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Possibly my last post

Mona and I will be leaving Germany in one month from today so I
thought I would write about the things I would miss and not miss about
Germany...

(in no particular order)

Miss: German beer, delicious, fairly cheap, comes in big servings.

Miss: learning German, although I will keep learning in Australia it
will be different to being immersed in the language.

Not miss: Not being able to understand what's going on around me. I'm
looking forward to getting on a bus or a train and being able to
understand what people are saying, though I'm sure that after hearing
a couple of conversations I'll be wishing that they would talk in some
language that I can't understand

Miss: the long days of summer

Not miss: the short, freezing and wet days of winter

Not miss: CNN, being the only english speaking channel (although MTV
has a bit of english) on TV I have watched more than enough of this
crap. If I ever have to listen to such an American centric view of the
world again I think I'll shoot myself (or the person I'm listening
too)

Miss: The Glockenspiel and Marienplatz, the two big tourist
attractions in the main square of Munich, I have walked past these so
many times that it will be wierd not to see them anymore

Miss: A reliable public transport system

Not miss: Schnitzel. Don't get me wrong, I love schnitzel but I won't
miss it because I'll have Mona to cook it for me!

Miss and not miss: The feeling of being an outsider. Sometimes it
sucks to not understand what people are going on about (even when they
are speaking english) but other times it is fine and really
interesting to see things differently or to be totally confused

Miss: Football/fußball/soccer - call it what you will, I've started to
like it while I've been over here. My local team, Bayern Muenchen, won
the Bundesliga which is better than the dragons have ever done for me.
I am looking forward to Germany winning the European championship soon
too

Not miss: the lack of cricket or rugby league that I can see here. I
know it's to be expected that there isnt much shown here but that
doesn't mean that I'm not looking forward to being able to watch and
play again

Miss: German Bakerys

Not miss: the fact that all shops (including supermarkets) shut at 8
and don't open at all on sundays

Miss: the euro, it will be strange to start thinking of things in
Aussie dollars again

Not miss: having to pay to use public toilets (or even toilets in
maccas and places like that)

Miss: oktoberfest and beer gardens in general, such fun places

Miss: German food, it is pretty tasty

Not miss: Lack of variety in german food - sometimes it feels like
everything is made from pork, potatoes and sour kraut

I'm scratching my head here at the moment traing to think of anything
else. I'm sure there are plenty of things I've forgotten so I'll just
add them later.

Can't wait to see everyone again when we get back to Australia.

Pete

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone had a great christmas and I wish you all a happy new year too.

 

I have just put up some more photos, in the "Munich", "German Food" and "Nurenberg" sections.

Update

Hello,

it´s been quite a while since I wrote anything about what I´m doing so I thought that I would finally try to give a bit of an update of what I´ve been up to...

I moved to Munich in August, speaking no German and thinking that it was going to be fairly easy to find a job over here. I was wrong.

The last few months have been very frustrating at times because of how difficult it´s been to find work. At first I was looking for jobs in Engineering (thinking that Germans like Engineering, and I´d been told that there were quite a few companies that employed people who didn´t speak German). As the weeks went by and by bank balance went down I started to look for other sorts of jobs where they wanted English speakers such as language schools. Still I had no luck, finally I started to look for any sort of work, going to all the hostels and Australian and Irish pubs in town. Still no luck. All the places I tried told me to come back in February when the tourist season picks up again. That didn´t help me much cause there was no way my money was going to last until February.

I finally found a job a couple of weeks ago. It´s nothing special, working in a call centre for an insurance company, but at least it´s some money and it will keep me going while I keep looking for a better job. I´ve also done a couple of shifts in an Irish pub which was actually good fun, I´m going to try to do a few more because it´s cash in hand which is good for the wallet.


During my period of unemployment I was learning German. At first I was learning it from a book and some CDs but later on I took a 2 week course which was pretty full on but it really improved my German so it was worth it. The last few weeks I´ve been concentrating on work but once that settles down and the new year comes I want to get back into learning it.

Oktoberfest was great fun and it was good to catch up with a few people during it.

My brother Tim also came back to visit for a week and a half later on which was great. We did a bit of sight seeing but mostly just hung out together. One day we went to Neuschwanstein castle which is absolutely amazing! It´s the most brilliant castle I´ve ever seen, inside and out. It´s situated in the middle of nowhere on the top of a hill which gives it fantastic views. Inside just about everything is covered with gold and is so detailed and over the top that it´s breathtaking. The king who had it built (Ludwig 2) was famous for building ridiculous castles and making Bavaria bankrupt because of it.

Last month it was one year since I left Australia. It was also Mona and I´s one year anniversary.

I haven´t done a lot of sight seeing lately because I´ve been trying to save money, hopefully I´ll start doing a bit more lately.

Although Mona and I did go to Nürnberg on the weekend. Her brother lives there so we visited him, we also saw a bit of the old city and went to the famous Christmas markets. Every German town has some markets but the ones in Nürnberg are supposed to be the best in Germany. They were quite good but really too crowded for my liking.

The weather here is terrible. It´s a totally normal German winter but, for me, it´s terrible. I think the maximum temperature for the last few weeks has been about 2! You can´t leave home without a couple of jumpers, warm shoes, gloves and a beanie. I´ve only recently bought a jacket and some shoes without holes in them so I´m a lot warmer than I used to be! No snow in the last 2 weeks but I hoping there is some before Christmas.

I only have 2 minutes left on the internet so I hope that explains what I´ve been up to. Now that I´m working I´ll be doing more things so I will have more to write about.

Bis bald,

Pete

One Year

It´s been one year since I left Australia the second time. It doesn´t really seem that long ago though...

Oktoberfest

I now this is a bit late but I will write a little about it anyway. Oktoberfest was really cool, I bought Lederhosen (the leather pants) so I could dress up and fit in, at least a bit, with the locals.

 

My brother Tim and one of his friends came for the first weekend. We got up really early and went in so we could line up for a table. We were lucky and got a good table but then we had to wait four hours until the festival started. We were prepared and had brought breakfast with us so we sat at our table, playing games and eating waiting for it to start.

 

I also met up with Nathan, Wog and Tracy who are the people I went to Oktoberfest with last year. They were driving around Europe for 3 months and it was good to see them again.

 

We spent all day at the Löwenbräu tent (same as the pub in the Rocks in Sydney) because Mona and Mary know the waitress there. Once the tent closed we went on a few rides at the site, the dodgem cars were really fun!

 

The next day we went into town to see the opening parade (which is on the second day for some reason). And then we went back to Wiesn (what the locals call Oktoberfest). This time we spent a bit of time outside looking around at the different tents and stalls that were there.

 

Later in the week, after Tim had left I met up with Bernadette (from Sydney Water) and Steve. We caught up on all the stuff that happened at Sydney Water since I left and had a good afternoon in one of the tents.

 

I went once more in the last week of the festival (it goes over three weekends), by then the place was a bit dirty and smelly but it was still good fun. I was with Mona and Mary and we went to some of the more German tents where there weren´t so many tourists.

Photos

I´ve just put up a whole heap of photos. There are four new albums and I also added new photos to the album called "München, yet again".

 

I hope you enjoy them!