i know i have been very absent on my blog in the last month, but there is a good reason for that. i'm going to start a new job in a very far far away place at an amazing university. the whole process has gone fairly quickly: i learned about the opportunity in early december, applied right before christmas, had an interview two weeks ago over skype, and was offered the position early last month. i really didn't expect to relocate at this point of my life but when I read the job description, i thought they wrote it just for me; it was as though they had tailored every aspect of the job to who i am and what iwant to be doing - i could not be more excited about the work.
the opportunity, however, doesn’t come without its challenges. it will be necessary for my husband and i to be apart for periods of time as the position is at the institute for electronic music and acoustics (http://iem.kug.ac.at) in graz, austria. the project takes about three years and i also earn my ph.d. degree. i start my new job next week and i'm very excited about that. i'll be posting about the technical aspects of the project if you are interested in sonification and audio technology on my computer music blog.
i have had some sleepless nights in the last month as i discussed with family and friends the pros and cons but we agreed this is a great opportunity. of course i would miss my husband and teh great friends i have in teh bay area. i also had a fantastic lunch with jina and bonnie short before i left to enjoy delicious californian meals at zuni cafe.
i flew to vienna last week. my sister and brother in-law live in vienna and they helped me a lot to get settled in. i went to graz and found a small place to live and i'm officially moving in this weekend. so this time i had my very first austrian meals in graz and of course it was as fantastic as i expected. between seeing apartments, we ended up having coffee and pasterie at a cute old cafe called kaiser cafe. surprisingly in such an old style cafe, a room was dedicated to arnold schwazeneger which was called governor's room and had interesting modern art works around the room. as you might have noticed graz is very proud of him. i guess i should say i am the opposite of him. he is a grazer in california and i am a californian in graz?!
my first austrian meal was of course schnizel and tafel spitz. i definitely write more details about austrian dishes in the next posts. this is just an overview about my new life.
let's get back to our foodie topics. i arrived in vienna, a city where i used to live more than ten years and i have so many great memories at many cute cafes and restaurants here. but since i was in such a hurry to settle down, i had to go to graz immidiately. graz is the second largest city in austria and is the capital of styria. it has also been the cultural capital on europe on 2003. i'm going to introduce graz to you in these years step by step, but since i have family and friends in vienna and i know the city so well, i would also share my culinary experiences in vienna every now and then when i get the chance to come over for weekend.
i arrived in carnival season which means a lot of krapfen in all bakeries. one of my favorite ones is the ones that they make at cafe demel. i ended up having one on the last day they have it.
I see you arrived safe and sound and already with great food. I'll miss having our lunches together in San Francisco but I very excited to read about Austrian food. I don't know much about it and maybe one day I'll be visiting you and you can show me around. Good luck!
Posted by: Bonnibella | 02/27/2012 at 01:51 PM
So glad you arrived safely and that you already found an apartment. Lucky you just in time for carnival and baked goods. That is so funny that have up photos of the govenator. Can't wait to see more of Graz and you of course. Good luck with everything, hope you don't have to work too hard.
-Gina-
Posted by: Gina | 02/24/2012 at 08:56 AM