Idioms for foreigners...

The fortress and the Alps - my two favourite sights around there

Remind me again, when did I move here? Could it have been, like, roughly two weeks ago? And given the fact that this is a country where my mother tongue is spoken (at least theoretically) one MIGHT expect that my own way of speaking shouldn't have changed too much, right? Unless we're talking of social psychologist phenomena such as verbal mimicry. But hey, we're not talking about that anyways. Not here.

No, it's different. Picture me, sitting there in my office in late afternoon, at the verge of the need for a nice, fresh espresso (mh, Nespresso! What else?) ;-), brooding about something that I'm - so far - not too familiar with and trying to piece my thoughts together. And just then, one of my new colleagues pokes his head into the office and announces "Pfüat di, I'll be off now. Ciao!" and surprised as I am, the first thing that comes to my mind is... well, "Pfüat di". It's going down, I'm tellin' ya. It's a sign. At the very least, it should be a sign that I'm able to blend in. A little bit. So little that, in fact, my blending-in becomes obsolete after the third word that leaves my mouth - and only if I haven't already given it away with a mispronounced "Grüß Gott".

a closer look reveals the photographer! ;-)

However, apart from the linguistic traps that I'm noticing all the time, life's been treating me well around here. Work is fun, the colleagues are nice, my office is great and things seem to be falling into place.
Apart from my residence registration. You see, that is the only official thing I need to get done here. Let's say there is a 3-day-deadline after moving here to show up at the registry office and get registered. You need to bring a print-out of a form that indicates your current (even if it's just an interim residence) place of living. Which, I thought, shouldn't be too much of a problem, since I got some kind of a sublet contract from my boss (whose flat I'm living in while she's abroad for 3,5 months). BUT there's a teeny problem with me providing the form AND the contract. Guess what, but my boss' signature? Had to be ON the form. Of course, I only found out when I got here and she was already gone. Great. Now, the best thing about that 3-day-deadline? There are fines if you do not manage to register till then. And without that darn signature there's no way I'm going to get registered yet. Right then, I got a little scared. But guess what? The deadline is not very fixed! When I told the lady about my problem and that the signed form is on its way to me (across the ocean, and so on) she said (in Austrian dialect) that that would be fine and I should just come when I have everything. No fine to pay, it's going to be just fine. So THAT is a difference to my home country. And I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the form will get here rather soon. Maybe then I'll finally be able to get a local bank account, too. Once I have that (and am no longer an unregistered EU citizen), I'll actually be able to register the wireless USB modem I've been using for about 2 weeks already. Coming to think of it, I wonder when the initial 1 GB will be used up? Maybe I should start using small-bandwidth pages and avoid the heavy ones? Like, Craigslist instead of Youtube? Any suggestions? ;-)

Salzburg cathedral, complete with horse carriages

Well, I'll be off now... gotta count a few MBs before falling asleep. Take care and enjoy the pix - taken during the last 2 weeks in my new place. It's quite scenic, isn't it?

Pfüat di! ;-)
Hanna