Vienna: Officially the World’s Best City

Beautiful Vienna has been crowned the world’s most liveable city for 2011.

It is great to see this amazing city take the top spot yet again. Vienna is so easy to live in, rental prices are reasonable and importantly, the rental market is accessible (unlike Stockholm), there is so much culture available to all (with standing ticket prices to the opera available at around 2 Euros for example, perfect for students), and a low crime rate (the city ranks as number 5 on the personal safety index).

The liveability ranking is based on factors such as access and quality of health services and schooling, availability of consumers goods and food (Vienna, make pumpkins a little more readily available when I want to make soup, and perhaps you could soar to even greater heights!), public transport, political stability, and recreational opportunities.

If Vienna is not your cup of tea, it seems your next best bet is to move to either Switzerland or Germany, countries with a huge number of cities at the top of the list.

Melbourne has come in at a respectable 18, somehow being beaten by Sydney.

My current home, Stockholm, is number 20 for liveability, and a very reassuring 6 for personal safety, despite what the newspapers might lead you to believe. I think if Stockholm was able to sort out the ridiculous housing situation, which has resulted in everyone I know that does not own an apartment having to move on average 3 times a year (with one friend moving 9 times), they could move up the ranks by a place or two.

The list is very Euro-heavy, with European nations making up over half of the top 49, and Auckland, New Zealand and Vancouver, Canada as the only non-European cities in the top 10. The US does not even make a debut until number 29 with Honolulu, closely followed by San Francisco at 30. Singapore is the first Asian nation on the list at number 25, and Tokyo the second, at 46.

You might want to put off moving to Baghdad for the time being, which unsurprisingly came in at the bottom of the list.

What is ‘home’?

Sometimes you arrive in a place and you simply know it is home, you feel it somewhere inside, you can’t explain it. For some people it is Paris, the first glimpse of the Eiffel tower, the lights sparkling on a winter evening, for others it is the bustle of India, the vibrant colours, the atmosphere, and for others, the beaches of Spain, the delicious food and the summer nights that never end. That is how I felt arriving in Vienna for the first time. I was 19, and I arrived to study German for three months. I didn’t know a word of German, except perhaps ja and nein, nor did I really know anything about Vienna or even Austria at all, although I think somehow I already knew I would fall in love with the city.

The driver started the car and we slowly drove out from the airport. It was then that I knew this was a place that really resonated with me, even though all I could see was the highway stretching before me, the industrialised surrounding areas, nothing of beauty. I arrived finally at my new apartment above a bakery -I can’t remember which district it was now- where I was to live with six or so other German language students. The landlady opened the door and asked me if I spoke German, which I didn’t, her brief explanation to me about the workings of the house were the only English words she would speak to me for the remained of my time there. The apartment was fine, a perfect student hangout with great housemates from around the world, and with the added bonus of free bread and pastries every evening from the bakery downstairs. There are so many things I love about Austria: the beauty of the cities and of the surrounding nature, the mountains, the delicious wintery food, the fact that the amazing opera singer Anna Netrebko is just as famous as a movie star (or terrible reality TV star), the ball season, the amazing music made accessible to everyone in Vienna, drinking wine in a Heurigen with friends. But it wasen’t these things that connected me to the city. It was something else.

With my housemates in Vienna back in 2003

I feel a similar connection to Melbourne (I loved it so much I had my parents send me to boarding school there), and I didn’t feel it when I lived in London, or in the various other cities I have lived in Australia. Somehow I know I will feel at home in the same way when I finally make it to Switzerland. I have lived in both Melbourne and Vienna on and off over the last 10 years, and the sense of happiness I feel in both cities has never dulled, which makes me realise it is not just a feeling of happiness one inevitably experiences during a fun extended holiday or student exchange. The feeling remains somehow, even when life is not going well all of the time.

Recently a friend of mine asked what my link to Sweden was – and I realised, while I really enjoy living in Sweden, I especially love the language, and have some very good Swedish friends, my link is fairly weak. Sweden does not feel like home to me, in the same way Vienna and Melbourne do. I enjoy living in Stockholm, it is a beautiful city, I loved studying in Uppsala, but for me, there is something missing, despite nothing being wrong. And yet I know people who hate Vienna and love London and Stockholm.

The reason I loved Vienna before I even really saw it is really just a personal connection that is impossible to really explain or understand. Of feeling at home somewhere, even if you are not born there. A sense of belonging.

What at Week!

This last week has been a bit crazy. We moved apartments (for the third time this year) in Stockholm – and luckily our new one is for a year, complete with Kasper our new pet cat, while his owner works in the Congo.

Note my wreath plant – a featured item in every Swedish home – my orchid (another pre-requisite) lives in the kitchen.

This week has also included two trips to the Migrationsverket (The Swedish Migration Board) to have my biometrics taken for my new residency permit. You normally only have to go once – however on my first trip I forgot to bring my new address with me, and as luck would have it, my phone was sitting patiently at home on recharge, so I wasn’t able to call Geoff to ask him. So back I went the next day.

The Migrationsverket was actually very simple and quick to navigate. It opens at 9 am, so I arrive at 8.45 or so, joined the end of the queue (there were about 30 people before me) and at 9 am we were allowed to take a ticket (ticket machines are a popular feature just about everywhere in Sweden) and only 15 minutes later I was called up to have my biometrics taken – a finger print, my photo and height, all over in 10 minutes or so.

Now on Friday, only 4 days later, I have my new residency permit! That said, Geoff is still waiting for his and he had his biometrics taken 2 weeks ago, so I suppose it depends on who is processing it. Now we are one step closer to the elusive personnummer! One we have that, the world of Sweden will open before us! Well… at least we will be able to order things online from IKEA.

So a great start to a weekend that involves a trip to a Christmas market at a castle and a friend’s housewarming party.

Making friends overseas

Finding friends in a new country is one of the most important things on the road to feeling at home, but similarly, it can be one of the most difficult things to do. Here are a few tips to make it a little easier:

1. Ask friends (post on Facebook, send an email, ask around) if they know someone (who knows someone) who lives in your new city. Get them to introduce you, most of the time they are happy to catch up, and will probably invite you to meet a few of their friends too.

2. Join online groups (that meet in person): In the age of the internet, this is one of the easiest and most effective ways to meet new people.

– Meetup has a bunch of expat groups for many cities around the world. In Stockholm try Stockholm Expats as well as other random groups, for example Stockholm International Parents Group, photography, language exchange, people interested in entrepreneurship, and so on.

– In the UK and especially in London, The Gumtree is a very useful website, not only to find apartments, but also to meet people. I once made a couple of lovely friends after posting to find people who would like to go to the ballet as none of my other friends were interested.

– Facebook – search for international groups in your city, in Stockholm there is a ‘fika’ (Swedish for having a coffee, a cake/bun and chatting with a friend) lovers group which regularly organises to catch up, a pub crawl group, and plenty of others.

– Google search for groups: Throughout Australian cities and also in Dublin and London, there is a ‘Newcomers Network’ group that meets once a month at a hotel in the city for drinks and is a great way to meet both Australians and internationals who are new to the city. They also run seminars on how to find work and so on (although you need to pay for these).

– Expat forums: Sign up, interact with people, go along to their events. Popular ones include Germany in general, Vienna, Sweden, for Brits in Australia, also try the forums in your country section on Expat-Blog.

– Internations – A group that serves to link globally minded people together. The forums are a bit dead, but I have never seen such packed expat events – In Stockholm they average over 200 people. You have to pay to attend the events, and an hour or two after they start they tend to be so busy you can’t really hear anyone or move, but get there on time and you will meet some really nice people from around the world.

– Couchsurfing – a website where people from around the world can stay for free on your couch. But they also have city groups with regular meet ups and you can also contact individual members you have something in common with and suggest meeting up for coffee.

3. Language class – everyone in your language class will be from somewhere else, get to know your class mates and organise to meet up for dinner or drinks. This also includes language exchanges/tandem – meeting with a native speaker of the language you want to learn and helping each other for free.

4. Work or volunteering – work is a great way to meet people, if you are not working then try volunteering at a local NGO – many are happy for you to help even while you are learning the local language. Work in social industries such as hospitality will up your chances of making new friends quickly, and are especially good jobs if you are only staying for a short time.

5. Your local embassy – some embassy organise events you can go along to, or they list local groups you can join in your new country.

6. Strike up conversations with strangers – this can sound a little scary or creepy, but in some situations it is a good way to meet new friends. Once I met a friend at an internet cafe in London, as we were both working on our CVs and started chatting, after that we started meeting for coffee. This might also be helpful with friendly neighbours and so on, or even in a bar, or the gig of a band you like, places where it is more socially acceptable to chat to strangers.

7. Sports, Clubs, Classes – Join a local group playing a sport you are interested in, like football, running groups, long distance ice skating, etc. If sports are not your thing, join the local choir, attend a class at one of the evening schools to learn a skill or language, join a dinner club where you have a group of 4 or 5 people and you take turns cooking dinner for each other – if there is not one in your town go on Meetup and create one.

The key is to be social, even when you can’t be bothered (which can be often when you are tired from work and settling in to your new surroundings), go to lots of events, chat to a wide range of people, if they ask you to catch up again, go, invite people you have met in random places to dinner together and have them bring a couple of friends along. It can be tiring to begin with, but after a few months you will be sure to have met a couple of people you click with.

Most of my suggestions are helpful to meet other internationals, so meeting local friends, something that can be elusive to many foreigners, will be addressed in another post soon.

Do you have any more tips on how to make friends in a new country?

Swedish Language Adventures: A Step Forward

Last week I made a huge step forward in Swedish – I spent time with a friend, just in Swedish.I was not sure if this day would ever come. When I lived in Austria, I studied German, but I was always too shy to chat in German to anyone but people working in shops or cafes. Even my best friend, an Austria, has still never had a conversation with me in German.

So when I met my friend this week, and she asked ‘English or Swedish?’, I replied ‘Swedish’, mostly because we both studied Swedish together a couple of months ago at the Folkuniversitetet and it seemed only fair as it was a second language we both shared. I expected it to switch to an English/Swedish hybrid conversation at some point, as I have not studied Swedish for about 7 weeks now, but somehow we had a lovely lunch talking about the differences in schooling in France, Sweden and Australia, our Christmas plans and how life is going in Sweden – all in Swedish. Of course it is much easier to chat when you are both learning the language, we are not fluent yet, so we are able to improvise and understand each other –  sometimes through mime, but mostly by explaining things in different ways until the other completely understands. It was a really great feeling, and it has definitely encouraged me to start studying Swedish again and I’ll be starting a course 5 days a week for a month shortly.

Talking with a native Swede is still a bit of a challenge, often because they swap to English as soon as they hear your accent, mostly out of kindness (or convenience?), which can make it a challenge to practice. Luckily, the people in my local cafe recognise me now and know I want to speak in Swedish so they don’t swap, this led to an interesting experience this week when I thought I was ordering some sort of red meat for lunch, and ended up with a delicious meal of fish (a type of fish I didn’t know the name of). At least things that would be simple and mundane in your home country and mother tongue make you feel like you are living life on the edge overseas… like the excitement of a small child when it learns something that by adulthood seems routine.

Now my next Swedish goal is to be able to hang out with a native Swedish friend, in Swedish, and have them not loose the will to live! I hope I can achieve this next year some time, but there is still a long way to go.