July 14th, 2010
Lots of ruckus has been made over the past few months, including here on this blog, about Europe’s reaction to Facebook, Google Streetview and the like. It finally took a self-promotional e-mail from a professional acquaintance to get my ire up enough to actually write about it.
The ire inducing part didn’t have much to do with my acquaintance directly. It was that the “people who you might know” section along the bottom which is designed to get us connected was eerily accurate. All but one were, in fact, people I knew.
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Categories: History and culture, Miscellaneous, Tips, advice, suggestions |
Tags: Facebook, Geoff, Google, privacy | No Comments
July 5th, 2010
I’m an avid reader, and always have been. But as an expat in Germany, it wasn’t always easy to feed my fervent need for reading material. When I was a kid, I sat between my brother and sister in the back of the car for every vacation with a pile of books at my feet. Or, this being the seventies, I sat on the floor of the car with the books on the seat. My brother, who was dyslexic, couldn’t be bothered with much more than Tintin, but I went to the library and grabbed a stack of books that were beyond my age and reading level, but kept me happy.
When I first moved to Freiburg in the early 90s, I quickly noticed the gaping hole that came from having no access to the library, and no money to buy books myself. Sure, there were English books in the German bookstores, but you really had to depend on someone else’s taste and hope that one of the ten books available appealed to your taste. The UB had books too, but these also tended towards the classics, and there is only so much of that sort of the thing that a person can consume without being hungry for something lighter. Magazines at the train station were 10 - 12 DM a hit, and when you read as fast as I do, it quickly becomes a very bad Preisleistungsverhältnis (price-performance ratio).
I remember the sheer desperation of the situation hitting me when I had to plunder a shopping cart of castoff books that someone left in the hall of the dorm, reading anything I could find that was in English, even dark mysteries and very bad true crime stories, which normally aren’t my thing. This approach did open new literary doors, as it were. At that point in my German career, I could read German, but not well. I managed to drag myself through Rosamund Pilcher, but couldn’t be bothered with much else. Nowadays, I can read German almost as well as I can English. But with the stress of my life, job and everything else, I still prefer English. (more…)
Categories: Expat issues, Miscellaneous, Tips, advice, suggestions |
Tags: amazon, books, English books in Germany, expat life, Germany, reading, Sarah | No Comments
June 15th, 2010
For quite a while now I’ve been thinking that putting together a frequently asked questions (FAQ) list about living in Germany and other German speaking lands would be a good idea. Many questions come up time and again on the German Way forums and e-mail list. They are mostly addressed by our website, but having everything in one, concise list makes life easier. So here is the start of the Living in German FAQ.
I’ll start with one item and I then extend an invitation to anyone to submit questions and answers to me for inclusion on the list.
Question 1: Can I get by in German speaking countries without speaking German. (more…)
Categories: Expat issues, German language, Tips, advice, suggestions |
Tags: English, Geoff, German, living, working | No Comments
May 17th, 2010
OK, maybe it is not really a fad. Not here in Germany that is. But almost 6000 years ago the Kosher food “movement” (everything is a movement now) started. It still exists but has a big brother, Halal. The two dietary systems have much in common which shouldn’t be surprising considering the shared roots of Jews and Muslims (and Christians). Funnily enough, following these food customs is something that can bring Jews and Muslims together in a place like Central and Northern Europe that barely acknowledges non-pork fare in most restaurants.
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Categories: Daily life, Expat issues, History and culture, Tips, advice, suggestions |
Tags: food, Geoff, kosher, religion | No Comments
May 3rd, 2010
Long, long ago, in 1992, when I first came to Germany, I, at the tender age of 21, had no real idea of what “organic” even was. Who did back then, except a few hippies and tree huggers (ha, ha). I had a few older and wiser friends with small children who bought bio products from under the bridge at a vegetable market in Freiburg, but at the time, I hardly even cooked, so I certainly didn’t understand the need to buy groceries at twice the price, when the fruit and veg looked battered and worn, even from the beginning. I was used to shiny (waxed) American apples and giant onions, ramen noodles and frozen ravioli. After a couple of years in Freiburg, when I went back home, I felt like an immigrant from some far away country where there was nothing available but a sad looking parsnip at the grocery store in the dead of winter. All that selection, all that food, all those giant boxes!
The next step in my transition towards bio came in 2003, when I moved back to Germany after five years in Michigan. I had a colleague at my new workplace who raved about the joys of organic. She only bought organic eggs, and insisted they tasted better. I thought she was crazy! What difference could it possibly make, I thought? Why do you have to have organic peanut butter — that oily concoction that you have to stir before eating? Again, I was not ready to shell out extra for an organic egg or anything else organic. (more…)
Categories: Daily life, Expat issues, Miscellaneous, Tips, advice, suggestions |
Tags: bio, buying organic, expat, Germany, jamie oliver's food revolution | No Comments
April 29th, 2010
I recently had an encounter with some Americans who worked closely with German colleagues — not very well. They felt that their hard work and efforts were underappreciated by the Germans and that they were regarded as a bunch of cowboys. They felt that compared to their Asian and European counterparts in the same company, they were the only ones following the rules. Meanwhile, the German headquarters did indeed think that these Americans were making up their own rules. The glaring stereotypes of cavalier American butting heads with straightlaced, humorless Germans popped in my mind. This seemed to be a clear case of intercultural communication problems.
Let’s dissect the relationship a bit.
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Categories: Daily life, Expat issues, History and culture, Tips, advice, suggestions, Work and employment matters |
Tags: business, doing business in Germany, intercultural communications, intercultural training, Jane | No Comments
April 5th, 2010
Nowadays, there are many cheap and easy ways to keep in touch with friends and family at home when you are an expat in Germany. When I first moved here in 1992, I was only really able to call my parents from a pay phone outside my dorm, and I could talk for about 5 minutes for 5 DM (€2.50 or so nowadays). There were fancy phone cards that you could buy from the Post Office so you could use the fancy pay phones that didn’t take coins, but that was it. No bargains to be had. And you are almost hard pressed to find a phone booth around here due to the fact that even the majority of 7-year-olds have mobile phones!
Nowadays, I can use Skype (free), call from my home phone (flatrate of €3.95 through Telekom, called Country Select), or call from my mobile with prepaid (€0.09/minute), and chatting on Facebook or Google Chat (both free, and both also work on my phone). It certainly makes things easy, and I do appreciate it, because with lots of kids in the house, I need to talk to my mom a lot for a number of reasons, including general moral support, advice on cooking recipes that she used to make, advice on unruly/rude teenagers, sympathy with the many illnesses this family seems to be getting and of course, bragging about the kids and letting them talk to her (and the rest of the family). (more…)
Categories: Daily life, Expat issues, Miscellaneous, Tips, advice, suggestions |
Tags: calling the US from Germany, expat, Facebook, Germany, keeping in touch, phone cards, Sarah, Skype | 1 Comment
March 24th, 2010
Since coming to Germany as a permanent resident about 3 years ago, I’ve had the opportunity to experience healthcare here in its varied forms. Just so you get a good idea of what I’m talking about I’ll give you a short rundown of healthcare events that have occurred to me and within my family (minus graphic descriptions):
- physical examinations as part of healthcare insurance checks
- joint problems
- gallstones
- infant surgery
- child surgery
- homebirth
If you are looking for me to pass judgement on healthcare here, I can’t fully satisfy you.
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Categories: Medical matters, Tips, advice, suggestions |
Tags: Geoff, healthcare, hospitals | No Comments
February 9th, 2010
It seems every post I write has to do with kids, but that is how my life looks right now! At the moment, both of my little ones are in the midst of the Eingewöhnung process in their respective nursery schools (Kindergärten). My youngest is starting Krippe (loosely translated as daycare) and his sister is starting nursery school. When I signed them up, I was told to prepare to be available during the acclimitization process. Little did I know, they have it down to a science. (more…)
Categories: Daily life, Expat issues, Tips, advice, suggestions, Work and employment matters |
Tags: Berliner Modell, Daycare, Eingewöhnung, expat, Germany, kindergarten, Krippe, Sarah | 1 Comment
January 12th, 2010
Just recently, I went to buy my youngest his first pair of shoes. Ty the aupair came with us to chase Olivia through the store, expecting this to be a short process. He was wrong, of course, because this is Germany, and everything takes just a little bit longer! And shoes are very important and very expensive here, especially for children.
We first took Noah to look for shoes before Christmas when he had just started walking. It had been pretty cold here and even I, the American who doesn’t ever put enough clothes on her kids, thought he might be getting a tad bit cold. But we were sent home from the shoe store. I guess kids have to have been walking for a couple of weeks before anyone is allowed to buy them shoes. Even my German husband was surprised, but around here, we must listen to the experts! (more…)
Categories: Daily life, Expat issues, Tips, advice, suggestions |
Tags: au pair, babies, first shoes, Germany, measuring feet, Sarah, shoe purchasing | 1 Comment
