Seeing familiar faces

Elin and i are realising that many of our friends have "doppelganger" here in Austria. We keep seeing familiar faces. There are even some Swedish family member lookalikes in our church. Many times it serves as a reminder of the friends we have left behind, but it also brings back many fond memories of shared experiences.

The right job for a Swede

Since the beginning of November Elin has been employed at IKEA! It was an answer to prayer that she found work so quickly, and that she is working with a great team there. Before our move we had always joked that she should look for work at IKEA - seeing that she is Swedish. Turns out God does have a sense of humour. :)
She works shifts in the restaurant and snackshop, which is hard work but rewarding. I have noticed that her german is getting better by the day - especially the little conversationfillers (comparable to the north swedish sucking in of air when agreeing with something)

Austrians love bread

Austrians eat a lot of bread. That means there are many different kinds of bread, and in general it is very cheap. A bag of 10 rolls costs less than 10kr and as does a 1kg loaf of dark bread.

School books old and new

We had a laugh the other day when we found one of my father's old school books. Apart from the size and colour of the book the tasks students had to do and the style of writing has remained the same.

School work from 1955 vs schoolwork 2016

Laternenfest film

Here is a short film to give you an idea what the Laternenfest was like.

Ich sehe Nebel!

Nebel = Fog. One phenomenon that we have noticed here is that it can get really foggy. Quite often there is a blanket of fog during morning hours and late evening. Sometimes it is so thick you can't see more than 50m.

Compare the two pictures taken from the same window on two different mornings

Laternenfest

Living in a catholic country, and with our middle son attending a catholic preschool, there are some new celebrations and holidays for us to experience. A few weeks ago the focus was on St Francis and the harvest celebration. Last Friday we experienced celebrating St Martin in "Martinstag". The children had made beautiful "Laternen" and sang many songs. At the end they slaughtered Martin's goose and we all ate a piece. Don't worry, it was just cake!

An unusual feeling

A couple of weeks ago I preached in my parents' church in Graz. It was the first time preaching in that particular church. It was the first time I had preached in German for 15 years. It was the first time I was streamed live, filmed and recorded. It was the first time I had to preach the same sermon twice in consecutive services on the same day. And - it was the first time preaching in another church other than our "home" in Sweden, now that we had moved. It was very emotional and I really felt the loss of moving away from a warm and supportive christian fellowship into the unknown. It takes time to build trust and friendships of the quality we've had the privilege of enjoying the past 11 years.

All Saints

All Saints is a public holiday in Austria - so we went on a family outing. We took a local train a few stops, to then walk a few kilometers back to our starting point. A little detour gave us plenty of time to admire the autumn colours and mild weather. At one point I had to carry our youngest. After a short while he said happily: Dad, I'm helping you work out because you get to carry extra weight!

A short film from the day

Milking a goat and so on

The kids are off from school for the next couple of days so we spent the day doing some typical autumy things. Like walking in the woods...

 Roasting chestnuts...

And having a go at milking goats!

It's still autumn!

Autumn is still in full swing here! The mornings can be quite cool +4C, but during the day we have seen temperatures rise to +19C. This is very different from our home in Sweden. A week ago we went looking for chestnuts - one of those great childhood memories - the looking, roasting and finally eating. It seems to be a chestnut year because I have never found it
so easy and entertaining - there were so many just lying around open on the ground! Here are a few photos from the day:

 There are times when having kids that like to collect stuff is a benefit!

 8kg in just under two hours!

Autumn

We had great autumn weather on Sunday - sunny, calm, +19 C. So we went for a walk up the hill to an open field. Just the perfect place to try out one of these:

"It really does come back!" I remember playing with this as a child and it never came back :)
It didn't work much better on Sunday either. But we had a great time anyway.

 

Ready, set, throw!

 

 Please come back...

Maybe another time.

Chili!

I've already planted my first batch of chilis. I had to make sure they had survived the move. :)
Here are my Thai Birds Eye seedlings. I hope that my Habanero Red Caribbean will also show some signs of life soon...

Looking for work

This is the first time in almost 20 years that i have had to apply for a job. I realize that i have been very blessed - and i can see Gods guidance in my life. I trust him to continue leading me. We pray daily that he will open doors and close others so that we end up in the right place.

Eating habits

Since the kids have started school we've had to change our eating habits. They both bring a lunchbox with bread and fruit as a late morning snack (Jause). School finishes quite early here, so when they get home we eat lunch/midday meal - later than we used to eat in Sweden.
Here is a typical Jause we might eat at home - with the obligatory "semmel" (white roll).

 We stock up on butter when it's on offer. Our current 3,5kg stockpile :D

At last!

On Friday we picked up the kids from school and drove off straight away to meet up with some friends. We had made plans for a walk in the Alps! They had mentioned that we might be able to see a little snow - so we took plenty of clothes with us.

 The Alps - this is what I have missed and been looking forward to! Down in the town of Leoben it was 12 C degrees warm, but after a 30 minute drive and 1000m above sea level we were down to 6 C degrees. We walked for two hours, climbed up to 1582 meters and sure enough, after about half of the walk we started seeing snow on the ground and it even started to snow! The kids were overjoyed and ran around throwing snow in the air and shouting with excitement.

They even made a snowman!

The Leobnerhütte where we warmed ourselves and drank some hot chocolate.

 

"I feel at home, it's like Skellefteå"

A home full of memories

I grew up in this house and spent the first ten years of my life here. There are a lot of memories from here. Looking through some boxes in the cellar many more memories have come to mind.

This teapot and mugs reminds me of all the camping trips we used to take as a family. We had a huge tent which we had to transport in a trailer and which was always a team challenge to put up.

My brother's first camera. I had a similar one in black, but that hasn't surfaced yet. I remember the time when pictures weren't instant and when there was a very finite feel about them. As a kid I didn't want to waste film in case better opportunities arose. However, most of the time I didn't end up taking any pictures.

My pram, as in the pram I laid in as a child. I don't remember it as such, but I've seen pictures of me in it. Cool that it's still around.

Creative arts

Our middle son is really starting to feel at home in his new kindergarten. The other day as Elin was picking him up, she found him sitting at a table chatting away in german with some of his new friends. We've also seen a rise in the amount of drawings and crafts he brings home - so his creative juices are flowing!

Above is a machine that tears up and resurfaces roads.The small vehicle next to the road working machine is a "Uhu helicopter".

Below is a machine that can build houses. I asked him if it could build us a house and he answered: "Dad, it's not a real machine, it's just pretend."

Driving

Now that we have lived here a little more than five weeks we are starting to get used to the narrow & winding roads and the increased traffic. One of the differences with Sweden is that town signs also set the speedlimit at 50km/h (unless otherwise stated) and on countryroads unless otherwise stated, the standard speed limit is 100km/h. This makes for some very intresting driving -  not only does one have to pay attention to where towns start and end, but also many of the country roads without limits are not really suitable for 100km/h.
Here is a short film of a trip we made to some friends, thr scenery and roads are typical of this area!

School is work

One of the changes we have had to adapt to is that our oldest has homework every day. On average he will have four different tasks to do: reading a text, practising handwriting style, learning vocabulary and spelling, maths. At first it felt like the whole day was taken up with school work and I was worried that he would start to complain - but he has developed a great attitude towards it and is rising to the challenge. As he has grown in confidence, he has started enjoying the tasks more. It's amazing to see how fast children can learn information and new skills as well as adapt to new circumstances. It is very obvious that new words are slipping into his every day vocabulary. Today he was saying "bloß" - meaning just, only, but, merely. It took me a while to understand what he was saying because I'd never heard him use the word before :D

Taking a hike

I thought I would share a short film of our hike the other week. Check out the steep drop next to the path and the wooden bridge. I actually walked over it first to check that it was stable and safe for the rest of the family to walk on. At times we walked holding on to the kids because the path was so narrow and the slope next to it so steep (angles of 70deg).

The best/worst thing with moving according to a 3year old

Today I asked our youngest what the best and worst thing with moving country and home was. At the time he was busy playing with his soft toys, but this is what he said:

What is the best thing about our move?
The best thing is that we can eat Zopf (milkbread). A piece of zopf with butter and jam has quickly become a favourite

What's the worst thing with our move?
That we didn't stay in our house with Torsten. I hear you my son.

Fountain pens and roundhand script

Two things we learnt this week about Austrian school.
1.) All kids start off learning to write roundhand script. By the second class a child should be able to copy a printed text into roundhand script with not too much difficulty. Our son has no problem writing and reading printed material, but suddenly he has to learn a whole new way of writing and adapt to reading this style of writing.

2.) We found out that during this year second grade students will learn to use fountain pens - the kind with ink cartridges. I've unpacked my old fountain pen and have started writing letters to our children to encourage and help them to read this style of writing. It feels like travelling back in time for me - and I realise that my writing has become very sloppy. I have to take great care if I want others to be able to read what I've written. Thank God I can use the keyboard for Blogger...

Early Birds

It's a little after 07:30 here and Elin is on the way to school and kindergarten with the kids. This is a country that favours early risers. Shops open by 7 or 8 and school starts at 07:45 - that is 45 mins earlier than what we are used to. Those of you who know us understand that this is a big challenge for us parents - because we love to sleep in! Oh well, moving here was bound to have some downsides. ;)

School and Kindergarten

Yesterday summer holidays came to en end for us. We took our oldest to his new school where he started in second grade. The school here is very different to what he and we have been used to. It is large, has its own sport shall in the building and is spread over four floors. Materials such as exercise books, stationary and so on has to be bought by the parents, as well as a number of boxes to keep everything nice and tidy.

 Our middle boy started in kindergarten. It is the same one I went to as a child, though in my day it was run by nuns. Some of the staff have been working there since my childhood but I haven't met anyone who remembers me yet.

 Our youngest has discovered that his grandparents have a steady supply of cake and biscuits and his motto has become "Kuchen jeden Tag!" - cake every day... So 'fika' is still very much alive!

We took some time for family activity on Saturday and visited the local dinosaur park. There were loads of life size replicas for the kids to look at and climb on.

It's just been harvest time for pumpkin seeds. We were given three pumpkins by a friend. One turned into soup, another into a smiley face and stew and the third is still standing on our kitchen table waiting for its fate to be decided.
I can honestly say that even though we have so many questions on our minds, worries and at time doubts I feel the nature, food and weather fit me like a glove. It is like coming home in ways that I hadn't necessarily realised that I'd missed that much.