Reichsratsstrasse

Moving every three years is stressful. With each new country we start over in so many ways. New job, new school, new friends, new stores, new weather, new language, new customs, and a new house to make into a home. The adventure starts about a year before the move when positions that might be a good match for Greg and that open at the right time, start to be posted. Once we have a "potentials" list, the research begins. This research takes on numerous tracks, but the most important for me is figuring out what school and daily life will be like for Conor and Ryan. If the school checks out, next is researching where embassy housing is, and figuring out what commutes will be like. The embassy provides some general information on what typical housing is like at post, and from this we just have to make an educated guess about what we can expect.  Some posts have wonderful schools that just happen to be an hour or more away from housing, and the idea that the boys might have to spend two hours on a bus every day definitely goes down in the "Cons" column no matter how good the school might be! There's always compromise with this though and in the end we get placed in a home and just need to hope we get lucky and make the most of whatever we get.

When we were officially offered the position in Vienna and were able to make a decision about which school the boys would go to, for the first time in our foreign service career we ask if we could be housed in the city center. This would put us closer to the school the boys picked, within walking distance of the consulate for Greg, and in an interesting neighborhood. The tradeoff, we were told, was that we would give up any chance of a yard and we would get a smaller apartment rather than a home or townhome. What we actually got when the housing gods were done with us was better than we ever hoped for. Our apartment has more than enough room to spread out, it is in an amazing location, and as it turns out we didn't even really have to give up outdoor space as we have lovely balconies and an amazing roof terrace. The process of moving here started all the way back in summer of 2016 when we first researched posts and bid on Vienna, and it included a transition year in Virginia for language training. These two years have been just as stressful and full of change as every other transition, but Vienna has proven to be a wonderful place to settle into and we are looking forward to three amazing years in our new home.

Our building was built between 1883 and 1887, just after construction of the Vienna Rathaus next door was completed. The courtyard in front of our door is grand, with high arches and beautiful paint and tile detail. The first floor of the building has businesses including a cute bike shop, two restaurants and a bar and there is a second apartment building that mirrors ours and houses the cultural affairs office for the Egyptian Embassy.

The facade of our building includes sculptural figurations of female gods, and cherubs.

The ironwork on our stairs, including this gryphon at the base, is a really cool part of the original construction. 

  That said, we do take the elevator much more often than the stairs-- there are a lot of stairs!

My two favorite places in the house are my desk with the amazing windows which somehow still feel bright even on cloudy days.

 And the roof with this amazing 360 degree view.

And here are a few more pictures of the neighborhood.

Rathaus Park is right outside our door, and a wonderful place to walk Scout several times a day.

Grillwork on one of our neighbor's doors.  It's really cool, but probably extremely heavy. The temporary house we stayed in when we were waiting for our apartment to be ready had this kind of door and Ryan could barely open it pushing with all of his might! I think I am happy with our huge wooden door!