Living Like a Local

Michael and I have been in Vienna, Austria, since October 15^th. We are leaving for home this Saturday, November 14. Our excuse for this adventure is our 50^th wedding anniversary, which is coming up in December. Marriage is hard work. Managing it for 50 years and still being in love and happy to be together is an accomplishment. We wanted to do something together to celebrate those years.

 We spent a while contemplating what this adventure could be. Then, over a year ago, I stumbled upon a Facebook ad for The Good Life Abroad. Their tagline is “live like a local” in a European city. I was intrigued. What does it mean to live like a local?

 First, they arrange an apartment for everyone in your group. (There are four other couples in Vienna with us this month.) And they provide a city coordinator for the group who arranges adventures and outings. Our usual routine is to gather for lunch on Tuesdays, take a local excursion on Wednesdays, and have happy hour together on Thursdays.

 Our city coordinator, Markus, is a great fellow and a lifelong resident of Vienna. Besides the planned activities, he provided invaluable information about how to navigate the city. On the day we arrived, he not only greeted us at the apartment, but also brought a bag of groceries to get us started.

 The rest of the week, everyone is on their own with all of Vienna available to us. We arrived with visions of museums and history and artwork at our fingertips. We expected to eat Austrian food in wonderful restaurants. We especially looked forward to the coffee culture in Vienna’s famous cafes. All the wonders of a fabulous European city would be ours for the picking.

 A lot of that happened. We did see beautiful architecture, world-famous art, and unexpected delights. We attended the Vienna State Ballet, which was so important to us that I bought the tickets last April. We watched the Lipizzaner stallions perform at the Spanish Riding School, a 400-year-old institution. We took a historical tour of Vienna.

 We took the train to Prague, Czech Republic, and attended the ballet there, saw their astonishing Astronomical Clock, and walked the Charles Bridge. I even got to attend a Unitarian church service in Prague. We ate Czech food and walked the shops and restaurants of the Old Town.

 Extracurricular activities in Vienna included a food tour that knocked our socks off and a photography tour that showed us hidden urban landscapes we could never have found on our own. One night, Markus took us to a wine tasting featuring 10 wines and more delicious canapés than our group of 13 could eat. And my niece and her husband flew in from their home in Germany for a weekend visit.

 We packed it in and we barely scratched the surface of Vienna. But all these activities don’t exactly define living like a local. We had to learn that stores, including grocery stores, close up at 6 or 7 pm and aren’t open at all on Sundays; that if you don’t bring your own bag, it will cost you money; that when you are carrying your groceries and walking, you can’t buy too much at one time.

 We had to negotiate Vienna’s extensive, complex mass transit system. It is actually very well organized—if you speak German. Do you get the tram, the underground, or a bus? (There are six different underground lines here.) Where are the transfer locations? Which side of the street or platform does the one you need stop on? Some of our most contentious moments involved trying to find our way around town.

 And the food. We did eat some delicious food, especially when the food guide showed us around. But sometimes our expectation of a menu description—as translated by our phones—did not match the actual food presented at the table. Bread dumplings are a good example.

 I expected something like an American dumpling, but it came in round slices with strange bits studded throughout it. I later discovered that they make the dough, stir cubes of different kinds of bread in, and then boil it whole. I’m not ordering a meal with that as a side ever again.

 What else do locals do? Laundry—good luck figuring out how to use the washer/dryer (an all-in-one machine) when the only information you have is in German and you don’t recognize the symbols they use. Everything is designed to be energy-saving, so don’t be surprised that your laundry has a five-hour drying cycle. Apply the same challenges to the microwave, the oven, and the dishwasher.

 The final thing we did like locals was get sick when bronchitis hit both of us. Pharmacists are the first line of treatment for everyday illnesses, and we visited them in Vienna and Prague. When their meds didn’t fix us, we got referred to a doctor who wrote actual prescriptions. Over the course of ten days, we got more bottles of medication than we have in our medicine cabinet at home, all unfamiliar, with dosing instructions we couldn’t understand!

 We missed several days of fun, but locals get sick, too, don’t they? In reality, few locals are trying to squeeze as many things into a month as we were, and that’s probably why we got sick.

 Regardless, we have lived like locals and then some in Vienna for the last month. It has been wonderful, a fitting celebration for our 50 years of marriage. Prost! (Cheers!)

 What European city would you pick to live in like a local?

 Ciao