Over the past nine years, I’ve met many other expat Americans navigating the same challenges. We make different choices, fight different battles, but we’ve sorted out how to make it work for us (more or less).  We celebrate (or we don’t), we honor our traditions (or we make new ones), we share our culture with new friends from other countries (or we gather together with other Americans in order to feel more at home).

Along the way, we’ve tackled a lot of the same challenges that are facing many Americans this year.  Due to COVID, many people are having to cancel or seriously alter their Thanksgiving plans.  You can’t see the people you want to, or celebrate the way you’re used to.  Believe me, I understand.  Here’s what I’ve learned over the years, in case it helps.

• Accept that it *will* be different.  Don’t try to replicate “normal” Thanksgiving in an abnormal time.  Accept that this year will not be a perfect copy of what you’ve done in the past.  It can’t be — circumstances are different.  You’ll make yourself crazy trying to “get it exactly right.”  So don’t.
• Allow yourself to miss what you’re missing.  Being away from people you love on a day that is ABOUT being with people you love is really hard.  It’s sad, and it can definitely be lonely.  Let yourself feel sad, lonely, disappointed, or angry at the circumstances.  Don’t try to feel like everything is normal.  It’s ok to be sad about what you’re missing.
• Figure out what’s really important, and figure out how to do that (or to approximate it).  Is pumpkin pie your favorite?  Make or buy one!  Are mashed potatoes the thing that makes the meal special?  Make some!  Would it not be Thanksgiving without football?  Find a game and watch it (even if it’s old, even if it’s recorded, even if you already know how it turns out).  Whatever feels essential to you that you CAN do, do it.  Don’t judge or criticize yourself, just go with it.  And don’t be afraid to try something that’s not quite right, but might be close enough.  (This is definitely a “close enough is good enough” situation.)
• Let go of everything else.  All the other “stuff” that you don’t care about (candied yams, or whatever) just drop them.  Don’t waste any of your energy on stuff you think you SHOULD do, but don’t actually want to.  One of the silver linings for this year is permission to abandon anything that doesn’t bring you the joy of the holiday.
• Remind yourself of why you’re doing this.  Why *aren’t* you doing a normal holiday this year?  As an expat, we think about the job, or the lifestyle, or the relationships that brought us to our new country.  This year, everyone can appreciate that we are spending the holidays apart to PROTECT each other. It’s as important as it can possibly be.  It helps to remember that this is all happening for the greater good.
• Connect with the people you love.  If it’s at all possible, figure out a way to connect with the people you’re not able to be with.  Call, exchange photos of your day, video chat, arrange to watch a movie or a football game “together”.  Anything to feel as close as possible, while you’re apart.
• Look forward to the future.  This is temporary.  It’s not for forever.  It’s what’s happening right now … but it’s just one year.  Think ahead to what you will be able to do next year. Make plans!  Having something concrete to look forward to really helps.
• Appreciate what you created.  However it turns out, whether you ordered pizza and pretended it wasn’t Thanksgiving, or cooked the whole meal from scratch, you made it through.  Give yourself a pat on the back, and give yourself some real credit for getting through what might have been a really tough day.  It isn’t easy, it isn’t what you wanted, but you made it.

Happy Thanksgiving, and good luck, from one American who can’t be with her family, to another.

That escalated quickly.

That being said, the feeling here is tense, but not frightened; dutiful, not panicked.  There is a collective hope that by taking drastic measures, upending our lives, changing basically everything, that we can mitigate this disaster.  We’re happy to do it.  We want to help, and it feels good to have a role to play.

We’re on day four of “remote learning” today.  It’s a ton of work.  I know that some (most?) kids in the world are stuck at home, glued to screens all day, bored, and bothering their parents as the parents try to work from home.  I know that some parents are trying to navigate their full-time jobs as well as childcare that DOESN’T involve full-time TV or video games.  (Spoiler alert: I’m pretty sure that doesn’t work.  If you manage to figure it out, please let me know.)  But my kids are still having school.  ALL of school.  The same classes, at the same times, as they would if they were in school.  For us, that means two different schedules (elementary and middle school) with classes changing at different times.  And their schedules are different every day.  Some classes are being taught by conference call, some are being conducted by text, or by email, or by prerecorded video.  Regardless, it’s intense.  There’s a ton of work, new tech challenges to sort out, and almost none of the mitigating social interaction that 3rd and 6th graders survive on.  I am lucky to have a very small workload right now (silver lining to being without a new freelance contract).  If that weren’t the case, either the kids would not be getting their school work done, or I or my husband would not be getting our work done.  As it is, most days, the kids are not finishing their school work and are sometimes following up 6 1/2 hours of “school from home” with another hour or two of “homework from home”.  I am fighting against feeling stressed and overwhelmed by the expectations of the teachers (even while I am immensely grateful for and truly impressed by their efforts) and I’m trying (and, I think, probably failing) to not compound the kids’ stress with my own.

Our grocery stores and pharmacies are still open.  The shelves are not bare.  My neighbor went out and got five new chickens on Saturday morning, so we’ll survive on eggs, I guess, if things get tightened down further (and as long as our neighbors continue to like us).  Dan was able to go out and pick up some staples at the store this week (including toilet paper, although we did get the last package).

Being expats comes with its own set of considerations, as it often does.  We’ve contacted some friends and asked if they will care for the boys if Dan and I were to fall sick at the same time.  With closed borders, airports shut down, and a pandemic raging that makes it especially dangerous to our parents to travel abroad (if they could even get into the country), we have to have a plan with a local solution.

As of now, we’re all fine, and life goes on, but these are very strange times.  We are not isolated in any real sense — I see my neighbors when I hang up my laundry, or when the kids go out to play — but we FEEL very much on our own.  As I tuck my boys in to their cozy beds at night, our home feels like a little island in an infinite sea, a tiny fortress of protection in the night.  I sense that we are on our own in a way that we have never really been before.  I hope that these efforts that we all are making, these minor sacrifices, have real consequences and maybe even help to save real lives.  This will be worth it, a million times over, if that is what we get in exchange.

Thanks in advance for all of your support!

Welcome to VIPKid, new teachers!

Many new VIPKid teachers struggle with getting regular bookings (or sometimes ANY bookings) in the beginning.  I get it.  TOTALLY.  I signed my VIPKid contract in December of 2017, didn’t have my first booking until March 2018 … and didn’t teach an actual student until May!  Eek!

But don’t let that freak you out!  First of all, my experience with getting started at VIPKid seems to be extremely unusual.  Plus, I did just about everything wrong that it is possible to do wrong during my first few months.  Now, I teach 3-4 afternoons per week, I have a bunch of regular students, and I teach pretty much whenever I want.  So even though I had a really rough start, it has gotten A LOT better.

But … don’t do what I did!  I want to share with you all of the mistakes that I made at the beginning of my VIPKid experience, so you can not make them.  Learn from my mistakes!  Don’t put yourself in the same frustrating and discouraging position that I did!  Here’s what I learned (by making all the possible mistakes as a new VIPKid teacher):

Don’t sign your VIPKid contract until you’re ready to get to work

I signed my VIPKid contract … and then immediately went out of town for 3 1/2 weeks. Knowing what I know now, I would have just taught while I was traveling.  But, at the time I was brand new, and that was too intimidating.  So, I figured I would just get started when I got back.  As a result, I didn’t even start to open up spots on my schedule until over 4 weeks after I had become an official teacher … and I think that hurt my bookings.

From the stories I’ve heard from other new VIPKid teachers, I believe there is some priority given to new teachers when assigning Trial class students.  And I think I missed whatever period I would have had priority by not opening up any spots during that first month.  So don’t do that.  Wait until you’re actually ready to get started teaching before signing on the dotted line.

Learn how the booking page works

This is seriously embarrassing to admit, but for about a week after I was ready to get started teaching, I thought that I couldn’t because my booking page wasn’t “activated” yet.  Yeah, that’s not a thing, as it turns out.  I didn’t realize you had to “unlock” the page in order to open spots.  (And the old error message when you tried to open spots without unlocking was not very informative.)  I wasted several days waiting for my page to “be activated” when what I was REALLY doing was waiting until I figured out how the page worked.  Oops.  Don’t be like me.  Just unlock your bookings page (upper right corner on the teacher website or VIPKid app) when you’re ready to teach!

Open ALL the spots … but not on all the days

The general advice you get when you first start with VIPKid is to open up ALL THE SPOTS so that you’re more likely to get booked.  I agree.  Kind of.  (But not really.)

A lot of VIPKid teachers live in time zones where that they need to get up very early (or stay up very late) to be ready to teach at the most popular times.  This is something you’ll get used to (or so I hear — I live in central Europe, so I don’t have this particular issue), and it’s totally worth it when you’re waking up to teach your way through a bunch of smiling, adorable kids while filling up your bank account.  Waking up in the middle of the night for a no-show (which happens a lot more in the beginning) or worse, no bookings at all, is completely discouraging and frustrating.  It can be easy to get burnt out before you’ve even started teaching if you’re getting up every day at 4:00 a.m. for no reason!

So, my advice is to start by choosing 2-3 days per week that you’d most like to teach.  (To make your life easier, make them non-consecutive days, like Monday, Wednesday and Friday, or Thursday and Saturday.)  Open up ALL THE SPOTS you can and would like to teach on those days.  But give yourself the other days to rest up, so you’re not endlessly chasing something that can be slow to get started.  Also, since it’s only a few days per week, you’re giving yourself time to get other stuff done without feeling like you need to check your phone every 10 minutes.  Once those days that you’ve chosen to teach are getting regular bookings, you can add in more days gradually until your teaching schedule looks how you’d like it to.

Don’t push that button!

Against the typical advice, I also suggest that new teachers NOT turn on the 24 hour option on their classes when they first start teaching.  As an established teacher, this can be a great way to make a little extra cash (if you don’t already know, classes booked with less than 24 hours notice pay an extra $2 each), but as a new teacher whose schedule is mostly blank, it just makes you feel like you’re waiting around on the edge of your seat (often for no reason).

And then, if you do get booked, you’ll probably feel like you don’t have enough time to prepare and get set up for those last-minute classes as a new teacher.  In the beginning, last-minute classes can lead to extra stress and not feeling like you’re able to put your best effort into it, which can also be discouraging.  So I recommend that you wait for a while, until you’re pretty comfortable with quickly prepping for classes to start opening up those last-minute spots.

Don’t book back-to-back (at first)

This is another piece of advice that goes against what you’ll hear from most people.  When you’re new, I suggest only opening up every other spot.  (Or, alternatively, closing spots on either side of a booked one once you get a booking.)  Why would you do this when it cuts down on your hourly income AND reduces your booking opportunities?  Because time management is hard, students sometimes show up late, and even after a year, I still find the transitions between back-to-back classes to be one of the hardest parts of my day.

If you don’t have classes booked back-to-back, you can run long if you need to (but practice ending at the right time when you can, because there’s a rhythm to it that you’ll get used to).  If you leave space in between classes, you’ll have time to leave class feedback while the class is still fresh in your mind.  You’ll have time for a bathroom break.  You’ll have time to get organized for your next class.  Don’t worry — before too long you’ll get to a point where you can handle rolling right from one class into another.  But until you’re at that point, do yourself the favor of leaving yourself some breathing room.

Get certified

So, your spots are open and you’re super excited, but you’re not busy yet.  What to do?  Treat this like any other job and get busy using your time for your VIPKid career!  Get certified!  Take some workshops!  Watch some videos on tips and tricks for teaching classes!  Spend your time now, before you’re all booked up, becoming a better teacher.  Later, once you’re super busy (which WILL happen!) you’ll be surprised at how hard it is to set time aside to get that next certification or take another workshop.  Plus, having more certifications will only make you more attractive to parents who are looking for new teachers to try.

Lighting!

When I first started, I remember thinking “Yeah, yeah … LIGHTING.  I’ve turned on every light in the house.  It’ll be fine!”  But … I kept hearing feedback about my lighting.  The parents would make comments in their feedback, I heard about it in my certification mocks, and I even had a workshop teacher call me out once for my lighting!

Eventually, I got the message and bought myself a $9 ring light on Amazon.  I regret only that I didn’t do it sooner.  It really DOES make a huge difference in how I look on camera.  In particular, it makes it a lot easier for my students to see my pronunciation.  So … fix your lighting!

Ok, so let’s say you’ve got some classes on your schedule now.  Congratulations!!!  But you know what’s better than a few classes — a whole bunch!  So, I’ve also got some tips for turning those first few classes into regular bookings with students who want to see YOU every week (or even more often)!

Talk to the parents (the only ways you can)

Never miss an opportunity to get noticed by the parents.  If VIPKid runs a video contest (like the ‘Video Blizzard’ or ‘Ni How You Doin’’?):  participate!  But even better — when you get a student, use every opportunity to demonstrate to the parents of that student how thorough and attentive you are.  Leave detailed and honest feedback after the class.  Always mention that you hope to see their child in class again soon.  Send an e-card (through the VIPKid mobile app) to the child after class.  And, if you’re lucky enough to get a 5-Apple feedback — respond to it!  Thank them for the feedback and reiterate your hope to see their child again soon.

I have no idea what the stats are throughout the company, but I know that the vast majority of my students are students that I’ve taught before.  I don’t know that it’s the repeated contact with the parents that does it … but I don’t think it can possibly hurt.  (Note: you can send an e-card even to a student who cancels or misses the class.  Let them know you missed them and that you’re looking forward to your next class together!)

Be prepared!

I see a lot of experienced teachers who scoff at the idea of preparing for class.  If they’re able to still teach an AMAZING class without having prepared, then I’m impressed!  But I can’t.  I prep for every single class I teach.  The parents are investing a lot in their child’s English education, and they deserve my very best effort for each and every class.

The day before I’m booked to teach, I take a look at my class schedule for the next day.  First, I look at the student’s information, because even if I teach this kid all the time, I want to be up-to-date with how they’re doing and what they’re working on.  Then, I go through the slides, make note of the lesson objectives, read the “tips” listed for each slide, and come up with a plan of how to teach each one.  And finally, I make a list of the props I will need for the class.  That’s it.  It sounds like a lot, but it’s about 10-15 minutes of work per class if it’s a class I’ve never taught before, and around 5 minutes per class if it’s a class I teach a lot or have taught recently.

Watch the playbacks

Once you’ve taught a class, go in and watch it back (a playback will be created within a few hours of the end of your class).  Watch at least part of it back, and critique yourself.  Are you talking too fast?  Do you and your classroom look engaging and inviting?  Are you giving your student ample time to speak before jumping in to help?  Are your pronunciation corrections clear and easy to understand?  How do your props look on-camera?  How’s the lighting?!?

Don’t be afraid to change things that aren’t working!  If you see something that isn’t great, make it better!  I know that I cringed the first few times I watched myself (is that REALLY what my voice sounds like?!?).  But I’ve learned a lot about what I’m doing wrong (and right!) by watching those videos back.  And that’s let me make some changes to become an even more effective (and busy!) teacher.

So, that’s what I’ve got so far!  I’ve gone from teaching 0 students each month to booking over 80% of my open spots and having a TON of repeat students.  I hope these ideas can help you, too!  If you’re already a VIPKid teacher, and you’ve got any other hints for increasing bookings with VIPKid, let me know!  And if you’re not yet a teacher, but you’re thinking you might apply, I would be so happy if you’d apply using my referral link or code (EMILY0294).  Thanks, and happy teaching!

(All images in this post courtesy of VIPKid.)

Blurry, yet totally adorable

Hey there everyone!  I’ve completely fallen out of the habit of posting here about my day to day life in Austria.  We’ve traveled to new locations, gotten a couple of new Corgis (!) from Italy, and become reasonably good skiers (more the kids than me!) from a couple of ski weeks in the Alps.  Life is an adventure (as always) but one of the reasons I’ve not been blogging as much is that I’ve been working.  A few years ago, I started working as a freelance copy writer and editor.  I’ve had some fantastic opportunities writing for a variety of companies and websites, everything from a nail salon to a new age health site to a clothing designer to a coloring book company!  It’s been a lot of fun, and it’s been incredibly satisfying to help small, woman-owned businesses polish their public presence.

But the inconsistency of freelance work can be daunting — I can go from being overwhelmed with work one month to having tons of free time the next.  And frankly, I get used to the income during the busy months and kind of miss it during the quiet ones.  So I wanted to find something else I could do to help keep my income level a bit more consistent.

I started looking for something that would really suit my life.  I wanted to be able to make some good money for the time I would invest.  I wanted to have the flexibility to be available when my kids are off of school.  Ideally, I wanted to work from home.  And, in a perfect world, it would be something I’d enjoy as much as I like writing.  So my search began.

And what I found was VIPKid.

I don’t have an answer yet to the question — when will we be home?  I’m not sure.  I can’t rely on the rules and regulations to tell me, because those seem to be oddly flexible at the moment.  We will come back, but I don’t know when.

In the meantime … we’ve built a beautiful life here in Austria.  We’ve made this our home.  We’ve adjusted to so much — the language, the culture, raising a family in another country, being at “home” in two different places while also feeling like we don’t quite fit in either.  We’ve made wonderful friends, had incredible experiences, and continue to enjoy this big adventure.

So, it’s been a while. Not since my last post, but, more generally, since I was writing regularly. I used to do this every day. For my first year, it was every day, no exceptions. I’d made a promise to myself. I knew that if I only wrote when I felt like it, I’d only capture the highest and the lowest points — our biggest victories and deepest frustrations. And I didn’t want that. I wanted to record, for myself, and for anyone else maybe going through (or contemplating) something similar, what it was REALLY like. And so I did. After the first year, I relaxed the “every day” rule, but kept up writing very regularly for years after that. And so, I’ve got one hell of a detailed story of our first few years on this crazy adventure. I’m glad. It has given me perspective on the progress we’ve made, and reminded me of small moments of the journey. And, every so often, someone finds the blog and reaches out, for help, for advice, with compliments or critique. And I love that. I love connecting with people, and as an introvert, any connection that doesn’t require me to change out of my pajamas gets extra credit.

But, the truth is that this blog was so much more to me than a journal. In the beginning, it was necessary for my survival and my sanity. Here, so far removed from almost everyone I knew and loved, at home all day with a baby and a toddler, with no social life and no friends, no chats or coffee dates, being able to express myself and have anyone even sometimes reading it was an absolutely vital outlet. Getting the occasional like or follow kept me from feeling so alone. I don’t know what those first years would have been like without this blog (but I know they would have been lonelier).

And so, I’ve realized that there are two reasons I’m not writing here so much anymore. I’d still love to keep up with the journaling and record keeping aspects, but I truthfully don’t need this blog the way I once did. I have a social circle now. I have friends, I get to talk to adults almost every day. My kids are in school full time, and my psyche is no longer so starved for connection. It’s a good thing. The other reason is that if you consider the original scope of this blog — sharing our challenges as we adjusted to this expat life — we no longer really qualify. We’ve been here 5 1/2 years. We’ve more or less adjusted. We’re still not locals, but neither are we “new” anymore. Things have changed.

Obviously, I don’t write every day anymore, and I have no intention of returning to that schedule. It’s my hope that in acknowledging the changes that have caused me to write less, I’ll hopefully feel drawn to write more, now that I’m aware of how I find myself to be in such a different place. I’ll still be writing, but I grant myself permission to branch out from my fish out of water story. I think maybe I’m back in the water now, it’s just that my new pond is quite different than my old one.

Please, though, if you’ve found this blog and want to reach out, ask a question, or just chat, please do! I love to help and I’m happy to answer questions. And I’ll be around.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, in a cave, deep underground, possibly on another planet, and somehow you STILL haven’t heard, the United States is having an election this year, and, unbelievably, it’s somehow more of an insane, media-fueled circus freak show than usual.

If you’re an American, living abroad, please, PLEASE don’t let being far from home stop you from participating in the process this year.  If you want it to be as easy as possible to vote, check out this site:

You Should Vote

(I have nothing to gain by this, just trying to help out.  Also, yes, I know it’s been about 1,000,000 years since I’ve written anything.  I’m hoping that will change soon, now that the kids are back in school, but it’s also true that my purpose in writing this blog no longer matches my current situation as well as it once did.  I started it as a record of “adjusting to life abroad”, and now, having been here for 5 years, I’m not sure we’re really “adjusting” anymore.  Anyway, there will be more, hopefully soon.  In the meantime, please register to vote if you haven’t already.)

It was our last hold out.  Of all the places we’d had on our “must visit” list before we came to Vienna, Prague was the only one we hadn’t been to.  It’s supposed to be lovely, it’s close to Vienna, and everyone who goes just loves it, so of course we were planning to go.

In fact, we’d planned to go 4 different times since we’ve been here.  I no longer remember all the reasons our previous trips have been cancelled.  I know that at least one was because the boys were sick, and I’m fairly certain another was because Dan had something come up at work and we couldn’t go away.  I vaguely remember that one time there was an issue with train tickets being sold out on the dates that we had planned to travel, but that might have been a different trip.  Regardless, it was past time for us to make a trip to Prague.

And so, last June, we finally went.  We found an apartment, booked our train tickets, did a minimal amount of research (I hadn’t realized where, geographically, Prague actually is until about 2 years ago — it’s actually WEST of Vienna).  And we were off, on another travel adventure, to a new country.

We traveled by train, which was something we hadn’t done over a significant distance in quite a while, and we found it, again, to be fun and easy compared to our more recent air trips.  I love the train, because we don’t have to be there 2 hours early, we don’t have to worry about which luggage gets checked or carried on, we don’t have to wait in line for security checks (though that might not always be a good thing, I suppose).  All we have to do is show up and get on.  We got a spot in the “family friendly” carriage, so we were not the loudest or the crankiest passengers, and our table top at our seats had a board game built into it.  (The conductor dropped off the playing pieces when he checked our tickets.)  The trip from Vienna to Prague was uneventful and pleasant, and no one was interested in checking our travel documents (which is what we’ve gotten used to within the EU . . . though that may be different these days).  Our plan for getting from the train station to our rented apartment involved taking the tram, which was slightly complicated, because we don’t speak Czech, and were completely unfamiliar with the tram system, but we sorted it out once we arrived in Prague, and it was actually incredibly easy and relatively user friendly.  (Though we struggled, throughout the weekend, with figuring out how to use the automated ticket machines for the tram system.)  We managed to pick an unusually hot weekend for June, which was slightly inconvenient, because we had also selected an apartment without air conditioning or ceiling fans.

Once we arrived and were settled in, though, the heat provided extra motivation to get out and explore the city (since it was hotter inside than outside).  Our first destination was the Prague castle, high on the hill overlooking the city, and we got there (again) by tram (though at this point we were mostly catching on and we found it progressively easier and extremely convenient to navigate the city this way).

We were struck, almost immediately, by how friendly people are in Prague.  People actually smiled to us at they passed (which I found unnerving, initially, until I realized just how much I’ve adapted to living in Vienna).  When we had trouble with the ticket machines for the tram, passersby stopped to help.  And in addition to being generally friendly and outgoing, almost everyone we encountered spoke truly excellent English.  We were worried that since we were traveling to a country where we spoke not a word of the language (apart from what we studied in the Rick Steves guidebook on the train on the way there) that we would have trouble communicating, but we absolutely did not.  It wasn’t an issue at all.

Now what WAS an issue was that, by the time we sorted out where we were going, got off a stop early accidentally, and walked the rest of the way up the hill, we had one very, very cranky and tired 4 year old with us.  He fell asleep on the tram, and by the time he got up, he didn’t want to walk, he didn’t want to see anything, he didn’t want to be there.  We found a quiet place at the top of the hill (behind a monastery) and sat to check out the view and give Liam a chance to rest.

Prague really IS as beautiful as everyone says.  The bridges over the river are picturesque, the winding, cobbled streets are romantic, the view from the hill down over the city is lovely.  As we abandoned our post overlooking the city, and began to walk down towards the castle, we came upon a procession in celebration of Corpus Christi (which was apparently the day we were there).

By the time we got into the actual castle grounds, many of the buildings were closed for the day (it was late afternoon), but that was actually ok, because the kids wouldn’t have been up for much historical study at that point.  Instead, we explored the grounds in near privacy, the kids got to run around a bit, and we found a spot to enjoy the view from a slightly different perspective.  We took the tram back to the center of town, and went for a quick stroll to the Old Town Square after a lovely Czech dinner, but we were all tired at that point, and a more extensive investigation would have to wait until the next evening.

Our first day in Prague, though tiring, was just as lovely as we’d come to expect from other travelers’ stories.  So often, when people enjoy a place so much, it doesn’t quite live up to its reputation.  (Plus, we’ve become a bit jaded with our extensive travel history.  We’ve seen a lot, and we’re getting a bit harder to impress these days.)  Prague, if anything, exceeded our expectations.  Journeys are always a bit more tiring than we expect, and the heat certainly took some of our energy out of us, but we got to see an impressive part of the city just in our first afternoon, and we were very much looking forward to our further explorations.

Vienna, however, is in the far east of Austria, and, rather than being in the mountains, it is located in the gently sloping valley carved out by the Danube.  Vienna is hilly, but not mountainous (my apartment is only at 186 m above sea level, for example).  So, if we want mountains, we have to travel.  We’ve been all over Austria’s central mountains (including very near the highest, the Grossglockner), through the Italian Alps on a train (which resulted in a bit of a shock when we woke up and saw ourselves surrounded by snow), and have visited both of Vienna’s “local mountains”, Rax and Schneeberg. Though we spent lovely days at both of the local mountains, the trip back and forth to Schneeberg was definitely simpler, so this past May, when winter was behind us and we felt like getting out to the mountains for a bit, we went back to Schneeberg.

Our only significant complaint about our last trip to Schneeberg was that, due to a lack of detailed planning, we didn’t get enough time to explore.  So this time, knowing that the trip there was long-ish, and that in order to maximize our mountain hiking time, we’d have to plan our connections (3 different trains, not including Vienna’s public transit) carefully, we planned ahead.  The desire to plan ahead was tempered by our desire to have at least decent weather at the top, so though we planned ahead, we didn’t want to buy our actual tickets too far ahead.  But we were (theoretically) prepared.  The morning of our trip, we got up early, and left the house with nearly an hour to catch our train (the trip to the train station is less than 25 min) … and yet, we somehow missed our train.

I’m still not entirely sure how it happened.  We left the house with plenty of time.  We had to wait a while for our first U-Bahn, and then a bit for the second, but sometime shortly after we got on that second U-Bahn, I realized we were, at best, barely going to make our train.  As soon as we got to the train station, we started running.  It’s a big train station (which was part of the miscalculation — I had counted “arriving at the train station” as “being at the tracks”, which is about a 10 minute underestimate when traveling with kids), so we ran across the whole thing.  I still had to print our tickets, too, and I was shaking with the stress and adrenaline, so I entered the confirmation number incorrectly.  And that was it.  Dan and the boys had run up to the tracks to wait for me, but I never even got up there.  They were on their way back down, having seen the train pull away, before I got there.

It wasn’t really a big deal — the next train was in an hour — but I was so disappointed.  I felt awful for dragging us all out of bed extra early for no good reason.  I was embarrassed that I had failed to allow for enough time.  I felt guilty that I’d made my kids sprint through the train station for no reason.  I felt terrible that they felt stressed and worried about our day.  So I cried (which did not improve the stress and worry situation, which made me feel worse).  But, all was not lost, and so I went into the ticket office and got us new tickets for the next train.  I found out when our new connections would be and we crossed our fingers that we’d be able to change our reservation for the Salamander train that would take us up the mountain.  Then we got breakfast, regrouped, and got on the next train without a problem.

If you make the connections properly, it’s not a long trip — only about 2 hours from the center of Vienna, and quite lovely.  First, you take a big train to one of Vienna’s outlying suburbs, and then a tiny electric train (which honestly feels more like a bus) out into the countryside and to the base of the mountains.  When we arrived, we were scolded a bit for missing the train we had been booked on, and informed that we were lucky to get a spot on a later train, but we did get a spot.  Because of our less than ideal departure from Vienna, we ended up with nearly an hour of downtime until the special Salamander train up the mountain.  (For those keeping track, that means we would get to the top of the mountain 2 full hours later than we had intended.)  But, no worries.  To fill the time, we got some coffee (for Dan & I) and made our way to a nearby salamander-themed playground (for the boys).

At the appointed time, we went back to the train station and got on the Salamander train for the 45 minute ride to the top of the mountain.  At the bottom of the mountain, it was late spring, nearly summer.  Everything was green and lush, the kids didn’t need their jackets, and I was thinking I may have over-prepared for our adventure.  As we ascended, however, things changed quickly.  By halfway up the mountain, our surroundings looked more like early spring than late May.  The trees were just budding, the wildflowers just starting to think about blooming, and, as we ascended, there was more and more snow everywhere.  Rather than being over-prepared, I started to worry that we might be under-dressed in our fleeces and raincoats.

At the top, it felt like early March, rather than late May.  The kids climbed on massive snow piles, and most of the play area at the summit was unusable due to the amount of snow cover.  The wind whipped around us, dark clouds hung overhead, and banks of fog curled around the rocks.  It did not feel like it was nearly summer.  It was winter again.

Undaunted, we began our hike.  Our plan was to continue along the path we had started on our previous visit, and then to go further, possibly as far as one of the two peaks.  But though we were (relatively) enthusiastic (me and Dan more than the kids), we just weren’t going to make it that far.  It was cold and windy.  Very cold and windy, and slightly misty.  We had come prepared for a springtime hike, but not for a winter one.

But though we accepted we would not be going as far as we’d planned, we were still going to enjoy our mountain adventure!  So, after about half a mile, we stopped into an Almhutte for a break from the wind and a warm treat (goulash and hot chocolate) before continuing on.  We were not, at all, the only people put hiking, though we may have been the only non-Austrians).

After a bit more hiking, we came upon a fun discovery — one of several sources of Vienna’s lovely drinking water.  I knew that our clean and tasty drinking water came “from the mountains”, but I didn’t realize that one of the sources would be a big pile of snow (presumably over a frozen lake or spring), surrounded in less than intimidating barbed wire, along the side of a wide hiking trail.  (There was a young girl who had climbed down into the snow pictured here, but that seemed like an extraordinarily bad idea, so we wouldn’t let the boys join her.)

But after that, we were pretty much done.  Our vision of an entire afternoon spent hiking several miles was overly ambitious given the conditions (or at least due to our level of preparation).  We were just thwarted by the cold and the wind … and the fact that it was basically still winter up there.  And though we enjoyed our colder-than-expected hike on the mountaintop, we definitely learned that late spring is still a bit early to hike in the high Alps.  On the bright side, as it turned out, my morning miscalculation didn’t really cost us any precious mountain time (because we wouldn’t have stayed longer anyway, and we got to be there in the “warmest” part of the day, relatively speaking).  In the end, it was another adventure, and another learning experience, and I think we’ll save our next mountain hike for summer.