Penny Baker-fischer

Emails from Austria: Lost My Dignity, Found My Soul Penny Baker-fischer

The Sound of Music meets Fawlty Towers in this Austria-lian adventure. Penny Baker-Fischer was a dynamic, moderately successful yet ambitious inner-city dwelling international marketing exec, but upon turning forty, a new man arriving and being made redundant, her life changed quickly and dramatically. In March 2004, she stumbled across a website featuring an old and rather battered guesthouse for sale high in the Austrian Alps south of Salzburg. It looked to have "potential". Without ever having viewed the business or even visited the area, contracts were completed and significant sums of money were hastily sent across the planet. Seven weeks later she is driving up the steep mountain entrance to her "new" business and home on the other side of the world with all she owns (including beloved cat Joshua) in the care of shipping agents. Overnight her life is turned upside down as she becomes an Austrian-in-training, albeit without the language, any real understanding of the culture or climate and in a business where she has no previous experience. Upon departing Australia Penny promised to write regular detailed updates to family and friends and vowed to keep a journal of the experience. These mostly tongue in cheek digital reports and journal entries reveal what can happen when one has the courage (or mid-life hormones) to pursue a dream or simply, an impulse.