Back to Schule

Seems like forever since my last post! The things returned to school last week after what seemed like an endless summer - to me, anyway.  What do expats do about school when they are away from home?  That depends, but most of us USA expats send our kids to one of the many international school options unless your kids happen to be fluent in the language of your host country. Austrian schools, in case you're wondering, start on September 3rd.

Here in Vienna, there are many more choices than there were in Warsaw.  I attribute this to the large United Nations prescence here as well as other international organizations like the IAEA.  There is the American International School, The Vienna International School, The Danube School, The British School, the Lycée Français de Vienne, the Vienna Elementary School, the International Christian School, Mayflower Christian Academy and, for the more musically inclined middle/high schoolers, the Amadeus International School of Music. 

Parents seem to send their kids to the one where most of their coworkers send their kids. Preference is given to diplomats.  The Embassy allows us to choose.  The tab is paid by the Embassy or parent employer.  This is an amazing opportunity to send your children to a private school that is paid for by someone else.  Bus transportation via PostBus to and from is also paid by the Embassy.

Most of these schools are large compounds that house K-12 on a sprawling campus.  Some, like the one Thing 1 attended in Warsaw, are very modern, state of the art new facilities.  The school the kids are attending in Vienna is not as impressive on the outside compared to the one in Warsaw, but once you're in inside and see what is available you realize that opportunity within the walls far exceeds the exterior presentation.  

Our school is on top of a hill in the 19th district bordering the Vienna Woods.  Not having a car, we hoofed it up there for orientation.  Being that the school is built in to the hill, there are lots of stairs to climb just to get to class.  My children were not amused.  Thanks to all my incline walking, I did not have much of a problem.  However, the heat is what was broke me.  

Why heat?  Because like every other place in Vienna, the school is NOT air conditioned.  So, while walking up all those stairs is not a problem, your increased hear rate will prompt you to break a sweat with no remedy for cooling off.  The school opens all windows and some rooms like the music and computer rooms are air conditioned because temp control is required.  Unfortunately, the few days have brought us temperatures in the 90's which can make it unbearable.  I attended a PTA meeting last week in a room that was not air conditioned and packed with parents.  Thankfully I, and many others, had something to fan themselves or we would have passed out.  Everyone keeps saying that the cool weather will arrive in a few weeks and stay through June 2013. There is truth to this as today the mercury is not getting far above 65 degrees. Relief is in sight!

The school is divided up into elementary, middle and high school.  For the purposes of this entry, I am focusing on the elementary school.  The school covers pre-K to 5th grade.  In addition to the regular curriculum of reading, writing and arithmetic, students are expected to take German up to five times per week, play a musical instrument (beginning in 2nd grade), take art, music, computers and PE up to three times per week. They also go to the library once per week and have character building lessons with the school counselor on a rotation. There are classrooms for German, art, general music, instrumental music, an upper and lower gym, soccer pitch, a sports hall and a theater.

After school activities are also incorporated into the school.  These are paid by the parents and include martial arts, basketball, gymnastics, choir, guitar, swimming, arts/ceramics, theater arts, yoga, dance, and even digital photography.  Sign ups took place Wednesday and it was like getting concert tickets. We managed to secure 4 days of after school activities for both kids and will be paying about $1230 USD for four months worth of activities for two kids. To compare, last year, we paid $3500 for one semester for Thing 1's martial arts after school program.

The Parent Teacher Forum (PTF) is the school's version of the PTA/PTO we have in the USA.  Besides meetings that are held in a really hot room, they sponsor activities throughout the year for both parents and families.   The school itself also sponsors certain activities like UN Day in October and the Ski Trip during winter break in February.

Speaking of breaks....there are lots of breaks here.  There is autumn break (1 week) in October, Thanksgiving Break (same as USA), Christmas Break (3 weeks), Winter Break in February (1 week), and Spring Break (1 week).  This does not include all the Austrian holidays, state and religious ones, when school is closed.  The kids get a ridiculous amount of vacation with ample opportunity for travel. 

Finally one of the better aspects is the communication between the school and parents.  The school is in many ways more technologically advanced than our experience back home.  They have a presence on Facebook and Twitter.  They have an iPhone app where you can check on bus status, news, and find phone numbers for whomever you wish to contact regarding the school. 

Each grade has a website which is further broken down by teacher. The sites include units of study on each subject matter and lets parents know what the kids are learning in class.  There is also a section on homework.  The kids bring homework home, but it is also posted online.  There is no excuse for failing to complete homework.  Each teacher has a blog forum where parents can post questions and discuss topics related to the class or their kids.  There is a section for announcements, online and other student resources as well as a contact form where you can communicate with the teacher.  Parent-teacher communication is done online with the exception of any requested conferences.

Thing 1 will be given his own laptop next week which he is going to be using at home and at school.  He is expected to bring it to school daily, fully charged and will be taking it to his different classes.  The laptops are issued, updated and maintained by the school.  Hence the 350 Euro refundable deposit we had to make back in May. They will be given to us at Back to School Night next week.

But, the best thing I could have hoped for was the reaction from my kids when they came home the first day.  Thing 2 cried a bit when I dropped her off the first day, but if you know her, it was mostly drama that she soon got over.  She was all smiles when she got home. Both kids were sharing the words they learned in German class and what specials they had that day.  But, Thing 1, made my heart sing.

As many of you know from my random Facebook postings, we struggled watching the treatment that Thing 1 received from his peers when he entered his local public school almost 4 years ago.  He was teased for the stutter he had (which disappeared within a few months of being back in the US), then it was for not being athletic or being the youngest and smallest, etc.  It hurt to watch him want to have a friend so much but being rejected when he tried.  Eventually, he made some friends, but I don't think he ever forgot how it felt to be rejected and he stopped trying to approach kids unless they were new in school (he knew what that felt like).

My biggest concern for him was whether or not he would come out of his shell and be a bit more outgoing with other kids. Well, my concerns were eased rather quickly.  He came home telling me that he was sitting at lunch by himself and another 5th grade boy said "Hi, are you new? Do you want to come sit with us and be friends?" And like that, his entire confidence changed.  He has been doing his homework and reading without me even having to remind him.  It's almost as if he was having such a rough time socially the last couple of years that he had given up on school both socially and academically. Now he is riding the bus (which is chaperoned) and has friends on the bus and at school.  He is even trying new foods and signed up for ball sports (never interested him before).

Thing 2 will thrive in any environment. Thing 1 thrives in this one.  This environment celebrates differences rather than the schools at home where being the "same" is celebrated and being different gets you laughed at, teased or threatened.  If we are blessed with the opportunity to do a lateral assignment after this, we are going to go for it, if only to help get Thing 1 through his adolescence with as much self esteem as possible.

It looks to be a great school year!

The House: The Good, Bad and the Ugly (not so much ugly)

We moved into our new home last week and have been busy finding a place for everything.  While the house is larger than I expected (not larger than Poland, however),  storage space is an issue.  We spent the latter part of last week and the weekend trying to make everything fit.  We were only able to clear the bedrooms and hallways.  The living room is scattered with an mix of entertainment options and decor along with furniture the Embassy needs to remove. This includes the queen size bed my husband dismantled to make room for our king size bed.  We just could not go three years without our sleep number bed ;-)

The house is really four stacked apartments, each two stories.  Ours is one of the top two stories. Our front door neighbor is also our landlord even though anything that goes on with the house needs to go through the Embassy.  Our neighbors downstairs are Australians working at the UN. All the neighbors have small children which will make the noise coming from my children the least of their problems. There is a chocolate lab that belongs to one of the Aussies that has made good friends with our Sneetch (our dog in Seuss terms). They love to play in the yard.  

The top floor of our house was given to the kids and there is a guest room up there as well.  We gave the kids the larger rooms as they have way too much junk to fit into the smaller room.  Thing 2's bedroom is next to the guest room and Thing 1's is at the other end of the hall.  Thing 2's bedroom also has a balcony/terrace. We brought our patio chairs and they will remain there for the next 3 years unused because Rapunzel's tower is blocking entry to the balcony.  This is a good thing if you know Thing 2 personally.  In between, there are two bathrooms. One is for your toileting needs and the other is for your bathing and showering needs.  This kind of helps in the "she's hogging the bathroom" department.  The flooring in the bedrooms is wood while the hallway, stairs  and bathrooms have a grayish marble tile.  

Proceeding downstairs is our bedroom adjacent to the master bathroom.  In Europe, the master bath is not located within the master bedroom.  It is more like a master suite that could easily be another room. Our master bathroom is also our laundry room as the washer and dryer are stacked in a corner.  It is different, but not an entirely bad idea since most people remove their clothing to shower or bathe. The appliances are front loading which was new to me and I can now tell you that I will never buy a front loading washer or dryer.  Not having owned one, I was unaware about leaving the door open after a wash and removing wet clothing immediately after washing.  The stench that emanated from that thing when I went to do another load was horrible. Ewww! So imagine my surprise when I googled "bad smell in dryer" and got a ton of links about how common this problem is with front loaders!  I had to bleach it and that cleared it up, but jeez! The instruction manual didn't even mention it!

Moving right along is the hallway that contains the toileting bathroom which leads to the kitchen room.  It is a room, not a space. A very small room at that and the only part of the house that I wish I could change.  To give you an idea, the master bath suite is bigger than the kitchen.  Since the roof slants all over the house, it makes it feel even smaller.  The living/dining great room is next to the kitchen/hallway and is sizable. The furniture is standard issue Embassy furnishings although I am glad that the couch colors changed from our last post.

One thing I do like about this house are the windows. There are floor to ceiling windows in the living room and our master bedroom and large windows for the kids bedrooms. I also love the European windows that can open up like a door, or, with the turn of the handle, be set up to open slightly at the top.  On a hot day you can open the window completely and on a cold one just slightly for ventilation.  This is very important because the one thing after the kitchen that I hate is that there is no central air conditioning.   To say that I was not happy when we arrived is an understatement.

The Embassy provides these portable units that work well but are cumbersome in the sense that they have a hose to filter the hot air from the house.  It needs to be placed outside through a window because otherwise it blows the hot air right back in.  This is problematic because the hose is too short to fit over the slightly opened window which means the window needs to be opened like a door to accommodate this hose.  There are no screens on the windows which means that insects can freely seek solace from the heat in your house.  After killing several wasps/bees, the Cat fixed this by tying twine to the handle and a part of the frame and place the curtains over the hose/window to keep the insects out.  The portable units make it much more comfortable and make me happier. I can say I have even had to shut them off at times because it gets too cold.  

Along these lines, we noticed that there is not a radiator in sight. I'm glad about this, not only because I hate heat, but because radiators gather dust and cobwebs and are a pain to clean.  We had them in Poland so I was happy to see none in our new place.  But, what to do about heating...well, heating comes in through the floor.  If you have ever lived in a cold climate and placed your feet on a tiled or wood floor in the winter, you probably would feel a very cold floor.  Not here.  The floor is what gets heated and since heat rises, voila - instant heating.

Overall, we are pleased with our new place.  When you take into account that we have no mortgage, rent or utilities to speak of, I can take the small kitchen and less than desirable a/c unit. The only instance where a person can get free housing is on section 8 and what they get for free is a fraction of what we have and usually not as nice.  And they still have to pay utilities!

Taking Care of Business

After 34 days without a mobile phone, we were finally able to secure cell phone service through T-Mobile in Austria.  It is amazing how difficult it was to secure phone service. It was not as difficult in Poland because an organization within the Embassy secured the phones and accounts for us and paid our bill.  We just had to pay them back.  No such organization exists here.

In order to obtain phone service, we had 1) obtain legitimization cards, 2) obtain a letter from the Embassy confirming our address in Austria, and 3) open a bank account. The easiest part of this process was the proof of address letter.  Everything else took a month's time.

The legitimization cards are cards given to each member of the family basically confirming that you are a member or family member of someone in the diplomatic corp or international organization.  The cards are in German have a picture of the card bearer.  It is like a residency permit.  We each have one now.

Opening the bank account was not as time consuming.  Lucky for us, a branch of Bank Austria is located within the Embassy.  Everything here is done by bank transfer. There is no check writing in Europe. Whenever you receive a bill, the bank account number, routing number and other numbers associated with the biller are included on the bill.  You then can either pay online or go to the bank and fill out a slip transferring fund to the biller.  I do prefer this to check writing because checks sometimes take time to clear where with the bank transfer, once you submit the slip, the money is deducted from your account immediately. 

With those three items along with our passports, we were able to walk into T-mobile and walk out with a new phone and two micro sim cards for our iPhones purchased in the USA. Now we just need to go back to T-Mobile to get them to change the voice mail language to English but that is a minor glitch.

On a more surprising note, I learned a few things this week regarding our Vonage phone service and iMessage. 

We have had Vonage VOIP service since 2006 when we moved to Warsaw.  It was very convenient to have a US phone number that we or anyone could call free of charge with the exception of our monthly fixed bill.  Yesterday, I was in the app store and searched for Vonage.  There was an app that is like Skype.  So I downloaded it.  It asked me to enter my mobile phone number.  Instead of entering my mobile phone number, I took a chance and entered our Vonage home phone number.  It asked to confirm the number by text message but also gave the option to request a call.  So I opted for that and entered the code given to me by phone.  I then called my mother's cell phone in the USA free of charge. This means that I can call anyone now when I'm out and about from my cell phone as if I was in the US with a US number. 

In regards to iMessage, I was alerted to the fact that if you use iMessage selecting someone's email address rather than their phone, you can send and receive text messages for free.  So for those of you who know my email (check Facebook for that information) and have an iPhone, you can text me as if I never left the USA.

Things continue to look up....can't wait to move to our new and permanent place next week!