Raindrops on roses and strudels and schnitzels...

Yesterday we drove with Daniel, our co-worker, to TWR's office in P'Dorf, a village just outside of Vienna. (P'Dorf is the merciful abbreviation of Perchtoldsdorf.) It was sleeting hard onto our windows when we woke up, and God granted us safe travel on the roads. We met everyone in the Vienna office and finally got to meet with our boss, Barb, and her assistant, Anne. It felt great to nail down a few details on our job descriptions and finally get rolling.

For lunch, we ate at one of P'Dorf's 50-60 famous Huerige restuarants. P'Dorf is surrounded by family-owned vineyards, and most are associated with their own restaurant that is only open half of the year for about two weeks at a time. The way to tell which restuarant is open when is by the wreath hanging up near the doorway. It's something about avoiding taxes by being an official restaurant, but it is legal--something to do with old legal systems. All you really need to know is that you can order a spinach strudel the size of a Chipotle burrito and a wiener schnitzel larger than your face.

Mike and I went to Hypernova last night, the local grocery store ("potraviny") that is located inside a giant shopping mall. It was a challenge, and the only word for any meat I could remembr was "sunka" for ham, and we don't really like ham, but all the other meats looked the same and they seem expensive but wait they're in kilograms so how many kilograms is a stupid pound and Mike checks his iPod Touch application but I worry about him whipping that thing out and for crying outloud why didn't we eat before we got here?! We came home with full bags, but I'm not really sure what is currently in our fridge.

Today is our first official day of work. Mike has spent most of the day researching and interrogating everyone about what they do and how TWR is organized, etc. (Last night, he explained it back to me in an extensive QVC metaphor, and it was quite brilliant.) He is so eager to learn, and it has been so strange to see him in business-mode. Not that I am surprised, but I am so impressed by what a hard worker and stubborn thinker he is. He already has double the amount Slovak phrases that I do.