American Schnitzel

Like most everyone else in the blogger world, I am going to write a post about my New Years and all of that good stuff! I will just say it now, New Years in Vienna is something everyone should have on their bucket lists. New Years in Times Square seems to be the place to be for New Years for any American but the idea of having to stand for 6 hours to watch a ball drop seems to extreme for me. Even though Florida is a great place to live New Years is not a big hoopla like it is here. My family has no real New Years traditions other than sitting in front of the T.V. and watching the ball drop and afterwards going to bed. Exciting I know. There is quite a build-up to New Years in Vienna, buying fireworks, stands all over the city selling luck charms which can be strange to any onlooker. Stands that look similar to Christmas markets sell Pig charms to big stuffed pig toys, mushroom, four leafed clovers and chimney sweeper figures in all different sizes. Having any one of the named item...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas this year!  This year Christmas was a rollercoaster for me since I was not able to be back home and nor was my family with me. I spent this Christmas with my lovely boyfriend and his parents. For me an average Christmas entails baking some cookies with maybe a pie. Other than that I spend maybe a day shopping and I am ready for the holidays. This year was certainly different.   I always plan to bake like there is no tomorrow and have different sortiments of all kinds of sweets and lots of them, but then when time rolls by reality sinks in and I never bake as much as I plan. Well this year was a tad bit different. Since for my birthday I was given a mixer I wanted to bake something that would require me to use it, and also find a recipes that my European boyfriend wouldn't find too sweet. Since most Europeans will say American baked goods are too sweet for their taste. So I found a really yummy Cinnamon Swirl Bread recipie that ...

Last week here in Austria was another Holiday, which meant pretty much everything would be closed even school! Two weeks before I had gone in to the OEBB office and was checking out some train ticket prices when I saw that no matter when you buy your ticket a two way ticket to Bratislava was only 14 euros. I figured, I can afford that and asked a freind the day before if she was wanting to come with me. So the next day we woke up and got ourselves ready for an excursion to Bratislava, Slovakia. The morning was starting off good until when we were buying our train tickets the woman in the office told us that we have about 20 minutes to make the train at another train station and not where we were. In Vienna there are more than one major train station and I got mine mixed up. I think if you would ask anybody that has traveled with me they would tell you there is never a dull moment! Between the running to get to the train's platform in time or just simply touring a new city. When...

Tipping in Austria is unlike in the States. Tipping in Florida is 10% of your total at a resturant and at a coffee shop the change given back goes into the tip jar. Waiters and Waitresses normally are paid lower than minimum wage and live off their tips. When I was living in the States I worked at a local smoothie bar and I know tips were what really made working with all the rude people easier and helped with the wages I was paid. I could right a whole post on how you are supposed to act around a tipping jar because after working at the smoothie bar for a year I saw some people that did not know what was proper. For example we had a few people steal our tips, we even had people search in the tip jar for the change when a order was 3.25 they would thumb around looking for the 25 cents. I believe Tips should not suppliment a low wage but rather reflect on the service itself. If that person went out of their way for you and was not rude then tipping is easy. When I was in France ...

Moving abroad can be a big decision for anybody, but what happens when you don't know where to go? If you are not moving for work reasons, it makes the deciding of where in the world to go a bit difficult.  Most common is to move to a country where the language is same as your own, or a large popular city. London, Paris, Rome, Barcelona are the top names I have heard when people are talking about Europe. It was also the cities people would have expected me to move to. But in fact not only is Vienna a big metropolitain city but it is cheaper than the cities talked about above. Paris can just burn a whole through your wallet by finding the tiniest closest to call home, I would say it is comparable to trying to live in an apartment in Manhatten close to Times Square. Also another thing to think about is you don't want to move abroad with out knowing the quality of life. So not only for me personally was Vienna the perfect choice but now according to Mercer's 2011 Quality ...

That is RIGHT I offically turned TWENTY last Sunday! I must say that I had a really good birthday and due to my good friends here it was a great weekend. It began with a Surpise birthday party for me on Friday. That I actually came late to! What I thought was going to be coming over to one of my friends apartment for coffee ended up being a schock. My friends not only went to the lengths of making me Empanadas, a banana and guava cake, with decor, but they even went to lengths to get their hands on my cell phone for my boyfriends phone number. K had a birthday a week prior to mine and when I was not looking she was feeling my purse to see if I had left my phone in.  O asked me if she could send a quick text to her boyfriend on my phone since she was out of minutes and she and her boyfriend were having a quarll. SNEAKY!!! It was a really good suprise and made me very happy to have friends that would do so much for my birthday. As funny as life can be my close friends are not ba...

Thanksgiving is pretty much my one favorite holiday out of the year and sadly for me not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving. Living in Vienna has pros and cons when it comes to Thanksgiving. When living abroad Thanksgiving is not anything to shake a stick at and days off or big feasts with family are just non-existant. If you have your family living with you than is this not so much a big deal since you are togther unlike when living alone. The benefits of not living in the States during Thanksgiving is you will always find a Turkey, Markets are never jammed pack with last minute shoppers, it is just much more laid back. This year I decided when I woke up in the morning that I myself would not let my favorite holiday just slip by but rather I was going to cook for my boyfriend and myself our very own Thanksgiving feast. As we were only 2 people and knowing that there would be side dishes I was not wanting to spend a lot of money on a bird and then in the end have to throw it o...