Ein AusLANDER

One difficult thing about Munich is trying to find a place to live. I am working and always moving between hostels which is tiring and unsettling. The hope is that I quickly find somewhere and move out but it is difficult. Someone told me that Munich is the third most difficult city in Europe to find a place in, I do not know what their source is.

The other day I found a place that was a little too good to be true. I was told by the ‘land lady’ that she had to abruptly relocate to England for work and because of this wanted to rent her apartment out. Because of this she 1) could not show me around but could email me photos…

The photos were sent and the place looked great, and like a complete steal for the area. 2) Her idea was that if I was interested I would send her the deposit and rent by western union money transfer (basically an unsecure practically untraceable method). These were the first real alarm bells. If she were genuine would she not surely leave the keys with a friend or agency who could show me around and exchange the money and keys in person? 3) She had written the street name down as nordenstrassen. The word for street is ‘strasse’ in German. Strassen is terribly incorrect German. A mistake that continued on the otherwise convincing and comprehensive contract. 4) The contract was in English, which makes no sense here.

I was surprised at how sophisticated this scam was. They asked many of the right questions about when would I want to move in. Do I smoke. Moving out dates, period of notice etc. They sent photos and a contract that was credible in many ways (I will include it in full at the end with sensitive information edited out). There was a lot of correspondence. It helped that my girlfriends mother is a German property lawyer and that I had dinner with her the night of the correspondence. She said that there have been a lot of scams going on like this in Munich. I have no doubt that things like this are going on in most major cities. I then viewed another temporary place for a month and have moved in. It is great, I hope that this month gives me the opportunity to find somewhere more permanent.

After a few days back in England sorting things out I returned to Munich. I considered bringing a guitar with me this time the ultimate symbol of settling down, really moving somewhere. Ryanair in effect wanted to charge me about one hundred euros for the pleasure so I had to reluctantly refrain.

As I boarded the plane I overheard a flight attendant saying that there were only ten suitcases in the hold. With the inertia of the take off on the runway all I could imagine was my suitcase flying around a vast empty space at great speeds hitting the walls every so often.

I remember when i worked in Psychology and was discussing with colleagues people in the public eye who are likely to be psychopaths. The chief of Ryanair was one of them and the best part about that? We were not kidding at all…

Anyway Munich has been fun. I am now staying in my third place in five days. Oh hostels sweet hostels. I have to say that this one has the best vibe of any i have been to in Munich. Two euro happy hour you say? Okay and I’m sold!

I know my age when i can see two people flirting, looking meaningfully into each others eyes ; travelers. It is unlikely to go anywhere tonight guys, you are staying in a hostel for f-sake, the other 13 people in your room might have something to say about it ! As i accidentally hear them speaking in German, but from afar, body language being English esque. Or indeed any other nationality that includes males and females with the flirting it occurs to me. That it is not the words being spoken that are important at all. It is something else. The actual words, they could be said in so many different languages - but it is what you are actually saying that is important. Unless I am wrong and it is something else.

I had a good time at Pullman city last weekend; a car show that the company i work for sponsored. It was staged at what looked like an American wild west town. It was good but the weather let it down.

The final thing that I want to mention is the Muenchen UBahn (the underground). Is it just me, but am I the only person that feels like I have to shower after only five minutes traveling on it during rush hour. I am here in a T-shirt with a jacket thinking, I cannot take the jacket off in case the Ubahn has made me smell regrettably most unagreeable. When at the same time many others are stood there in a jumper, a scarf, a winter coat, etc. I don’t get it, I just do not.

I am on my fifth day since I made the move to Munich and so far I have to say that I am very happy with things. I do not have any concerns about my job and am happy to be there. I also like all of my colleagues, I have found them friendly and although I was very quiet the first day I managed to speak in German for awhile today over lunch. My German really needs work but that is afterall a lot of the reason for being here. Although, I don’t speak perfectly I was able to express myself and they understood what I meant. I can say that already in five days I have learnt a little bit more.

At the moment I am living, I suppose in a hostel. It is not so bad, I look forward to getting my own place hopefully in about two weeks as I would like to have more space and privacy. For now though it is more than tollerable.

The hostel life for me

My first week has felt promising. Yesterday, the first of May was a public holiday here and the Germans really celebrate it in style. It was also the night that Bayern Muenchen beat Barcelona 7-0 on aggregate to create history by leading to an all German final against Dortmund in the champions league, which will be staged in London. Munich is absolutely buzzing. Tomorrow night I will go to a preview of a film in English. It does not start until 11pm and no one knows what the film is until it starts, quite a novel idea. Then Saturday night I will go to the Brauhaus as there is some sort of festival on because of fruehling (spring).

So far so good !

I have arrived in Germany and booked into a hostel for seven days. I start work tomorrow. I am really looking forward to it, meeting everyone and just spending my time productively.

Later I will spend time with my girlfriend who has got a German sim card waiting for me. It starts to feel quite serious, in terms of moving countries when you get a new phone number. More so probably when I eventually sort out a bank account and can put a deposit down on a shared apartment. I’m looking forward to it, although I will be slumming it a little for the first few weeks.

deutschland-germany:

If there’s one country that people seem to love stereotyping, it’s Germany. Perhaps it’s from the image of Germans that Hollywood movies give, but I always find that people hardly ever give you a neutral response when you mention the word “Germany” or “Germans.”

Example 1:

Person: Hey, so I’m…

(via haludek)

Amazingly, I appear to have been offered a job in Muenchen, Germany so I will be moving there in a few days. Wish me luck. I am cautiously very happy. I have the usual low level apprehensions that I am sure are normal when moving to a different country. Presuming everything goes to plan as I hope and expect it to then it will just be absolutely fantastic ! I am looking forward to every aspect of being there.

They study forever and ever ???

Last week on Thursday languishing at 35th place in a points based league table for people learning the 5000 most frequently used German words I set myself a challenge. That by the end of the week I would be within the top 10. At the time I thought that this would take considerable time but not be prohibitively difficult. I was partly wrong.

It turns out that the people at the top are perhaps unsurprisingly serious learners that are spending a lot of time regularly increasing their score. I thought that I would have to get to x number of points to catch up, but by the time I got there people who were on x points were then on y points and even z amount of points. Frustratingly, I would go to sleep having risen a few places but when I awoke I would find that I had slipped down the table again. I probably put between 20 and 30 hours in.

I also learnt that after many hours of learning new German words in one day there becomes a point where your brain keels over and you just cannot absorb a single extra German word without more rest. This experience has certainly had a beneficial effect on my German in only a small period of time so I will try to keep it going. I recommend memrise and look forward to their impending mobile app release.

So how well did I do ? In the weekly league table , although I was only active for the latter 3 and a half days I managed to get to 9th.

I have blogged previously about Memrise and its benefits for assisting with learning language. I am back into it today with a renewed enthusiasm and determination. I would like to add more structure and planning in to my approach to learning German. I have done this by giving myself a goal, a competitive one.

There is a league table for those who are also learning the same course on memrise which can be viewed as a weekly table. You get points the more that you learn and practise which places you on this table. At present it is Thursday afternoon and I am placed 35th of the list. I am giving myself the challenge of being in the top 10 by the end of the week.

This does not only mean that I have to learn German, but I need to start learning it quicker and more successfully than other learners.

So will I move far enough up the list by the end of Sunday. I hope so, lets see !!

I survived my 29 hour coach journey to Deutschland and would like to say that I arrived with a spring in my step and an infectious charisma. In reality I arrived slightly dead on my feet after managing perhaps only two hours sleep during the loooong and hard journey. But in truth it was not that bad. I made a friend straight away who was traveling to Ulm which was only a few hours short of my Muenchen stop.

We went through the Eurotunnel after a few hours which is always an interesting experience. For those who have not done it before it feels fairly sci fi. Cars, coaches and lorries slowly driving into these big mental capsule like train things that then go a bit like a bullet under the ocean to France. In a coach there is always an atmosphere of excitement during this as inevitably there are at least a few people who seem to be experiencing it for the first time.

We traveled across France, I think stopping off in places like Lille and then through Belgium stopping off in Brussels. Now Germany is a big country. Probably 15 hours of the journey was driving through Germany where we had most of the stops. Places like Mannheim, Stuttgart, Ulm and Muenchen. Twenty nine hours is really a long time on a coach. The atmosphere surprised me as people were partying a bit and very sociable. A lot of people were drinking (not me) and we had a load of different nationalities, ages and backgrounds at play. The diversity was great to see and over all the journey was not nearly as bad as I thought that it might be.

I eventually arrive in Muenchen having not showered or changed clothes for something like 30 hours or so just hanging around for a few hours until my girlfriend finished work. Then we went to Augsburg so probably arrived at the final destination after about 35 hours of travel in total.

On the way back to England the coach was not as full, people were a bit quieter and I managed to sleep a lot more. It was not as difficult. The route was slightly different as we went to places like Gwent in Belgium, we had light by this point and it was interesting to drive through new areas of Europe that I had not really seen before.

An interesting interview about the scene in Berlin, expectations and change.

I have just embarked on a series of long coach jouneys to Muenchen, Germany for Easter. I took my first bus at 07:18 on Wednesday morning and will change in Nottingham to head to London. From London I will take a coach to Muenchen. I should arrive at something like midday Thursday. This makes the journey about 29 hours.

I am anxious, slightly about the length of the journey. I once took a 15 hour coach to Paris and it just about killed me. Expect an in hindsight update of how I got on and whether or not I died on the coach.

Science: Because you can’t pray this shit into space.

Interesting article about the strange relationship between Berlin and Hasselhoff.

thesleepingpsychologist:

I wanted to write a small piece about depression and something that I feel people often do not understand. Sometimes when someone is depressed friends and family may offer the solution that they should go out and socialise, speak to people, do some exercise etc. It is the case that these are all…