcome at others houses at any time, well after lunch of course, it is all very spontaneous and free, whereas when we are back in the UK, I find it strange that mothers call to see if your children are free to come and play a week next Monday? I always want to say, why so long, whats wrong with now? They may not even be friends in a weeks time!
LEARNING THE LANGUAGE
Never have I found it so hard to apply my mind to something, as learning German!
I live in a very popular with the Brits ski resort, so most people speak English at some level, and as I said before the children learn English every day at school from the age of 11, so they leave school speaking fairly good English too. During the Winter season, I can walk down the Street, here in St Anton and think I was in London as the main language you hear is English spoken, most Europeans common language is English! So we can get by without speaking much German but of course you do need to know some, plus I think it is necessary just out of respect for the locals. As I said before in School you are expected to speak German, and I have to help with the kids homework, which of course is in German, deliveries arrive and you have to speak German, the washing machine breaks and you have to speak German.........
I have a recent story of going into a furniture shop in a town nearby and speaking only German ordered some garden furniture, which I understood was to be delivered on the Friday at before 12, I waited all day and nothing arrived, when I phoned them in the evening, they asked me why I hadn't picked up my garden furniture as agreed!! So it is easy to get mistaken.
I curse myself for not learning German at school, never in a million years did I imagine living here, by the sea maybe.... and as Austria has no sea then this country was ruled out!
The German grammar is a nightmare, everything changes all the time, so many rules and things you have to know, every noun has an article, der, die, das, die, masculine, feminine, neutral, plural, and so it seems ridiculous to us to think that a table is masculine and a chair is feminine and there are no rules as to why something is masculine, feminine or neutral, you just have to learn them. Think this is enough then these also change depending wether the sentence is used in the nominative, accusative, dative or genitive case! Then the sentence structure is nothing like English either so all the time everything is changing, it is a seriously complexed language.
So now I am on my fourth course and still muddled!!!! Though considering I moved here not knowing a single word, I feel the improvement is slow but sure.
Maybe the young mind is better because it is not polluted by dates, times, schedules, responsibilities, and alcohol!
I love having proper seasons again too. We have pleasant summers and snow in Winter! When it snows here it really snows, sometimes it snows all day and night for days and you can not believe how much snow comes down. At first it is very exciting and pretty but then the reality sets in, because you have to clear it quickly before it gets too heavy and then unmovable. Some days you can not get the car out as the road is blocked so you have to allow enough time to walk the kids to school or cancel your plans you have made for the day. No two days are the same in the mountains, the weather changes quickly and unpredictably at times. There have been days when we have gone to bed and woken up with snow half way up the door!
People start snow clearing as early as 5 am so that they can get to work and children can get to school, and that the tourists can get to the ski slopes! It is incredible that everything continues as normal, trains run on time, school stays open, shops open on time, the post gets delivered, the roads get cleared and gritted, whereas in the UK, the first flutter of snow and everything grinds to a halt!
You have to dress for the weather too, although we often have snow and sunshine, which is the ideal condition, sometimes it gets very cold too, temperatures of minus 20 are normal so you must have the right clothing and shoes and thermal underwear too. I always find it is a different sort of cold though, it tends to be a dry cold rather than a damp cold, which is more pleasant as long as you have the right clothes on.
This is where my addiction to UGG boots stemmed from, as they are so warm and practical for this mountain life. I have also developed an addiction to Moncler Jackets, thin feather stuffed jackets, for spring and summer, gilets and thicker ones for the Winter months, long ones, short ones, black ones and colorful ones.... Although they are thick and padded they are incredibly light and warm, they are stylish and don't make you look so much like a michelin man.
Learning to drive on the other side of the road and in snowy, icy conditions has been a big challenge, especially when your car starts to slide backwards on the steep hill leading to your house and you have no choice other than to sit there and pray!
Learning to embrace the change has been a great experience and learning curve. Learning the ways and traditions of a different country has been fun and rewarding..... even if I can't always say what I want to in German!
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