Thanks and Intermission!

Dear readers of this blog!

Thank you so much for your interest in occasionally following my life here. I also want to say thanks to my friend Magda who had created this blog (and it's immodest name) as a farewell - "gift" before I left last summer. (2007) Without having people who read all that stuff writing a blog would not make sense.
But the good news: Even though my American year is over, the blogging is not. I was writing a blog before, that I am now going to use again. You can find it here:

http://missbasilicum.blogspot.com

So if you want to keep in touch with what's going on in and around Vienna or if I plan to maybe come back to the US some time, you can follow me there. Have fun!

And here are the first pictures (all taken with my cell phone) back in Austria. They sum up pretty well what all is about here...

culture&history

traditional food. (my brother's first attempt to make Kärntner Kasnudeln and it was delicious!)

family

not everything is very alive

instead of water- we have chocolate fountains :)

...what we are wearing every day. Ok, just kidding. Only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Sundays. :D

Bye bye!

I am leaving today. Bloomington, Indiana, the US.

Right now I have 4 more hours to pack and clean up my part of the appartment, and I am still just starting to realize, that I said goodbye to all my friends here yesterday night- for probably a long(er) time. This was very sad. And it was almost exactly as it was one year ago - on the same day, but 2007, when I left Austria. I was not aware how much I loved some of the people I got to know here during the year. But actually this is a beautiful thing and I am thankful for it.

Now it is time that I face the bright side of the journey...the "saying hello - part" to everybody in Austria again. I am very excited, and it is still almost too unreal.
I should better go.... tomorrow at around 7:30pm I'll arrive in Vienna.

Wien, Wien nur du allein...

healthy summer-lunch

Romaine - spinach - cheese - pistacchio - basil - salad

I am currently attempting to eat as much healthy food as possible...
In San Francisco, without having access to a kitchen, my lunch mostly looked like this: a zip-lock bag full of raw baby spinach, baby carrots (Americans seem to like the baby-type of everything a lot), maybe sometimes some sugar snap peas and 2 or 3 pieces of String-cheese. (Dry mozzarella wrapped in separate "strings")

(Abby presenting the lunch bag in our hotel room in SF)

As this was not very juicy and as I have my kitchen here again (at least for 7 more days - yes I am leaving today in 1 week!), I have tried to spice up this lunch - idea a bit...and created a salad:

Romaine lettuce
Baby spinach
grated carrots
sliced cucumber
diced avocado
salt
pepper
basil
vinegar
olive oil
three-cheese - crumbles
pistacchios

Mix and mingle all of that together, and that's it :)