Sunday, April 11, 2010

Hello VIENNA

After exactly one month at home w/ my family in the tiny village of Mitteraich in the middle of Austria I packed my stuff again to move to VIENNA.
The population of Austria is ~8mio and 1.5 mio people live in the capital Vienna.

I quickly found a multi-cultural apartment, living w/ 8 others from Poland, Austria, Romania, Hungary, Germany, Turkey... close to the city center. Last Monday I finally met ´em all - of course we went out partying and I was really surprised how much party there is in Vienna on a Monday! ...one might think it`s chaotic to live in such a "mini-UN" but I am actually surprised how smooth everything goes. A funny fact - we have toilet paper with strawberry flavor ;)

Yes, I like it, the whole district is full of oriental food, eastern European faces and various langauges - I LIKE IT. I can see the "big wheel" from my street, there is a large parc (Augarten smells wonderfully like "bear`s garlic" right now!) and the island on the river Danube is situated ~ 5 min away by bike:-)

My Taiwanese friends would be fond of biking in Vienna - we have 1200 km bikeways (Nel, you would love this, definitely stop by :)  Sporty (as I am telling myself to be), I took my bike and am determined to ride it to work every day! Although it was raining cats&dogs, with degrees below 10°C in the 2nd week, I didn`t take the metro but was riding my bike every single morning! ...still hoping for better weather!!!

*thank you Geri for driving me, my suitcases and even the bike and matress to Vienna - really appreciate that you got up at 3:45am in the morning!!*


Last Tuesday I started another internship w/ icep, an Austrian NGO (www.icep.at). We support Austrian businesses that invest into development countries. It`s about education of the local community, sustainable usage of natural resources, responsible processes, intelligent & creative solutions for less developmed regions in the world. We provide know-how and help in organizing the financing.
So far it`s great, I am learning a lot and can`t believe it yet that I will write my own articles in our news magazine "corporAID" in a few weeks. Hm, I also managed to be late at the employee meeting on Wednesday morning - nobody told me that they`re having a weekly "jour fixe" at 9:30am in the morning! :-((  *embarrassing*  *ooops*

Anyways, I`ve already attended a presentation last Thursday and when Ban-Ki Moon visited Vienna last week I was there to see his speech in the parliament!!!

There are sooo many things to do in Vienna and I am surprised how much I like it so far - although yes, it`s rather cold compared to the last eight months in heat!!

No comments:

Post a Comment