Finally, Home Sweet Home

Finally, we have moved into our home in Austria. We have already had severally “finallys” this summer: We finally came to Europe. We finally settled into Riva del Garda for three weeks. We finally got our residence permits. And now we are finally in the place we have been aiming our compass toward – St. Gilgen, Austria.

We began our path to this house last fall. We found this vacation rental online and began the negotiation with Eva, the owner. She rents it out for the lucrative summer months, the October holiday, most of December (very popular destination for the Christmas markets), and Easter break. For this to work, she needed to make more money in 10 months than she would for the high seasons. We skyped. My cousin checked out the house (two thumbs up), and we kept communicating. Finally, in January, we came to a mutual agreement. We checked “housing” off on our long list, and kept working on other to-do’s: phone service, car, luggage, summer travel arrangements, residence permit, etc.

the boys' skyloft

So finally, we are here. We have unpacked our suitcases and stashed them in a closet. We have hung our clothes in closets, and folded our socks and jammies into drawers. We have a place for everything, and we are committed to keeping everything in its place.

The house is four stories. The boys have the entire attic space (called the “dachboden”: “roof floor”). In this penthouse/skyloft/mancave, they have hammocks, bean bag chairs, a punching bag, and a large table covered with their 3D pen paraphernalia. They also have their own bathroom. It’s a boys’ paradise.

the kachelofen

On the next level down is the master bedroom, a guest bedroom (all are welcome!), and Mike’s office. He hasn’t had a home office since shortly after Colin was born. On the main floor we have the kitchen, living room, dining room (space for 12 people at the table), and a room serves as my office, the TV room and the boys’ media room (apparently it has the best wifi reception). Also on this floor is a fireplace (real wood – a first for me), and a kachelofen. The kachelofen is Austria’s version of a pot-bellied stove. Handmade ceramic tiles cover a built-in oven that spreads radiant heat throughout the house.

the guest bedroom

The kitchen has an induction stove – also a first for me. Although it looks like the ceramic stoves I’ve struggled with at various apartments this summer (both stoves are glass-topped), the induction stoves use magnetics to heat specially-designed pots and pans. If you remove the pan, the heat stops. But when the pan is in contact with the stove and it is set to high, I can bring water to boil in about 90 seconds. This is a considerable improvement over the ceramic stoves, which flatly refused to cook rice for me, and took nearly an hour to make pasta! The oven is a little quirky, and the instruction manual is indecipherable; it has an English section that may as well be written in Greek.

Mike's office

So we are finally catching our breath and settling into our routines. Collective <<sigh>>.