How are we coping with the heat?

One of the first questions everyone asked me after I arrived in Tucson was: "So, how are you coping with the heat?" And my answer was....well, I guess I don't know anymore what my answer was. But here is what it should have been: "What do you mean how am I coping with it? Nobody here is coping with it, all you do is going from an air conditioned house to an air conditioned car to an air conditioned office and back. You should see Vienna in a heat wave!" As I write this, temperatures indoors and outdoors have just about dropped below 30 C, and it is 9:30 pm. Today's afternoon temperature was just around 38 C (100 F) and I was lucky: I had a cool basement laboratory to flee to, while other people went about their usual business on the surface: serving coffee, paving roads, showing apartments to people, sitting at office desks in 4th floors of west-facing buildings, without the luxury of a schedule flexible enough to move their work to a more protected place.

Very few places have air conditioning here. Some cafes and restaurants and a number of our laboratories do. My boss has a noisy, not very effective movable unit in her office. The gold broker next doors to cafe Milano does, but cafe Milano does not, and neither do most offices and apartments. So how do we cope? While in Tucson, from the perspective of a culture in which air conditioning is ubiquitous and overused, and a room temperature above 76 F (24.4 C) is deemed unacceptable, I started to wonder, too: how do the Viennese cope? How did I cope?

I guess, now that we are at the peak of a heat wave, my answer is threefold: First, we know that there won't be 5 months of it. This is by far the most important coping mechanism. We are expecting a temperature drop by 15 C this weekend, it's the main topic of conversation and everyone's silver lining. Second, we get used to it. Humans get used to a lot, and a few hours of 32+(90+) temperatures don't feel that bad when you are already used to a baseline of 28 (82). This is a chance you don't get living and working in Tucson. Third.....I don't know actually how some people cope. I don't know how the construction workers and kebab stand people (next to that grill all day!) and tram drivers cope. I don't know how old or sick people cope, because this is plenty exhausting for healthy, young people. I also don't know how I would cope if nighttime temperatures were to rise by a few more degrees.

I know how I cope in daytime: In 5 years of life in the desert including bike commuting, plenty of hiking and camping trips (including such follies as Death Valley and Grand Canyon in July), some semi-successful desert gardening attempts, and two years in a place with a swamp cooler, I have learned a few things about heat. One, it is cumulative. It makes a difference whether I spend a few hours in a cool cellar or not, it even makes a difference whether I make an effort to walk on the shady side of the streets during the day or not. There is a big difference between 32 C (89 F), 35 C (95 F) and 38 C (100 F), it's not just "all hot" (which was my pre-Tucson take on it). Which means, when it's 26 in the morning, and will be 35 in the afternoon, I close the darn windows. I am lucky enough to have an office in one of those older buildings with 0.5-meter thick walls, and my office stays quite bearable, as long as I close the window by 11 am or so. If I didn't know my pre-Tucson self, I would find it quite incredible that it has not crossed everyone's mind that opening a window may actually warm up a room, and that not every breeze is cool. But I know that I kept windows open as a default in past Viennese heat waves, and I see a lot of open windows everywhere these days, presumably causing lots of needless suffering.

Do I like the idea of a Vienna filled with noisy A/C units the way Tucson is? Not really. I had my fair amount of noise problems with them in the spacious desert Southwest, I don't think it is a good idea for densely built-up Vienna. It would be a great relief for a few days here and there - but people get lazy and in no time, they'd be running like they are in Tucson: all day, every day, out of convenience (I swear, there are people in Tucson who never stop using their compressor, but simply switch from heating to cooling sometime in March), no more getting used to any level of heat, living with a constant mechanical hum. Should I write about the warming climate here and what it will do to those "few days here and there"? Probably not, that'll turn into a whole other entry (and a side research project).

Life in Tucson, in contrast, would be very, very tough without any cooling. Without it, the town would simply not exist in its current size. The few days of Tucson-style heat we get here do get me thinking about life in Tucson 50 or 100 years ago. I look at the thick walls in old Viennese houses with green inner courtyards that are just a couple degrees cooler than the street and think about adobe buildings and what the urban landscape of the Old Pueblo might have been when it was actually old. I see people here at 4 pm, sitting in some corner, panting, with a fan blowing onto them, and I wonder what the diurnal rhythm of work and rest may have been in old Tucson. It must have been a few very hardy people, who lived there. The monsoon still means so much to people now, what must it have meant back in the day! Forget all the gun-waving horseback-riding movie heroes. This is how I imagine the Wild West: a lot of early mornings, a lot of hard work before sunrise, a lot of energy used just dealing with the afternoon heat, and, at all times, hoping for rain.

Bicycling

My first bike in Tucson, with resting white-winged dove.

One of the first things I did in Tucson, in July of 2007, was buying a bicycle. I could not see myself "going native" and commuting by car every day, and my boyfriend at the time, a native of the Pacific Northwest, couldn't see it either. The Ordinary Bike Shop sold me an old-style (but new), black cruiser, which looked, so people told me, "very European", and sported features like a kickstand and fenders, things that were inexplicably rather uncommon in Tucson. I immediately got another piece of equipment which is, in my understanding, an essential necessity for a bike, but proved utterly useless: a bell. It was useless, because off campus, there were not enough pedestrians to ever even need to make use of it, and on campus, most everyone seemed to never have heard of bells being on bicycles, so nobody reacted to it in the appropriate way (which is: realize they are walking on the bike lane and get the hell out of there). Other than the resulting near-collisions, the daily commute to university was really nice: long enough to get the circulation going, but short enough I wouldn't die on a summer late afternoon, and, I found, very good for my general well-being. 

My lucky raffle ticket

A couple of years later, I got my second bicycle (more precisely, I won it with a $2 raffle ticket I paid $1.85 for, because that was all the cash I had on me at the time): a fast, light street bike in my favorite color that was a little too small for me. In spite of fighting a little with its small size, I loved how light and fast it was. Speeding down Mountain Avenue's broad bike lane overtaking everyone, and then slowing down to turn into my street like on a highway exit was one of my daily joys. 

After the breakup with my boyfriend, which also meant a breakup with the car, I came to rely completely on these two bicycles, and learned the following things: 1. It is much better to own two bicycles, when that's your only means of transport. You do not always have the time or means to repair things, so it is nice to have a second bike to fall back on. 2. In a city like Tucson, you can do a lot of things by bicycle - but not everything. For some things, you need friends with cars. This may sound like a disadvantage, and it is, if your shopping list for the night involves 5 big flower pots, several gallons of potting soil, a six pack of microbrews, toilet paper, washing powder, and a takeout dinner at Nico's Tacos. But socially, it is an advantage: "depending" on other people for little services and returning favors to them with the means you have means connecting with them. I am convinced that taking your own car alone everywhere can make you very lonely. Two of the people I met in Tucson and got to know through shared car rides ended up being my best friends there. One of them I sold my fast bike to - she had relied on her only bike for years, and let me convince her that that second bike really makes life easier. The other became my husband. 

When leaving Tucson, I also parted with the first bicycle, since it was heavy and had only three gears, and Vienna has hills. I wasn't even sure about biking in Vienna. Tucson is easy. Yes, there are drivers who act as if they had never seen a bicycle. But, there is plenty of space for everyone and their road stupidity. It almost never rains, snow is a once-in-5-years event, ice and slush are unheard of, and the heat, well, you learn to cope with it. And once I discovered the green goo that seals tiny pinholes in inner tubes, even the cactus stingers lost much of their horror. What I knew of Vienna was what I remembered: fighting for survival on crowded streets between tram tracks and opening car doors, bike lanes ending without warning in shared lanes with everything that's dangerous, insufficient parking, bike theft. Biking was a sport, but not a commuting option competitive with public transport. 

source: http://images.travelpod.com/

I was very wrong. Even on my first bike ride in Vienna, on a snowy spring evening, terrified and freezing on technically the same bike I had left to my brother in 2007 (5 1/2 years and two accidents later, so many parts had been replaced that I did not recognize it), I quickly realized that things had changed. The bike route across Südtirolerplatz was unexpectedly straightforward, and did not even involve using a pedestrian crosswalk. There were clearly designated bike lanes, and even special small bike traffic lights, at the appropriate eye level. I was impressed. 

I am still impressed. Vienna has become a very bike friendly city and biking is clearly encouraged. (That's what a green party in the city government does, I guess.) To be sure, there are more things to worry about than in Tucson: For starters, there is just simply a lot less space on every road. For everyone. In streets originally designed for pedestrians and a few horse-drawn carriages, there are cars, parked cars, pedestrians, tourists (an especially inattentive class of pedestrian, so I mention them separately), many other bikers (I have been in slow bike traffic on Margaretenstrasse, no jam yet, but not too far from it), buses, trams, their treacherous tracks, motorbikes, trucks, construction sites, dogs, and, yes, still a few horse-drawn carriages (I was not so sure about approaching a horse on a bike the first time I was in the situation, but turns out they are rather unphased, by anything). There are plenty of potentially dangerous setups, so, you have to pay attention and bike defensively. (On a related note, I am baffled how many people here bike without helmet.) But the infrastructure has improved so much that bike commuting has become viable, and faster than public transport on my current route. There is lots of new bike parking, there are bike lanes where I couldn't even envision them (Margaretenstrasse is a miracle of efficient use of space), and drivers generally seem to be mindful. I dare to say that if bike theft is common, it's probably because people are extremely casual with locking their bike and the kinds of locks they use. (I hope I didn't jinx anything here.)

A particularly nice thing about my commute is that a good part of it is not even in the described mayhem of road users: it's a relaxing non-stop ride on the beautiful wide path between rows of trees on Ringstrasse. One of the best things about biking there: people know what a bell is. I just ring and watch them jump.

The (almost) year-round astronomy season

Along with the year-round hiking season, Tucson has a year-round season for astronomy. Now, I'd be lying if I said that that was enormously important for me, and I'd also be lying if I portrayed astronomy as an activity that has accompanied me through all the years of my life. But, I was interested enough in it at one point in my late teenage years to have considered getting a degree in it, and I probably wouldn't have become a scientist without that initial astronomy interest. In spite of the rather high horizon, my hometown of Admont was not a bad place for backyard observing (I was puzzled that there were people in the world who had never seen the Milky Way), and I was always happy with what I saw (aside from those clouds that covered the sky just about long enough to obscure the 1999 solar eclipse, I am still unhappy about those). Then I moved to Vienna (and immediately understood the Milk Way thing), and other light-polluted places, my scope didn't move with me, and that was the end of that, more or less. 

But within the last few years in Tucson, astronomy had a little bit of a "renaissance" in my life. Steve is an amateur astronomer, quite a lot more serious about it than I have ever been (but, luckily for me, not serious enough to make moving to a mid-latitude city a dealbreaker), and I could easily participate in his hobby. There were casual outings to Catalina State Park on random evenings, more serious trips to darker sites, with or without a local amateur astronomy group, and visits to some of the professional (and professional-educational) observatories around Tucson. Even during the times we were not so engaged in the hobby, we'd get reminded of it. You can just tell that astronomy is important in Tucson, from the strict rules about lights that keep the professional observatories happy and the sky beautiful, to "Sky bar" on 4th avenue setting up telescopes for people to look through between gin and tonics.

In general, astronomy is a hobby for dedicated people. The situation is something like this: first, you have to invest a high three- to low four-digit figure in equipment, if you want to see anything half way exciting. Second, there is a certain learning curve to using that equipment, and your own eyes, to see those things. Third, in a world full of glossy, color-saturated Hubble images, you really have to dial down your expectations and acquire a "philosophy of viewing" in order to get something out of seeing dim, mostly gray-scale objects through your, say, 8 inch aperture. Fourth, you have to find a low-horizon spot without major light pollution, and the means and permission to transport yourself and your equipment there. Fifth, you have to be able to prioritize a clear, moonless, non-work night over whatever else you may have planned. Sixth, temperatures on such a night should be well above freezing (it is absolutely unreal just how cold you can get at, say, 15 C/60 F, if all you do is stand around), and also not too windy, depending on what kind of money you invested in your mount. And then, if none of this has derailed your burgeoning astronomy hobby, and you've seen Saturn's rings, Jupiter's moons, our moon's craters, and a couple of M something-or-the-other's here and there, you have to keep at it, lest you forget how to use your scope, where you put your star atlas 6 months ago, and what there even is to see on a random September night.

One special thing about Tucson is that you can be a hobby astronomer with a low to moderate level of dedication, because many potential obstacles are a non-issue: clear skies are pretty much guaranteed 9 months out of the year, 45 minutes outside of town you have a pretty dark sky, escaping virtually all light pollution is a matter of sitting on I-10 for a couple of hours, and nighttime temperatures, depending on the time of the year, are bearable to pleasant. Again, luckily for me, Steve invested the high three- to low four-digit number in equipment in the decades before we knew each other. All we needed to do was to casually plan around the moon. Since astrophotography is a whole other animal, I do not have 12 months worth of astronomy photos to show. But here's a November morning-after photo, with the telescope still set up:

Yes, in my last entry, I was sighing about how in Vienna, planning on going hiking is not what it was in Tucson. But when it comes down to it, it is reasonably easy to organize a hike from here, and that hobby is not going to leave us altogether. But astronomy? Well....let's just say, it may be a while until we see the Whirlpool Galaxy again. Most of the major obstacles are up. And Vienna's bright skies, viewed from a street canyon, are not great reminders of a fourth- or fifth priority hobby.

But in spite of that, and in spite of the terrible weather we've had at the end of May (more here), Steve and I had a lucky, unexpected astronomy moment a couple of weeks ago: a glimpse of that triple conjunction of Mercury, Venus and Jupiter. And because I have a much better camera than when I was in Tucson, I took a photo, and it worked out:

Mercury (top), Venus (middle) and Jupiter (bottom)

Not mind-blowing, I know. But when it comes to inner-city astronomy in an unusually cloudy spring, this view is an epic win.

The year-round hiking season

When planning on going to the US back in 2007, there was, at one point relatively late in the process, a choice between three locations, one of which was Tucson. It had made the list of about 6 or so places to consider for grad school somewhat haphazardly, and only when the choice had boiled down to three did it receive more attention. As always with decisions that you know will shape the rest of your life but are too big to grasp every aspect and potential consequence of, there were intimidatingly many factors to consider about the three places. But one thing stands out in my memory, that made Tucson a whole lot more attractive than it had looked at first glance: a 12 month hiking season.

In lieu of wordy descriptions, some pictures:

Tucson Mountains, January

Cochise Stronghold, February

Babad Doag Trail, March

Mt. Kimball, April

Mt. Wrightson, May

Mt. Lemmon, June

Chiricahua, July

Wilderness of Rocks, August

Hope Camp Trail, September

Aravaipa Canyon, October

Pinaleno Mountains, November

Pima Canyon, December

  
Oh, what a wonderful luxury that was: any odd weekend, we'd pick a place, go to the Map and Flag Center, buy the respective USGS map, gather the equipment, food and water, and off we went! In contrast, I distinctly remember talking to my mother on the phone before one of my visits back to Austria, about going for a hike during the three or four days I was going to be in Admont, and she said: "We'll see once we know about the weather." The what?

Don't get me wrong, I do not need balmy weather and Arizona-type sunshine to go hiking. I come from a family with a long tradition of roaming the great outdoors in all kinds of conditions. Walking through a soaking wet, green forest can be a great experience. But...*sigh*....it is just so much easier to plan a hike for any given weekend, when you know that the chance of an all-day rainstorm is about 1 in 730. When you know that there will be a dry place to sit, you will not get stuck in snow or mud, if it rains, you might get wet, but not miserably cold, and there is just not enough water in the air to create the kind of weather that will make you return having seen absolutely nothing of the landscape because the visibility was as far as the next 5 steps. 

Ok, nothing is perfect, and to be absolutely precise, Tucson has a 7-month prime hiking season and a 5-month secondary hiking season in which you have to plan a tiny bit more - for a somewhat longer drive (up one of the sky islands to escape the oven that the low desert has become) or to get up ridiculously early (ideally to reach the turn-around point of your hike at about sunrise, in the hottest time of the year). Both of these can feel like obstacles when sitting in an air-conditioned house in Tucson at the end of May. But in retrospect, now that I am sitting in a heated apartment in Vienna at the end of May, heading into another rainy, windy, 12-degree Celsius kind of weekend, I am realizing that these things were minor inconveniences at best.

Small changes

Things change in 5 years, to state the blatantly obvious. This one is about small things that are not necessarily very important, but that I notice anyway, simply because I've been away for long enough that I see them as a step function rather than a gradual process. So, here's a small collection of little things that changed: 

1. There's this orange stuff called Aperol that everyone seems to be drinking now. I have no idea where it came from and who decided it was THE summer thing on every drink menu, but here it is. I guess eventually I'll have to try it. 

2. Everyone and their grandmother seems to be wearing Jack Wolfskin. It seems to be a little like Eddie Bauer in the US: an outdoor outfitter with a large clientele of people who may want to look a little more outdoors-y than they actually are. It has become a real high street store, so much so that I found myself explaining my old Jack Wolfskin washbag to my husband ("That brand is so popular I'll never wear it"): "when I got that thing 15 years ago, the company was a normal outfitter like all the others..."

3. It is now relatively easy to get your hands on ripe avocados. In 2007, guacamole meant planning ahead for a week; last week, I ended up with moldy avocados instead of guacamole.

4. Commissions for real estate agents (all but a tiny fraction of rentals are in their hands) have decreased from 3 months rent to 2 months rent, continuing a very pleasing trend in legislation which is saving Vienna from becoming a landlord's free-for-all like London or San Francisco.
5. Vienna is a lot more bike-friendly than I remember it.
6. Noodlekebap and Bubble Tea

7. Demmer's Teehaus seems to have a good business model going with the Viennese cafes and restaurants, making ordering tea anywhere a whole lot less risky than it used to be. (You never knew when you'd pay 2.50 Euros for a 0.25 liter cup filled with 0.2 liters of lukewarm water, a sad, low-grade tea bag and a limp, half dried-up lemon wedge on the side.)

But here is one that I think is most remarkable: 8. Somehow, it seems that "Hallo" has turned into a generic greeting for anyone in almost any situation. Why is this remarkable? Well, because that is a true change in language use over the years I was away. In my books, "Hallo" was an informal greeting, for people you are on first-name terms with. For those English speakers who don't know it: formal vs. informal language in German is something that runs like a thread through the grammatical structure of, oh, about every third or so sentence in a conversation, and it certainly reflects in the way you greet someone. Or so I thought. The first couple times after my return someone greeted me with a "Hallo", I felt either flattered ("I must be looking young...") or slightly weirded out ("Am I supposed to know this person?"). Until someone said "Hallo" and then continued talking to me in the formal language, leaving me completely confused. Then I started noticing it between other people, and it slowly dawned on me that "Hallo" no longer implied familiar terms. 

I am wondering why that happened. Here are my hypotheses: a) People don't want to commit to either formal or informal at first glance in a conversation and are trying to "ease in". This would make sense, generally speaking, since the use of informal language seems to be spreading (Co-workers? Playing orchestra together? Looking reasonably young and buying hiking boots? Ditch the "Sie".) and the use of formal language seems on the retreat. b) People do not like "Grüß Gott" anymore (too pious?), are resisting "Guten Tag" (too German?), and "Hallo" is the somewhat clumsy compromise. c) It's a generic greeting in Germany (is it? I don't know...) and since Germans are the biggest group of immigrants in Austria, this is gaining a foothold. But whatever the reason, I am quite intrigued that within 5 years, there has been an actual change in language use.

Spring

Two amazing things have happened since I last posted: 1. I've got my husband back, 2. The city has turned from a drab pile of stone with a lid of fog into a lively bustling place with lots of green.

It happened at a breathtaking speed. 6 Weeks ago, it was Easter, and it was essentially winter. I probably should have written a nice blog entry about the festivities and the customs and the foods, (and probably also how I used to host a non-denominational Easter breakfast in Tucson for my friends). But in all honesty: it wasn't the best Easter I've ever seen. Sure, there were nice things, such as spending some good times with my mother. But I missed Steve, it felt wrong not to have him around. And on Easter Saturday at night, usually the time of a first brave attempt of sitting in the yard, in the warmth of a smaller or larger bonfire, the view from the front porch was this:

Yes, those are snowflakes. Thick, slow-falling, the Christmas kind. The next day, on the mandatory Easter Sunday walk (which really should be about snowdrops and crocuses on the first swampy, defrosting meadows), I had a late shot at some Alpine winter postcard scenery.

 

April 1, 2013, no joke.

Mexican poppies, the quintessential Arizona spring flower.

Now, of course it's not like I didn't know this kind of stuff. Plenty of Admont winters I remember ended sometime in mid- to late April. But intellectual knowledge is only one kind of knowledge. After 5 years of sunshine, I had no more feel for what was supposed to be happening. People around me were getting impatient, telling me all about how spring was supposed to be here by now, but as far as I was concerned, this was simply eternal winter. (Just like in Tucson, in mid-October of 2007, I had no concept of it being "fall", because I had no feel for how the seasons worked there, and as far as I was concerned, it was simply eternal summer.) Not that I liked the eternal winter, it sucked, but so did not having my husband with me. The idea of being married felt just as abstract as the idea that all those sad trees would suddenly, miraculously, start to grow leaves. Staring out any window, into the snow, it felt like the wedding was ages ago and spring ages away. And even farther away, there was a Tucson spring going on which used to be the reality for me, full of spring flowers, canyons flowing with meltwater, nesting white-winged doves and blissfully mild temperatures. Prime hiking season. It felt so depressingly far away that I tried not to think too much about it. Every once in a while, I'd get my heart broken by glorious spring hiking pictures and photos of golden Mexican poppies somewhere on the social networks. But for the most part, I resigned myself to winter and focused on work.

Southern Arizona spring: a field of Mexican poppies on the slopes of Picacho peak.

And then, all of a sudden, the whole thing was over. Within a week, everything turned around. On April 8, after a week of serious snowfall, the sun came out. Within just a couple of days, the snow was gone. And suddenly, on April 14, it was summer. As in, short sleeve T-shirt weather. A day later, Steve came back. On April 21, we took a hike through blooming trees with tender green leaves, over green meadows and forest floors full of wild garlic.  

Spring in Lainzer Tiergarten

And now? Green everywhere. Big leaves. High grass. Blooming chestnut trees. Fragrant lilacs. Lunches, dinners and beers outside. People lounging on the grass in parks. My first light sunburn. All within a couple of weeks. And: waking up and going to sleep with my husband, every day. It all feels perfectly normal. However, it is not normal, but great. Between Steve's return and spring, life has improved by about 300%. 

Why you cannot go home again

So, I gave this blog the title "going home again" for obvious reasons - but of course at one point I had to get pensive about it, and today is the day.  There is a wikipedia entry about the phrase "You can't go home again", its origin and common meaning. Over the last few weeks, the impossibility of going home again has become clearer to me than ever before.

After the busy times in the last months I am back to where I was before Christmas: I don't feel at home. Even though I am what most people would see as "back home". Not only did I return to the same country, I returned to the same workplace, to some of the same friends, to my family, so in some ways, everything feels "completely normal". But I still don't feel at home. Tucson was home. I miss the place, the people, the social structures I was embedded in, the functions I had in them, the culture I identified with, and all the smaller and larger things I did that had become important to me, that just aren't the same here.

My home (a.k.a. "cabin") in Tucson.

It takes a long time to build up a social structure, to grow roots, to really get to know people, and to feel an integral part of things. Not weeks, not months, years. And then to abandon it all... It is tough, and sad, and people know it is sad, even the notoriously mobile Americans. One commonly expressed comfort is this: "You can always come back." It is a heart-warming sentiment, but it can also make me despair, because I know that you can go back somewhere, but you cannot go home again. I just went "home again", for the second time. Seeing how much has changed, how much I changed, and how few traces are left of the life I knew 6 years ago, I cannot fool myself into thinking that I can ever "just return" to that Tucson life that I miss. The time is always "now" (if I want to go all-out philosophical here, I'll say that it's the only time there ever is), and when it is gone, it is gone. My Tucson life is gone and even if I returned now, even if I could, for whatever impossible reason, it would not be quite the same life. Should I, by some twist of fate, return in a few years, it certainly won't be.

Out for the last desert hike in October 2012

Or course, I know that one thing I can truly always return to is individual people. People who really matter won't forget me, and I won't forget them. I returned to people like that here and I am lucky and grateful, because heaven knows, it would be hard without them. But they cannot relieve me of having to re-construct much of my social life, growing new roots and going about the business of "embedding myself". 

It is so much work. I just worked so hard on it for years, and had to give it all up. I am trying not to despair over having to do it again, especially in light of the fact that I am still a "scientific vagabond" and not all that unlikely to have to tear it all down again. With the clarity of seeing what remains after 5 years, I am having a very hard time letting go of my Tucson home and building up a new home here.

I am aware that I have to do it, and that my my only true choice is to have a positive or a negative attitude about it. And also, that my current attitude could be a lot better. That instead of wasting time being sentimental about Tucson life, I should be "out there", energetically looking into the future, establishing the 3rd installment of Vienna life, and consider myself a lucky bastard for living in what is arguably the best city in the world to live in. That I probably should stop whining and look at all the Americans who pack up and move across half the country and just deal with it. (They do, however, tend to not go through quite as big of a cultural transition.)

But.....I also know that I am currently trapped in a useless waiting position ("Once Steve is back, we'll look for an apartment/play chamber music/visit that friend in XYZ/invite people over/hike...."), which does not help with the attitude, or anything, really. It will get better. Once Steve is back....there will be two of us constructing a new home. Now, that does not sound too bad.

Ultimate Shotgun Wedding Checklist

Sometime within the famous 12 days we had to plan our wedding, once the chaos had subsided to the effect that I could spend a few minutes poking around the internets ("How does this wedding stuff work?"), I came across these wedding checklists. I read the first couple lines of the first one I saw, showed it to Steve and we both burst into laughter. Then we decided that later, after it is all done, we'd have some fun with it, take one of these and adapt it to how our wedding worked, for a "shotgun wedding checklist". (No, I am not pregnant. Enough people asked me, believe me. But 12 days is 12 days, so we think we had some shotgun-wedding-ish elements to it.)

Disclaimer: I do not mean to sneer at people who wanted and had the big elaborate wedding. The fun I am having with this is mainly about the discrepancy between how obsessively one could go about planning one's wedding and how it happened for us. And a little bit about those checklists themselves.

So, this (somewhat shortened) beauty is from a website that ironically invokes simplicity in its name. And perhaps it's not even that ironic, since it's not a monster with multiple inter-linked sub-checklists. It is neither complete nor consistent, and by far not the most extravagant one out there (others suggest you "start your fitness and diet plan" 18 months before and "get a spray tan" a week before). It is directed exclusively at the bride and sorely lacking anything to do with the groom, but as odd as I thought that was at first, it actually seems to be pretty standard. Browsing through anything wedding related on the interwebs, there seems to be no particular expectation that men have a say in any of this, or that the groom is even an independently thinking agent (as evidenced by list items like "Get your groom to choose a Best Man"). But I digress. This shall not be a social rant.


Enjoy:

Ultimate Shotgun Wedding Planning Checklist

To plan the perfect an adequate and dignified celebration, use this comprehensive wedding checklist, with a timeline based on the 168-month day length of the average U.S. engagement. 

Luckily already taken care of

• Procured legalized, embassy-stamped birth certificate from Canada (the whole procedure took about two months).

Sixteen to Nine Months Days Before

• Book your officiant. Called ALL Viennese registrar's offices, to find that none of them can do it on time. Called Admont:"any odd time, when would you like?"  
• Found that the legalized and embassy-stamped birth certificate from Canada needs to be translated into German and the translation legalized. Ran through Vienna for a day in a mission to get that done IMMEDIATELY, succeeded against all expectations.
• Reserve your date and venues. Picked next Saturday, perhaps the parents are in town, too, wouldn't that be nice! Default venue (town hall, looks nice enough!).
  
• Finalized date, proudly supplying all paperwork. Realized there is now a wedding to plan.

• Obtained marriage license equivalent from American embassy in Austria.
• Start a wedding folder or binder. Begin leafing through bridal, lifestyle, fashion, gardening, design, and food magazines for inspiration. Scribbled to-do list on random sheet of paper.
• Work out Spent a split second thinking about the budget. There's only so much money you can spend in 16 days. It'll work itself out somehow.
• Pick your wedding party. As soon as you’re engaged, people will start wondering who’s in. Called key people, asked them whether they're free next weekend. Waited two hours for the news to sink in and them changing their original plans. Conveniently, this automatically covered organizing music for the ceremony.
• Start the guest list. Make a head count database to use in my head (or is that not why it's called a headcount?) throughout your planning process, with columns for contact info, RSVPs, gifts (???), and any other relevant information Are they coming by car or by train? Want to keep costs low? It may be brutal, but the best way to do it is to reduce your guest list. - Done! With ruthless brutality!
• Hire a planner, if desired. A planner will have relationships with—and insights about—vendors. Parents want to plan a reception and are positive they don't need anybody's help. Excellent!
• Research photographers My parents didn't have professional photos of their wedding. I didn't notice until now and am pretty sure that was not what ended their marriage., bands what my family cannot play themselves won't happen, florists Luckily, there is only one in Admont, and caterers restaurants make life a lot easier. Keep their contact information in your binder.
• Throw an engagement party

Eight Months Days Before

• Walked into jeweler's store, got crash-course in ring-buying. Radically reduced choice of rings by ditching the diamond. Insisted on both having the exact same ring to further limit choice. Narrowed it down to two or three options, walked into exactly 3 more jeweler's stores the next day, asked for the exact same thing, whether they could do it given the time constraint, and their price. Picked best offer. 
• Hire the photographer  Thought about who could be taking photos and the videographer My camera video function can handle this. 
• Book the  entertainment. Attend gigs of potential acts to see how they perform in front of audiences, then reserve your favorite. Family string quartet.
• Meet caterers. Hire the service this month or early next.
• Purchase a dress. Whoever invented traditional dresses is a genius! "Something old" taken care of, too! You’ll need to schedule time for at least three fittings. It has become a little narrow…asked mom whether the seamstress is in town next week Veil shopping can be postponed for another two to three months. Asked my grandmother to organize a traditional wreath.
• Reserve a block of hotel rooms for out-of-town guests. Pick three hotels at different price points close to the reception venue. Called parents, they've got it under control.
• Register. Sign up at a minimum of three retailers. Least of our worries. We don't even really have an apartment. We'll figure it out later.
 
• Launch a wedding website. Note the date of the wedding, travel information, and accommodations. Then send the link to invitees. Phonecalls

Seven to Six Months Days Before

• Select and purchase invitations. Hire a calligrapher, if desired.  More phonecalls.
• Start planning a honeymoon. Booked flight to first cool destination just outside the Schengen zone that we could think of Make sure that your passports are up-to-date wish Steve's sister had a valid passport...  and schedule doctors’ appointments for any shots you may need. Last time we checked, yellow fever was not a big issue in the UK
• Shop for bridesmaids’ dresses. Allow at least six months for the dresses to be ordered and sized. Even if we had that custom over here, I would NEVER impose a dress on ANYONE!
• Meet with phoned the officiant. Map out the ceremony and confirm that you have all the official documents for the wedding. E-mailed registrar a little "bio" of our relationship so she understands why the rush and so her speech is not entirely generic. Otherwise, relied on the standard program. It's designed to work. WAAAYYY ahead on the documents!
• Send save-the-date cards. 
• Reserve structural and electrical necessities. Book portable toilets for outdoor events, extra chairs if you need them, lighting components, and so on.
• Book a florist. Choose flowers for your wedding. Tulips were in season and I like them. Florists can serve multiple clients on one day, which is why you can wait a little longer to engage one. Plus, at this point, you’ll be firm on what your wedding palette will be. Turned out we had a palette in the end. It was called "happy color mix" with an entirely accidental emphasis on blue and red. 
• Arrange Thought about transportation. Consider limos, minibuses, trolleys, and town cars.  5 cars * 5 people = 25, we'll be something like 15, we're in the clear. Double-checked that grandparents have a viable travel plan.
• Start composing a day-of timeline. Draw up a schedule of the event and slot in each component (the cake-cutting, the first dance).
  

Five to Four Months Days Before

• Reserved room in Admont for Steve's brother who just booked his flight, let parents know about extra person.
• Book the rehearsal and rehearsal-dinner venues. Negotiate the cost and the menu. If you’re planning to host a day-after brunch for guests, book that place as well. Looks like the breakfast at that inn is decent.
• Check on the wedding invitations. Ask the stationer for samples of the finished invitations and revise them to suit your needs. Related link: Wedding Invitation Etiquette There's probably something terribly wrong with inviting people by phone, but too late now.
• Select and order the cake Asked parents about menu, notice missing dessert and found out they'll bake a Torte each! Some bakers require a long lead time. Attend several tastings before committing to any baker. 
• Send your guest list to the host of your shower. Provided you, ahem, know about the shower.
• Purchase wedding shoes, the breathless horror and disgust and start dress fittings. I HATE buying shoes. The concert shoes will do.
• Schedule hair Looked into mirror. Got haircut the next day. and makeup artists. Make a few appointments with local experts to try them out. Snap a photo at each so you can compare results. If he won't marry me without makeup, good riddance.
• Choose your music. What should be playing when the wedding party is announced? I am GLAD I don't know everything! During dinner? To kick off the dancing? (Dancing…now THAT I am a tiny, tiny bit wistful about… I danced at so many weddings, with happy enthusiasm, but no dancing at my own…) Keep a running list of what you want—and do not want—played.

Three Months Days Before

• Finalize the menu and flowers Called flower shop, ordered bouquet. You’ll want to wait until now to see what will be available, since food and flowers are affected by season. Can safely say, no danger of seasonal changes here
• Order favors, if desired. If you’re planning to have welcome baskets for out-of-town guests, plan those now too.  Looks like we were quite rude to our guests!
• Make a list of the people giving toasts. Ask them now. These things fall into place.
• Finalize the readings. Determine what you would like to have read at the ceremony—and whom you wish to do the readings. Relied on standard ceremony.
• Purchase your undergarments Took a couple hours off work for that. Excellent excuse! And schedule your second fitting. Finalize the order of the ceremony and the reception. It's all falling into place quite neatly. Lunch at my dad's, coffee, then we'll get married, with three music pieces at the obvious entrance, ring exchange and exit, then we'll have a toast in the townhall, then we'll drive to the inn to have dinner. Any more questions?
• Print menu cards, if you like, as well as programs. No need to go to a printer, if that’s not in your budget: You can easily create these on your computer.
• Purchase the rings. This will give you time for resizing and engraving. Engraving was no problem in 5 days, with standard fonts. Resizing can be done later, if needed.
• Send your event schedule to the vendors. Giving them a first draft now allows ample time for tweaks and feedback.

Two Months Days Before

• Touch base again with all the vendors.Make sure any questions you or they had on your first draft have been answered.
• Meet with the photographer. Discuss specific shots, and walk through the locations to note spots that appeal to you. Freed up camera card and charged batteries. Called friend with decent camera and presumed talent to give him official task to take photos. Made sure some other people brought decent cameras as well.
• Review the playlist with the band or deejay.
• Send out the invitations. The rule of thumb: Mail invitations six to eight weeks before the ceremony, setting the RSVP cutoff at three weeks after the postmark date.
• Submit a newspaper wedding announcement. The mayor's newsletter had an automatic listing.
• Enjoy a bachelorette party.

One Months Day Before

• Enter RSVPs into your guest-list database. Phone people who have not yet responded. 
• Mail the rehearsal-dinner invitations.

• Visit the dressmaker for (with luck!) your last dress fitting. For peace of mind, you may want to schedule a fitting the week of your wedding.  Meeting with seamstress at 10 pm.
• Stock the bar. Now that you have a firm head count you can order accordingly.
• Send out as many final payments as you can. 
• Confirm times for hair and makeup and all vendors.
• E-mail and print directions for drivers of transport vehicles. This gives the chauffeurs ample time to navigate a route.  Double-checked that everyone knew what to type into google maps.
• Assign seating. 
  
• Purchase bridesmaids’ gifts. You’ll present them at the rehearsal dinner. There are all these gifts floating around that I don't understand…
• Write vows, if necessary.
• Get your hair cut and colored, if desired.

Week Day of the Wedding

• Reconfirm arrival times with vendors.
• Delegate small wedding-day tasks. Choose someone to bustle your dress, someone to carry your things, someone to be in charge of gifts (especially the enveloped sort), someone to hand out tips, and someone to be the point person for each vendor. We delegated the entire reception and it was really worth it!
• Send a timeline to the bridal party. Include every member’s contact information, along with the point people you’ve asked to deal with the vendors, if problems arise. Just out of mild curiosity, what's the "bridal party" and how does it differ from the wedding party?
• Pick up your dress. Or make arrangements for a delivery.
• Check in one last time with the photographer. Supply him or her with a list of moments you want captured on film. 

• Set aside checks for the vendors. And put tips in envelopes to be handed out at the event.
• Book a spa treatment. Make an appointment for a manicure and a pedicure the day before the wedding. You might want to get a stress-relieving massage, too. 
• Send the final guest list to the caterer and all venues hosting your wedding-related events.
• Break in your shoes. Just one reason I hate buying shoes.
• Assemble and distribute the welcome baskets.
• Pack for your honeymoon. 

Was excited and a little nervous about getting married, happy about seeing everyone, thankful that the paperwork and all guests got there safely, and that was not snowing or raining. No worries. Enjoyed ceremony and happy celebrations.