After more than three months I am starting to get used to little village life in Europe. I can't say that it is much in comparison with little village life in Mexico, but then you can't really compare Austria to Mexico anyways, other than by finding the many differences. I am also still/again wondering how it is possible to be so busy all the time while officially I am unemployed (jobless). I spend most of my time currently walking around the woods and in the mountains looking for birds. The breeding bird atlas is not in general a bad idea, I just think the way they go about it is bad, but the plus side about it is, I have lots of work to do and can pretend it's useful. And if it is not useful for science, it still is for me: for the first time ever, I am really good with all the bird songs you can hear around here. I even know quite a lot of birds "personally", like the wren that always sings outside my window, the blackbird that breeds in our garden and a couple of starlings breeding in a light pole I pass on my way to the store. I was able to see both the leaving of the wintering birds and the arrival of summer birds and a few weeks ago I also experienced the most amazing Zugstau (when bird migration is interrupted by weather events) of my life. It was almost like Miami on a day with strong head winds, but still different. It was really cool. It also made me realize how little we really know about bird migration in Austria - it seemed like on the day I saw dozens of birds stranded, that would normally not be here or at least not in any high numbers, birding Austria was in the flatlands in the East of Austria, as they always are, not even aware of what was going on. How many events like this have we missed because of Vienna? I have come to the conclusion that Austria would be a really nice place to live, if it weren't for Vienna. Vienna is the biggest and arguably only "real" problem Austria has. Try to govern a mountain country from your castle in the flatlands. Get it? But it's not only the authorities that are all in Vienna trying to understand life in the mountains, thinking of the little hill outside Vienna or the ski slopes they see on TV watching the races when trying to picture a mountain. Isn't it ridiculous that nature lovers and bird watchers are all concentrated in Vienna too? Yes it is. But this is Austria. Maybe this could explain why the villages in the mountains seem to be stuck in time. Maybe the real problem is not only a geographical one - maybe you could literally say that Vienna has lost Austria in space and time.

Anyways, I am trapped in a tiny village and alternately feeling sorry for myself for being so far away from anything that seems to be interesting (which in Austria is mainly in Vienna but partly also in other cities but certainly not in small villages, no matter how central they may be located geographically) and feeling blessed for being able to live in the middle of nature, to start the bird watching literally in my yard, to be able to walk to four different lakes (and hopefully soon swim in them). I even found that sunsets can be really beautiful here - I never knew that as a kid or I forgot. I am also quite happy that there are so many hiking paths here, compared to Mexico, and that you can just wander around on and off paths without fearing that someone might shoot you for trespassing (compared to you know who). I think you just can't go and see the world and then return to a place like this and feel at home. So my "home" has become a place just like any other that I pass through. I just need to find out, where my life will take me from here.

By now our little village even has a girls' football team (soccer, for some, but I am in Europe now and have to call it football, I am told), something that did not exist when I was living here before. After we cleared the football field from snow at the end of March we are now even able to train outside. Of course winter is like half the year in this place but it is even harder to survive if you can't play football because of half a meter of snow that's covering the field. I had the honour to be a part of a historical event: the first ever victory of the local girls' team. I hope that another will follow soon!