Austria, first impressions

So, we came yesterday, which means that we are already here more than 1 day.

First things that suddenly came as surprise:

it rains and it is even sometimes cold,
no turn on red,
green light is actually green here, in US it was white,
small cars,
couldnt find cereals without sugar yet

Overall its nice here and it is much easier for me now, than it was year ago. At least not everything is completely new. Just most of the things, but not all of them.

One new sad founding about job opportuinities for me in Austria

In Austria we will live in Altach, which is very close to the Swiss border. My husband and any other Austrian can work in Switzerland and the job market is even more promising there and the salaries are higher. So, he was sure, that I will also have that option. But now, when we actually started to explore the topic, I found out, that I won't be allowed to work there. Only in Austria. Which cuts a huge part of space for my search. That's life.

Food and restaurants

We don't go out very often to eat, but if we do than it's most likely an Asian place. First place definitely goes to Thai, then Japanese/Chinese, then all others. There are just tons of them, everywhere and they are often very affordable. One of the first places we found was very close to our first accommodation - Merit. It is a nice place and the food is really good. The service seemed to us too pushy back then. Later we learned that it's just the way it is here. In Russia as well as in Europe the waiter tries to be (or he just is?) invisible. He doesn't come too often, sometimes even when you need him. When you have finished and want to leave the place already they make you wait. Here they come up to your table couple of times, ask you if everything is alright (sometimes not really caring that you are chewing right at that moment and cannot answer), bring the bill even before you finished your eating. We will have to adjust when we go back to Europe. One very nice thing here - always, just as soon as you sit they bring you water and keep your glass full throughout your meal. That is really a very good tradition. The water is normally with ice though, but you can always ask to bring it without ice.
As for the non-Asian places most of all we like Black Angus. We have one in Sunnyvale just 10 minutes from our place (by car, everything is here by car...) and almost never go there by ourselves. First our new Russian friends (the husband is my husband's colleague) brought us there to show us a good steak place. And now we bring there every our guest for the same reason. We have actually only been to one other steakhouse and didn't like that one. So, maybe there are better places but we stuck to Black Angus and are totally fine with it:) This week we have visitors from Russia again and are going to bring them there too:)
We have only watched "Big Bang Theory" once and it was in the plane on our way to US. But we learned from there that there is the Cheesecake Factory and got an idea to try it. Once we got there we were quite surprised to find out that this is not at all a bakery, but a big restaurant with all sorts of food. And even more, that the cheesecakes there are not at all the best part, they look very attractive, but they are actually not at all so good. They are huge and extremely sweet. Each time we went there we were reducing our consumption of cheesecakes, last time we only ordered one cheesecake for two of us and didn't even eat it out. Our favorite is the Teriyaki Chicken!
There are also lots of fast-foods here obviously. We visited them very rarely, but when we did the choice was almost each time for the Asian again.
From the first day we came I was my husband to go to McDonald's. Not that I am a very big fan, but I was just extremely curious if there any difference. Couple of weeks ago I got lucky. We were driving from South California home, were already very tired and hungry, couldn't find anything on our way for a very long time and eventually reached the food stop where there was a McDonald's:) Well.... absolutely the same tastes of a Big Mac, fries and chicken McNuggets that I recall from my youth:)

Regarding the food choices here generally. The variety here is enormous. You can keep any style of eating you prefer. You can eat extremely healthy as well as extremely unhealthy. The choice of fruits and vegetables is big here throughout the year. In Summer it is just amazing. We found several products that matched our expectation and bought the again and again pretty much the whole time. For example the only 3 types of cereals without sugar, cottage cheese from Russian shop (still not that good as in Russia), vegetables and fruits from the Sunnyvale Farmers' market, C.J. Olsen Cherries, Felipe's Market or some of the supermarkets.
My husband is missing a good bread and cheese here. We found some places to buy some bread and cheese but the variety and quality are still far from what he is used to have in Austria.
There is nothing that I miss here comparing to Austria. I miss cottage cheese from Russia and that's pretty much it. All the rest Russian specialities you may buy in one of the Russian shops or eat in a Russian restaurant (we haven't tried any of them by the way, but I've heard from some friends that there are at least one decent in our area).

When we're going to move to Austria, we'll have to get used again that we don't have that much of eating places at all and much less variety. There is one sushi "network" around - Manga. One restaurant in Bregenz (20km) and another in Feldkirch(15km). My husband says there are a couple of Chinese but I haven't seen them during my living there:) Let's see:)
Anyhow, it's much easier to travel quickly to Moscow from Austria to enjoy Taras Bulba or Tanuki than from US:)) 

Speedy visa

It took them.... 3 working days to issue my Austrian Visa! We applied last Friday in Los Angeles and this morning it was already delivered to us. I don't even know whom to appreciate for this - austrians or americans, but it is really amazing:)

After a long silence

I don't really know why, but I just didn't feel like writing even to my Russian blog, not talking about the English one. Maybe I was so mentally exhausted by all the situation, by all troubles I have had to go here through. And now something is changing again. We are planning our move back to Austria (for me it's not totally "back", only to some point). We already have most of the tickets and most of the details of our trip planned. We just had to do it, because we had to provide the tickets to the Austrian embassy showing that we are flying to Austria. Flying together also helped us to avoid paying the visa application fee which is kind of nice. Austrian embassy is located in Los Angles, so we had to do this trip last Friday. It is my second experience of applying for a visa in a foreign country embassy (first was US embassy in Austria) and I am again astonished. How is it possible, that when I was applying for an Austrian visa, the same type as now, in the Austrian embassy in Moscow I had to struggle with that bureaucracy and here everything went smooth and easy? Why were the employee of the embassy in Moscow so rough and angry with me and the employee in Los Angeles so nice, friendly and helpful? I'm really starting to get used to a civilized way of solving problems. USCIS, the authority that issued my work authorization was probably an exception or maybe my case was an exception. In all other situations I only see (and here from my fellow-immigrant friends) positive examples of interaction with the authorities abroad. I hope I will never have to deal with authorities in Russia again.

As for the rest. Our overall impression of the US (or better to say of California, because as far as I understand the state of things may vary a lot from state to state) is very good. It is a very nice place to live. I totally understand those who say that they are very happy that they got to move here. Many things are organized really good here, it is the place where you may live and enjoy life. Of course that is all given that you have a job or some other stable source of income.
What I really like here is traffic conditions. Roads are broad, each lane itself is wide. Traffic lights and signs are organized smartly. I'm totally fascinated with such a measure of reducing the traffic as Carpool lane (it is the lane which is only available for vehicles with 2 or more persons in it during the rush hours). I am also impressed by the driving style in California. People are polite to each other!!! If you want to change your lane and start to blink they let you do it!! Somebody who like me live in Moscow the whole life would understand how shocked I was when I saw it.
Also the infrastructure is great here. You can buy everything you want almost anytime, in the evening, in the night, on weekend. Things are being solved quickly, pay and go, no need to arrange appointments, wait etc. Of course, it's not always and everywhere like this, but for the majority of things.

It is only our personal situation that really makes it senseless for us to stay here in the US and prefer to go to live to Austria. If I would have to choose between Russia and US I wouldn't have any single doubt about it.

I was lucky enough to find a perfect job for my situation. I have great working hours, there is no stress and pressure at all (I have never had such not-stressful job in my whole life!!!), my colleagues are mostly nice, I'm being paid surprisingly good, I'm pretty free to take day-offs.
Thanks to this we were able to visit a lot of things around. Actually we have been (or going to visit before our departure from US) more places than many people who have been living here for many years. But it is of course partly because of the short-term nature of our stay here. We know that we have time limits that's why we use possibilities as much as possible.

Sweet post from Austria

This time we've got some nice surprise with the post! Christmas pastry from Austria! Thank you:)

Speak Deutsch with me

We have just had a lunch with a German colleague of my husband and he said that he could recognize that I speak German with an austrian pronunciation:) I hope he wasn't trying to flatter me since I don't mind at all speaking like Austrians do:))