moving on preparation
As SK left for Wien today and I will follow in a number of weeks, the time has come to think about what we want in our Viennese apartment. I am all about altbau. I said as much to our relocation agent, but much to my dismay, when we went to Wien before Christmas to do an orientation tour and look at neighbourhoods, we saw three apartments that were all modern. The viewings of neubau were not a waste of time. They clarified the “nope, not interested in this” mindframe that I was in, and which SK, happily, on seeing altbau versus neubau agreed with. Let me tell you, in a city like Wien, or indeed any European city, where nineteenth century apartment blocks survive and thrive, new ones leave you cold. I once dreamt (before the property boom then bust) of living in a large Georgian apartment over one or two floors in inner city Dublin, I dream of living in an altbau in Wien. I love altbau. To the extreme that, when shown an apartment overlooking palace gardens in Wien that was neubau and not altbau, SK and I turned out noses up. Yeah, it had a beautiful view of a park, but it had a kitchen/diner/living space and worse again still it was much smaller that the altbaus, with no interesting quirks like two WCs (one for the family, one for the maid) and no maid’s quarters off the kitchen (we saw altbau apartments with these sorts of things) and no pantry. Altbau is just so full of character. They have high ceilings. They have parquet floors. They have double doors. They have things like SEPARATE KITCHENS. Whilst I am aware that it has been all about the kitchen-diner in the recent years there’s a lot to be said for a separate kitchen. I live in a kitchen-diner taken a step too far. It’s a kitchen-diner-livingroom. I have come to hate it. It is not pleasant. You have to turn up the volume of the TV programme you are watching or the music you are listening too to deafening levels if someone is cooking in the kitchen and has a noisy extractor fan running. If you are cooking, you have to be careful not to do things like fry or grill fish because you will be stunk out for days. It can only be baked or poached. Who likes a fishy smelling sofa? You have to take care when choosing what to dress your windows with. Curtains and fabric blinds were out for the obvious reason that they would harbour the aforementoined cooking smells. It’s venetian blinds or shutters, which we installed. We didn’t want curtains and blinds anyway, as they just didn’t fit into the design of our kitchen/diner/living room space. I don’t like curtains much. I love blinds and shutters. Living in our current location has taught me a few lessons about what I will look for in a house when we come back to Ireland. SK and I don’t see ourselves moving back to where we are. For a number of reasons. The main ones being we have had a succession of neighbours from hell and we don’t think our apartment would make living with a baby very enjoyable. A toddler would be a nightmare, given all the steps. It’s good timing that junior will be living in a Viennese apartment, with no steps and will be free to toddle and there will be no worry about stairs and gates. Better still, I won’t have to haul a buggy up outer steps to a front door, all the while cursing the fact that under the steps which would have made suitable small item storage is completely bricked off. Was the architect a complete idiot? Why did buggies or golf clubs not occur? Under the outer concrete steps have perfect spaces for storing these things. Better again still, when I get to the front door, I won’t have to haul the buggy or child up another flight of steps and even better again still, I won’t have to haul the groceries all the way to the kitchen while wondering if junior is ok where left downstairs. (It’s a upside down design). I’m looking forward to our apartment hunt next friday. But even more than that, I’m looking forward to moving away from outer suburbia (which I have come to hate) and into a city proper. Austria, baby! Wien here I come. I was so jealous of SK heading off today. How I wished I was going with him.
