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Finding a Job in Germany

by | Apr 16, 2011 | , , , | 4 Comments

There are many days I think to myself, “Oh my God, why did I leave my good job and move to a country where I can’t find a job to save my life?!” How many of you have thought the same?  In 2009, I moved to Frankfurt from London for personal reasons (personal disclosure: I am American, now married to a German). I worked in finance and thought, it should be a snap to get a job in the banking capital of Germany! But would I need to speak German? If I had a euro for every time someone said to me, “Frankfurt is soooo international! There are so many global companies that will surely be OK if you don’t speak German. They all speak English!” These well-meaning people have no idea how tough it is to get a job here if you are a foreigner and don’t speak fluent German.

First of all, I have heard there is an unspoken prejudice against non-Germans where firms will throw out one CV after another because the applicant’s name betrays the fact that the person is a foreigner. Turkish, Polish, Asian… none of us have a shot! Yes, I admit this is completely unproven, but I know from first hand experience that, only when I assumed my German husband’s last name did I start getting responses back about my CV. Same CV, similar companies, similar types of jobs. And no, I did not translate my CV into German. Coincidence? Unfortunately, I think not. read more…

Birthdays and Friends in Germany

by | Apr 5, 2011 | , , | 0 Comments

This year is a momentous one in the eyes of some people, because I am turning forty. I’m turning forty in a new country, and all of my oldest and closest friends live in other ones. But I am not despairing, and I am not ignoring this runden Geburtstag. (A runder Geburtstag is one that ends in a zero.) If I were still in Germany, I would most definitely be having a party. So, we’ll be having one here in Ireland as well, and as expected, many of my German friends have already said they are coming. What a perfect excuse to go on vacation! With 30 days of holidays at their disposal and a booming economy, my German friends can afford to come over to the Emerald Isle.

Birthday cake -Geburtstagskuchen

In Germany you have to bake (or buy) your own birthday cake! PHOTO: Silke at Pixabay

Ah, but what are friends? Americans seem to call everyone their friends. Facebook has turned even the most distance of acquaintances, from someone you met on the bus yesterday to someone you knew in preschool, into “friends.” One of the first things I discovered when I moved to Germany to be with my future husband, having already lived there for seven years in the previous decade, was the meaning of friends in a German context. Many of his friends have been with him since childhood. Part of that is because people used to grow up in a house and stay in the area. This may not apply as much nowadays, what with Fernbeziehungen and the global economy, but it was still true for my husband, until I dragged him off to Ireland. read more…

Adventures in the Ämter

by | Mar 28, 2011 | , , | 0 Comments

Last week I achieved a milestone in my life as an expat. I finally received a permanent residence permit. You might think that after 10.5 years in Germany, I would have done this long ago. Alas, it seems I’m not very good with this kind of bureaucracy. There were a few difficulties, longer stays abroad, forgetfulness, and thus I kept renewing for the standard 3 year time period. But now… now I can stay forever, in case I want that. read more…

Living the German Way Part III

by | Mar 22, 2011 | , , , | 1 Comment

I was disappointed to read that my fellow blogger, Sarah Fürstenberger, was leaving our ranks as German Way Co-blogger for the time being. She and I had become friends while recording the same chapter in life as American expats living in Germany through this blog. Coincidentally, she and I also left Germany at the same time this past summer.

Although I was sad to no longer be able to keep up with her American/German family’s new Irish life through her blog posts, I could also understand her sentiment that her heart wasn’t in blogging about the German Way anymore. Often, when my week rolled around to blog, I felt at a loss as to what to blog about. It’s been about eight months since we left Germany, and our lives have significantly changed: our daughters, though still bilingual, speak mostly English now, we start to shiver at 60 degrees F (16 degrees C), our consumption of paper products jumped exponentially when we became members of Costco, and we barely buy or eat cold cuts (Aufschnitt) anymore.

I realized though that despite the dilution of our German-ness, there were beliefs and pursuits of the German Way of Life that I was still committed to. First and foremost on that list has been finding a pediatrician that suited a more typical German parenting philosophy: encouraging play-based learning for under six-year-olds, fostering independence, and choosing the natural alternatives when possible. read more…

Gambling and other sins

by | Mar 14, 2011 | | 0 Comments

When I first moved to Nevada (the year shall remain vague) the Silver State still had pretty much of a gambling and quickie divorce monopoly – and a reputation as a rather sinful place. Today almost every US state has casinos and/or a lottery. Getting a divorce has become so easy these days, there’s really no need for a Reno or Las Vegas divorce. “Sin City” is now about as sinful as Disneyland.

Nevadans were once proud of their “sinful” status, but now about the only exclusive “sinful” thing Nevada has left is legal prostitution. Even that may be doomed if US Senator Harry Reid has his way (although one Nevada lawmaker has proposed a new tax on prostitution to help solve the state’s budget crisis). Of course the fact that prostitution is illegal in the other 49 states doesn’t mean there’s no prostitution there.

Yes, I DO have a Germany-related point here.

I recently wrote an article about casinos and gambling in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Among other things I learned in my research: Switzerland didn’t even have casinos until after 2000; while most European countries have gambling casinos, the real money (for the tax man) comes from lotteries. read more…

Farewell, for now…

by | Mar 10, 2011 | | 0 Comments

As usual, I am late for my blog post. So much for German punctuality. It has been a busy period around our house since we moved to Ireland. What with working full time and taking care of the four kids together with my husband, I am not finding enough inspiration to write a blog about Germany and living in Germany. I feel a bit far away from my life there at the moment, during this phase of adjusting to a new life and culture in another country.

I know, excuses, excuses…But my only contact with Germany right now is through my husband and my family in Heidelberg. My kids are still speaking German at home, but we are struggling with maintaining the balance when their lives outside the home are all in English. I hope that we can keep it up and that we will get enough German visitors to give them perspective on the language. Right now, it is all daddy.

So my point is this: I am taking a break from blogging for the German Way. When I am feeling motivated and less busy, and more inspired, I will come back. I’ll also pop in with guest blogs once in a while (again, when the inspiration hits). I do hope that I can return in the future when I have more to give and more to share. I have enjoyed blogging for the past year or two. Good luck to all of you expats out there. Enjoy it!

On Food

by | Feb 21, 2011 | , , , | 3 Comments

I have long believed that food in Germany is better than food in the United States. This was mostly based on (literal) gut feeling: since about age 14, my life in America was a battle with my digestive tract. I spent many nights as a teenager awake in bed with incredible stomach pains.  College cafeteria food kept me alternating between states of pain and nausea for the duration of my stay there. However, I grew up on healthy foods: fresh fish, vegetables from the garden, etc. As kids, we were restricted in our junk food allowance and never was a breakfast cereal to have more than 12g of sugar per serving. I actually thought I ate pretty well and considered myself a Foodie from an early age.

In retrospect, that self-perception is a little embarrassing. read more…

“Kölle Alaaf” in San Diego!

by | Feb 16, 2011 | , , | 0 Comments

It’s February. In our process of settling in as a Korean American German family here in San Diego, the next event on the calendar was Karneval. I mentioned the holiday to my daughter expecting her to recall some of it from her Kindi days in Aalen at least from pictures of her as a cowgirl jumping on a trampoline or going out the door as a butterfly. She didn’t. I presented it to her in a different way, “Remember Fasching, Vera?” That seemed to ring a bell for my Swabian girl.

For the first time, our daughters’ German preschool here in San Diego organized a special adult-only party on the first Saturday evening of this month at the German American Societies of San Diego. As my husband is from the Rhineland, Karneval country, I had left the costume planning to him. This task did not sit high on his list of priorities, so it was the Thursday before the party, that we found ourselves a bit panic stricken with figuring out what to wear. Going in “plain clothes” was not an option. If we were to go to a Karneval party, we would have to go all the way. We were further restricted by the fact that I am seven months pregnant, so even if there were any costumes left to buy at Party City, most would unlikely fit me. I finally had a solution, which my husband reluctantly went along with: sauna goers! We didn’t actually go in the buff, but we put our matching bathrobes to good use.

We were named the Sauna couple or "Sauna Paar" that evening.

We were named the Sauna couple or “Sauna Paar” that evening.

read more…