Op-Expat

The new trend is green. We see articles, tips, and products all over the place on how to be more earth friendly. I for one think it is great. I think it’s so great that my husband and I try to be green ourselves. We make the effort to recycle as much as we can, use energy efficient light bulbs, and unplug our computer and TV when not in use to avoid phantom energy consumption. We’ve even forsaken a clothes dryer in favor of line drying. We’re so proud that we are doing our part.

Just a few weeks ago, my husband Paul and I went to visit his grandparents in upper Austria. Their home is about two and a half hours northwest of Vienna. As I spent the weekend with the grandparents in their home, I realized we can’t even hold a candle next to them when it comes to being green.

The grandparents don’t even know what being green is. The things that our generation is trying to do today are the things grandparent generation has been doing naturally all along.

The grandparents have their own vegetable and fruit garden. It’s huge and keeps them completely supplied for the entire spring, summer, and autumn. They also have chickens that produce eggs. They aren’t buying produce that is using CO2 submission to get to them.

When Grandma does actually go grocery shopping for the things her garden doesn’t supply, guess what. At seventy-four years old, she takes her bike to the grocery store, no matter the temperature outside.

Grandma also unplugs everything. The TV, the washing machine, and even the radio. I didn’t even think about unplugging our washing machine. And do you think she has a dish washer or clothes dryer? Nope. Forget the plasma TV and computer too.

I know we can’t give up our gadgets that suck up so much energy. I was without Internet for two weeks and I thought someone had cut off an arm. What we can do though, is look back to the older generation and get a few tips from them.

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Cold weather and lots of rain starts to arrive around mid-September in Vienna. Being a native to Los Angeles, cold and rain are strange concepts to me.

Now I’ll openly admit, I just might overcompensate for the cold weather and rain. I bought waterproof boots because every single pair of shoes that I had from Los Angeles let water in.

I also went on a coat and sweater buying binge. I have five different coats and more sweaters now than I have had in my entire life.

When mid-September rolls around in Vienna, I start pulling my supplies out and piling them on.

Saturday was a good example of my overcompensation for cold, rainy weather. I went grocery shopping. I pulled on my jeans, a thick wool sweater, my waterproof boots and a raincoat. I grabbed my umbrella and my fashionably oversized purse and headed out. At the beginning of my walk to the grocery store, things were great. I felt the chill of the air and was grateful for my warm clothing. I walked a brisk pace and started to warm up. All of a sudden I was just a tad too warm. Well no matter. It doesn’t hurt to be too warm. Or so I thought.

Once I arrived at the store, I noticed that I needed to get organized. I had many things to deal with. I had an umbrella in one hand and my fashionably over-sized purse in the other. I was a bit stuck. To get a shopping cart, I had to find a coin to stick in a little slot that released the shopping cart from a chain. I stood there for a second and tried to figure out exactly how I was going to do this. I had a dripping umbrella in one hand, and a zipped purse in the other. I needed one hand to hold the purse and the other to rummage in it. I flailed about for a moment and then thought, to heck with it. I dropped my wet umbrella on the floor. This freed up the hand I needed to get the coin to get my shopping cart. Success!

I started making the shopping rounds. My earlier state of a tad too warm started to rise as I was in the store. My wool sweater was getting scratchy. I started moving faster through the store in hopes that I would get my shopping done faster. All of a sudden I felt sweat drip. Eeewww! I quickly finished my shopping and rushed to the checkout line. The checkout girl gave me a strange look as she noticed my damp, flushed cheeks.

Once I had my groceries I rushed outside to gulp in the cold, fresh air. Except that it was raining outside and one hand was busy carrying my groceries while the other was busy holding my purse. I needed to get my umbrella. I dropped my groceries on the floor and rummaged around my purse to find my umbrella. I opened it, balanced my purse and grocery bags evenly, and started to set off for home. My earlier sweaty state was rapidly dropping to a chilled cold as the sweat cooled my body in the outside temperatures. My grocery bags were banging around my knees, and I started to feel my paper grocery bag shift. Stupidly, I had left that one to hang outside the perimeter of my umbrella. My paper grocery bag was getting wet! The damn thing was going to rip! I picked up my step even more in the hopes of getting to my apartment before the bag ripped. But noooo! It had to rip. I knelt down in the rain to gather the bag from the bottom and balance it on my hip.

So I had a huge purse, a plastic grocery bag and an umbrella in one hand, and I had a torn, wet paper grocery bag perched on my hip and a plastic grocery bag in the other. And it was raining. And I was cold.

When I made it home, I went right into the kitchen and dropped everything on the floor. My apples from the wet paper bag rolled out but I didn’t care.

All I know is that I need a new system.

How I felt on Saturday

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In our busy society, we have a tendency to forget to enjoy the moment. I try to remind myself to pause and observe what is happening around me. So just to let you know, right at this moment, as I sit here and work at my computer, I hear rain tapping my window and church bells clanging in the distance. A rush of pleasure fills me as I soak in these soothing sounds.

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I have to give my Austrian co-workers some recognition here. They can choose to work any place in Vienna where the company language is German. Instead, they willingly work for a company that uses English as the main form of communication. We all know work can be hard enough; stress, deadlines, miscommunications, and in my case, the struggle to find the perfect text to market our products. Okay, now take your normal day at the office with all that baggage and do it in a language that you aren’t fluent in. Now willingly stick with it, even though there are thousands of other opportunites out there. Yeah, I take my hat off to my Austrian co-workers daily.

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I love the u-bahn in Vienna. But the periodic downside of public transportation is being exposed to all kinds of weird people. Just yesterday I was sitting in the train reading my book when someone sat next to me. From my peripheral vision I saw it was a weird looking guy who kept eagerly looking over at me. He smelled of old lady house making me suspect that he still lived with mother. I buried my nose further into my book to discourage conversation, but alas, this was no deterrent for this guy.

He asked me what station I was getting off at. As all ladies know for safety reasons, this is not a question to answer. I gave the cool reply of a bit further. He paused a moment to mull this over, then asked if I wanted to get off at the next station with him to have a cup of coffee.

Now excuse me for being a snob, but this guy had no chance with me. To give you an idea of the situation, it would be like me walking up to Brad Pitt and saying “Hey baby, Angie isn’t that beautiful. Come home with me.” There are unspoken rules to the pick-up game. The first being, don’t reach so far above and beyond that you make yourself look foolish. Me trying to convince Brad to leave Angie would be that kind of foolish.

I smiled and said no thanks. He then pulled out a business card and tried to push it on me stating that I should give him a call. I glanced briefly at it and saw that it was a UPC business card (a cable/TV provider in Austria) with the name crossed out and the phone number crossed out. He had clearly picked the card up somewhere and crossed everything out and wrote his information in there! This guy had no game!

I didn’t take the card and gently shook my wedding clad ring finger at him stating that I was married. He shrugged and jumped off at the next step.

austrian-nerd

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On Saturday I went to a garden store to buy a plant for my desk at work. I was struck by this one plant, whose leaves were prettily arranged. I found it quite attractive and reached over to pick it up to get a closer look. Much to my surprise, the moment my fingers brushed against the leaves, the leaves rapidly folded inward! I couldn’t believe my eyes. The plant moved! I reached out again to find the same effect. Fascinated, I knew I had to get the plant. It’s definitely a novelty at work, as I tell each co-worker, ‘Touch my plant!’

See the Mimosa plant in action here:
Mimosa Plant on YouTube

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