A New Love For All Things Pastries

Today was huge! I had every intention for the first few days to just settle in, eat out at the restaurants, take in the sights and relax. That all happened but we also decided to Jam Pack it with meeting the co ordinator of their new school, walking to their new school, grocery shopping, purchasing and selecting our sim cards for our phones while deciphering in German and all the while high as kites from the amount of sugar we were eating and jet lag. Let me explain further……

The kids woke up starving from their 12 hour sleep. Jessy slept all through the night and Daniel only woke up once, I woke up twice and Ben only once (we think it was his best sleep in years which is really saying something!

As soon as I was dressed we were out the door and had ideas to go to a cafe to get breakfast. Well once we walked past several bakeries and took in not only the visual delights of all the sweet treats, cakes, pies, croissants and pastries in their window our typical eggs and bacon breakfast was left for dust and replaced with cherry strudel, cinnamon scroll, croissant and baguette. We then wandered down to the Salzach river to take in the wonderful view of the river and the streets while we enjoyed our Austrian breakfast.

The kids then wanted to go straight back to the apartment, no site seeing or veering off whatsoever and so we left did an about turn and went back. The kids then settled into their rooms and just had some own time.

Ben and I were then left to work out setting ourselves up in Austria with our phones. The location of our apartment is so central we have a mobile phone shop across the road, 20 metres to the right is the Spar supermarket, another 20 metres from there is a chemist, florist, bakery, coffee shop and then it just goes on and on and on how many shops are just in the vicinity. Considering it took us 45 minutes to drive to the nearest shopping mall, movies, beach etc where we used to live in Cessnock, Australia it is just bliss we can walk everywhere and everything is so close.

First up was our SIM cards for our phones. We had already chatted to Hannes about the provider he uses and he explained Drei.at was his so I love good recommendations and instead of spending hours searching we looked at Aldi SIM card pre paid plans and Drei and Drei was the better service (plus all users of Drei can call each other unlimited for free…I was sold)! Now to work out how to explain what we wanted and purchase the card.

From our initial interactions here many many people speak English but it is the specialist shops that are not so frequented by tourists that spoke German. We are loving trying out our conversation skills and I can’t get over how much we actually did learn when we did the Learn German course because we are asking for a lot of what we want in German,and the kids are actually keen to learn now too. The people have been so friendly here and so patient and the lovely retailer explained which card we needed a 9.90 euro card and then we would have to go online to register and purchase the plan.

With cards purchased we then went back to the apartment to register them on line and this was proving a challenge. Firstly we couldn’t work out what the phone number was on the card to register and then the PUK code, we then had to scan our passports in and do this 4 times. Finally we were all registered and set up ready to roll.

Next we needed to get groceries as there was nothing in the apartment. Spar was only down the road but we heard Aldi (better known as Hofer) was 15 mins away. We had to see Aldi as this is where we shopped at home.

We detoured into a bike shop on the way to see how much the e-bikes were to hire (2 bikes were $100 euros for 4 hours) and then continued walking to Aldi and checking out all the sites along the way.

However, we didn’t make it to Aldi as another store caught ourattention - called Billa. What a store. It was like entering a farmers market and Woolworths together but also a patisserie, butcher and specialty store. It had everything and more and was such a culinary delite to shop at. We played guess what the item was the whole time and also selected some salami sticks and this delicious pesto baguette with mozzarella to eat on the walk home.

Once we got home I checked my emails as I always do working or not working and noticed an email from the kids school Salis International explaining the Dean was there today and could meet us at 3:30pm. What the! This was not in the plan, but really there is no plan so we decided to go with it and meet up. We thought on the way we would pop into the registry office to register Ben as an Austrian citizen and when we finally found the location at Kiesel Building, Saint-Julien-Str. 20, 5020 Salzburg (4th Floor) and spoke to the registered agent we received the forms but needed to get Hannes as our lessor to sign the forms so we left with the forms.

This was only a small detour on the way to the school (which was a 30 minute walk). There was so much to see on the way that it did not feel like 30 minutes. We went past the train lines, several stores and green spaced.

Once at the school we met the Dean who was so friendly and of course spoke fluent English and explained the intricacies of the school and let us wander around. He also explained the kids could wear slippers and hoodies to school and in their break go to Spar and purchase snacks. Their eyes were falling out of their heads and they couldn’t believe what they were hearing. The Dean also explained they have a great extra curricular program and they would be learning German, English and French or Latin….I think they are going to have a blast going to this school.

Once we had finished our tour we headed back to our place, walking past bell towers, restaurants, cafes, gelato stores all the while keeping a mental note on where we want to go including the cutest eateries, nail salons, clothing stores and past the Mirabelle Gardens (which we couldn’t go and explore as Daniel was too tired, another day…..).

Back at the apartment we settled in and rested for an hour then it was time to cook dinner at 7pm, have showers and head to bed. Its great we have all slowly pushing through the jet lag and are now on Austrian time and will hopefully get a great nights sleep tonight.