Thursday, March 8, 2012

Snow!

First...this was the moon last night.  Has nothing really to do with anything especially, I just thought it was super bright and almost full (full moon is tonight I think, but its cloudy so I'm glad I saw it last night).  So I took this picture out my window...there is no screen or glass this is going through, the moon was just so bright that it was creating that brightness around it so the moon itself isn't super in focus.


This morning I had to be up at school at 9am, and sometime during my commute it started snowing!  It continued snowing for most of the morning and early afternoon before changing over to mostly rain now.
The view out the window at school looking into the woods, the view out the other side (of Vienna and mountains etc) was completely non-existent.  We couldn't see anything past the terrace all day.

I'm a little sad that this snow in March is some of the little bit I've seen this winter since New York sort of skipped any real winter this year.  At this point I'll take whatever I can get.  Although I am really excited about where school is situated, so I'll be able to see the changing seasons so dramatically in these trees.  Nice to start with a clean blanket of snow before skipping to flowers and leaves.

After a long day of orientation and actually registering for classes (today was the last official day of orientation, so that tomorrow can be spent getting paperwork and such done that hasn't been done already), I stopped by the store on the way home to get some cleaning supplies and things.  

Now.  Let me explain perhaps more clearly what I mean when I say "ran errands".  I generally am someone who likes to make lists before entering a store, at least vaguely know which products/brands I'm looking for and where they are located, and barring any crazy specials or other things going on in the store, these are quick trips.  Not so much here.  It took me a good 10 minutes of staring at a wall of what I was pretty sure were all laundry items (making sure I wasn't getting anything intended to clean dishes for what I would wash my clothes in) I finally decided on a bottle because it looked like it was for sort of generic colored clothing and it looked like a couple bottles were gone, hopefully meaning this product is also useful to some other people who also shop at this store.  Actually doing laundry will come either tomorrow or Saturday, I'm not sure I have the energy at the moment to decode washer/dryer settings.  The same is true for grocery shopping, it takes me a while to insure that what I'm purchasing to eat (unless it is something really basic like fruit or bread) is intended for people to eat, and I'm not about to buy cat food and eat it for dinner.  You'd think this would be easier than it is, but somehow it isn't really.  Tonight I went to the bank closest to my house, with my new bank card, and went inside the bank successfully (using my card to open the doors), and went to the ATM machine.  All the instructions were in German (no English or other language options like all the other ATMs I have previously used) so I did my best.  I know the first thing you're supposed to do is enter your card.  Check.  Then you select something like...get cash...or whatever.  Although they didn't have that option.  Just 4 verb choices that all had something vaguely to do with money, so I picked the first one with the prefix for "out", hoping that would lead me to something to indicate how much cash I would like.  I clicked that button and the machine shows me my entire balance and then makes this awful noise like it's counting money.  I was so glad nobody else was in there, because I'm pretty sure my face started freaking out that I had chosen some option like...take out maximum amount or something.  Thankfully the next screen appeared to ask for an amount, and when I selected the number I wanted, the correct mix of bills came out.  Phew.

So basically at least for now, when I flippantly say "oh I ran errands", generally that means taking a long time to read labels, freaking out a bit about something at some point, and then just hoping for the best.  Tomorrow the task is to buy school supplies.  Hopefully that won't be nearly as difficult since I'm pretty sure paper and pens look the same everywhere.




No comments: