Da Heim und im Bezirk

At Home and in the Hood

January 1 was our last day in our Neubaugasse apartment.  A grand adventure, visiting Wesleyan's sister universities through Austria and Germany, is on the calendar for January and February (we'll blog as much as we are able during our journey).  We'll then luckily return to Neubaugasse on March 1.

This post, a tribute to our apartment and dear neighborhood, shows a glimpse of the Jensens at home and in the hood, in the month of December.

Planning our trip through Austria and Germany was quite a laugh!

Travis is in frequent contact with NWU colleagues via email and skype...

Still he makes time to beat Karla in backgammon.  

(The coffee jause you see is Knödl - they are similar to yeast doughnuts with jam.)

Snowflakes in the window across the courtyard - it was fun to watch them appear day by day, one at a time.

The upstairs neighbor boys and their friends using the passages between courtyards as soccer goals. We feel fortunate that, no matter how chilly it is outside, the boys prefer the courtyard rather than their living room, for soccer practice.

Travis the chef

Karla the yogi

Travis stores our books and summer clothes in Elisabeth's closet so we don't have to schlepp them with us during our travels.  Karla assists by taking photos.

The 3:40 p.m. sunset on Mariahilfestrasse, the main shopping street in our neighborhood.  On Saturdays during Advent, the street is closed to auto traffic so the shoppers can more easily rush home with their treasures.

Aida, the wonderful cafe and bakery across the street from our apartment, always has delicious-looking windows.

The restaraunt next to our apartment shows its Advent spirit. 

We see hundreds (really hundreds) of kids a day as we are out and about - they are with their parents as they shop, take walks, or use our favorite mode of public transportation, the streetcar (as seen below).  The Austrians are serious about dressing their children warmly and taking them out for fresh air.  This little one, seen our our neighborhood Weihnachtsmarkt, was so adorable, that we were stopped in our tracks, and even Travis insisted on taking a photo.