True Confessions (About My Move to Austria)

Although I often talk glowingly about my life in Vienna, the first few months there were weirdly challenging!

Art nouveau decorations on a house in the 13th district in Vienna

I loved living in Vienna from 2014 to 2019, and so far all of the articles I’ve written on Substack about my time there are full of praise. But if I am honest, the first few months of getting settled were not that easy. In fact, it often felt like the Universe was challenging me to see if I could survive in my new life or not!

If you or someone you know is thinking about moving to a new country, I thought you might be interested in my story. Some of what I learned might apply to you, too, and forewarned is forearmed.

From 2004 to 2014, I owned my own freelance writing and editing business in Portland, Oregon. For the last five years of that time, my most important client was a small non-governmental organization in Vienna called the World Institute for Nuclear Security (WINS). WINS’s purpose is to educate anyone with responsibility for nuclear and other radioactive materials—from nuclear power plants to hospitals—how to keep their materials safe from terrorists.

In January 2014, my husband of 37 years died after a 2-year-long battle with COPD. (We had met and married each other in Kabul, Afghanistan, while I was serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer. You can read my memoir about those years here.)

In the summer of 2014, WINS’ executive director asked if I would be willing to move to Vienna and work for them fulltime, and—at the age of 63—I said “Yes! We agreed that I would start work on 1 October. I learned that WINS would handle my work permit, but I needed to handle the residence visa.

Early in September, I flew from Portland to Los Angeles to visit the Austrian Embassy in person, submit my paperwork, and have my fingerprints taken. The official there said I would receive the residence visa in Vienna within three months.

I decided to rent an Airbnb apartment in Vienna for three months, which would give me time to acclimatize to the city, find out where I would like to live, and have time to look at several different apartments until I found the right one. I discovered an online listing that looked beautiful—like something out of turn-of-the-century Vienna—and reserved it. Then I packed up all of my belongings, put them in storage, said goodbye to my two daughters, grandson and sister, and flew to Vienna.

After a long, tiring flight, I arrived at the apartment building and rang the doorbell for the neighbor who had the key to my apartment. (The owner of the apartment was living in Los Angeles at the time.) Upon entering, I saw that the living room was indeed beautiful, with very high molded ceilings, wooden floors, huge windows, and furniture and paintings that looked like they dated from the 1930s. (I later learned that the apartment had belonged to the owner’s grandmother.)

But the tiny bathroom only had a narrow, deep tub with no shower curtain. The hand-held nozzle was attached to the wall just above the tub, so I had to wash my hair while sitting in the tub and trying to hold the nozzle at the same time without spraying water all over the floor—a losing proposition.

In the tiny bedroom—the main bedroom was locked and unavailable for use—there was a very low couch with a hide-a-bed. When the bed was opened up, it was only a few inches from the floor and the whole room smelled so strongly of mold that it was hard to sleep. Nevertheless, I decided to make the best of it, unpacked my clothes, crawled into bed and began to read with just one bedside light on.

And then the light suddenly went off and I was plunged into darkness. With nothing else to do, I rolled over and went to sleep. When I awoke the next morning, the electricity was still off. I knocked on my neighbor’s door, and she said she had electricity, so the problem was only in my apartment.

As soon as I got to work, I sent an email to the owner about the problem. She phoned me a few hours later, accusing me of being an ugly American who had left all the lights on in the apartment at once! I assured her this was not true, and she finally agreed to arrange for someone to come to the apartment to repair the electricity. In the meantime, I moved into a hotel.

Two days later, I received word from the owner that the problem had been fixed, so I moved back into the apartment. Just a few hours later, however, the electricity went off again, and I moved back into the hotel. Clearly, I needed to find another apartment and fast.

I had already started to look for a permanent apartment online and had come across one that looked absolutely beautiful. It was located in the 13th district (Hiezing), which is an area of lovely turn-of-the century homes, many of which have amazing art nouveau details on the exterior, as well as mature trees and gardens. (Hiezing is also the district in which Schönbrunn Palace is located.)

I walked down this street every day for three years.

This garden abutted the parking lot for my apartment.

But the apartment building itself was new, which was now my first criteria, because I had had enough of altbau buildings (charming old buildings built before 1945), along with their mold, drafts and faulty wiring.

I contacted the real estate company that was advertising the apartment and arranged to see it the following afternoon. Two women met me at the apartment. The boss could not speak English, but her assistant could, so we used a mixture of English and German to communicate.

My apartment on the day I moved in

The apartment was light, bright, spotless, and well-insulated, with a separate kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bathroom with a real shower over the tub. In addition, it had a little balcony off the living room that overlooked trees and gardens rather than other apartment buildings. Plus the apartment was completely furnished and immediately available.

The garden of the neighbor who lived below me. I had all the pleasure of his garden without all the work!

Absolutely smitten, I agreed to take it. Within two days, the real estate agents had arranged for a meeting at the apartment to sign the contract and pay the first month’s rent plus three additional months’ rent as a deposit. (The apartment was befristet, which meant that I could only rent it for three years. The three-month deposit would be returned to me when I moved out if the apartment was left in good condition.)

I learned that the actual owner was in London studying, but her father and brother—both of whom were doctors in Salzburg—showed up to meet me and sign the contract. We all sat around the dining room table, speaking in German, and I happily signed the contract and moved in the next day.

The very next morning I noticed that the water in the kitchen sink was not draining well. So I went downstairs to the small grocery store on the ground floor and bought some Draino-like stuff and poured it down the sink. But it made no difference.

My kitchen

About a week later—it was a Saturday—I was standing in the kitchen making my morning coffee when all of a sudden a pipe under the sink burst and water started streaming out on the floor! I tried frantically to mop the water up, but it just kept coming, and I had no idea how to turn the water off. So I went out in the hallway and knocked on my neighbor’s door. She opened the door in her robe and slippers, and I did the best I could in my hysterical German to explain what was happening.

She walked into my apartment with me and asked for a penny. Mystified, I fished one out of my purse, and she headed to the room where the toilet was located. (Austrian homes usually have a separate room for the toilet and the bathroom.) In the wall behind the toilet, I suddenly realized there were two little trap doors. She went to the one on the right, inserted the penny in a little groove, and opened the door. Then she turned off the water.

The bathroom in my apartment

Thanking my neighbor profusely for her help, I closed the door behind her and sat down at my dining room table in shock, not knowing what to do. I pulled out the contract I had signed and suddenly realized there was no contact information for the owners! So I frantically started looking online for doctors in Salzburg, found the name of the brother, and sent him an email about what had happened. (I never heard from him, though.)

I also called the real estate company that had handled the contract and tried to explain to the boss in German what had happened. She said she couldn’t understand me and would have her assistant call me—which she did not do. When I called again the next day, the boss hung up on me.

By some miracle, however, the owner in London emailed me the next day (Sunday) to introduce herself. I immediately emailed her back, explaining what had happened. She replied that she would contact a plumber. At the same time, she also accused me of having put rice down the drain and plugging it up.

In the meantime, I moved into a hotel for the weekend.

The plumber came on Monday and worked on the drain for a while, but it still did not drain properly after he left. So I called another plumber myself, who came on Tuesday and spent at least two hours roto-routing the pipe. In reply to my question about why the drain was so plugged up, he said that Austrians pour their coffee grounds down the sink and that the grounds eventually build up and turn into cement.

While he was working, the neighbor who lived in the apartment below mine came to the door and said that the water had flooded his apartment, seeping into the walls, and shorting out his electricity! He brought the plumber and me down to his apartment to show us.

I was horrified and apologized over and over. For some unknown reason, he was very kind about everything, never once yelled at me, and said insurance would pay for the damages.

After that, things proceeded well. The only issue was that—as the owner in London had told me—I needed to put the electricity bill into my name. (She paid for the water and heat.) But I didn’t know where to go or what to do about that, so I let it slide…

I finally received a letter from the electricity company and understood almost nothing about what it said. I showed it to the executive assistant at my office—who was Austrian—and asked her to explain it to me, but she said she didn’t understand it, either.

Shortly after that, I had just gotten out of the shower about 7:30 in the morning when I heard a loud knock on the door. I put on my robe, hair wringing wet, and opened the door. A man stood there with a very sour expression, shaking his head, and saying in German:

“You didn’t pay the bill, so I am going to shut the electricity off.” Then he turned around and started walking down the stairs.

I stepped onto the landing and pleaded to his retreating back (to no avail):

“Please wait five minutes so I can dry my hair!”

Just at that moment, the husband of the neighbor who had helped me turn off the water stepped out of his apartment and observed the whole exchange!

I was absolutely mortified.

You must know what is coming next. I moved—yet again—into a hotel. And then I got serious about finding out where the electricity company was located and how to put the bill into my name.

After all of that, my life in Vienna—and in my beautiful apartment—proceeded without a hitch.

Except that I still did not have my residence visa. It wasn’t until the end of January—more than four months after applying for it—that I finally received notice it was ready for me to pick up at the immigration office.

Unfortunately, just as the official was handing me the visa card, he suddenly asked to see my passport again. When he noticed that I had already been living in Austria for four months, he clucked his tongue and shook his head and announced that I would have to leave the Schengen area and fly somewhere else so I could re-enter Austria with a new stamp in my passport!

Central Park in February

Consequently, at the beginning of February, I flew to New York City for the weekend. It happened to be freezing cold that week, with several inches of snow, and the heater in my hotel room just couldn’t keep up. So I spent two nights curled up in a ball, trying to sleep while wearing a sweater and my winter coat.

I gratefully returned to Vienna and my nice, warm apartment Sunday night and went to the immigration office bright and early Monday morning. This time, a woman helped me. I started to explain to her what had happened, and she just shook her head with a confused look on her face. She didn’t even want to see my passport with its shiny new stamp—she simply handed me the residence visa!

It is only then that everything truly began to go well, and it continued as long as I lived in Vienna

The view from my balcony

What I learned from all of this

Those first four months were definitely a learning experience!

If I had to do it all over again, here are some things I would do differently:

1. I would reserve a room in a hotel to begin with rather than renting an Airbnb apartment for three months sight unseen. Only after seeing an apartment in person would I commit to renting it longer term.

2. When renting an apartment for a year or longer, I would try out all of the appliances—including running water in the kitchen and bathroom sinks—to ensure everything was in working order before signing the contract.

3. Clearly, I would ensure that I had full contact information for the owner at the time I signed the contract!

4. I would definitely figure out how to put the electricity bill in my name in a timely manner—even though I felt scared and a bit overwhelmed because I did not know where to go or how to do it. Pushing through the fear is a much better option than having the electricity shut off!

I also discovered a couple of cultural differences that I was not aware of before smacking into them.

The major one was that the minute I signed the contract for the apartment, I was responsible for whatever happened to it from then on (in the eyes of Austrians). The owner actually did me a big favor by calling a plumber and paying his expenses, but she did not have to do so.

Similarly, I learned that real estate agents are only responsible for showing an apartment. Once the contract is signed, they are done.

One last thing: When I moved out exactly three years later, the owner of the apartment and her father came in person to inspect its condition. After going over everything in detail, they decided that the apartment was in excellent condition, and they refunded me the full amount of the deposit I had paid. So everything worked out well in the end.

An altbau house across the street from my apartment