Ein AusLANDER |
British guy who worked in Forensic Psychology for 6 years but needed to experience something else. Took a leap of faith and made a change to pull off an Houdini escape act to Berlin, sidetracked for 8 months in Edinburgh by accident. Walking around Berlin lost and confused for a month. Realised that Clinical Psychology is the right fit for me so trying to get back on track with that. Recently, moved to Munich, Germany for work where luckily my lovely German girlfriend lives. Follow @ein_auslander About this blog |
I have been in Berlin for some days now and had a fantastic time. A little too party heavy than intended as its my friends birthday today and mine next week. However, I have had one interview with a startup company who I found very interesting. I have no idea how that will go but I should hear sometime around the middle of the week. So I will skip my flight back at least until I have heard.
The language is something that I have been enjoying although I have not been speaking it enough. When I arrived in Germany amongst the first few hours there were two occasions when I could have asked what I needed to in German but I felt embarrassed and instead asked in English. Upon reflection speaking English in such circumstances is more embarrassing. I have managed to overcome this with ordering food and the basics. But not at all in a conversational way with German friends. It feels almost less daunting with people I don’t know.
Walking around and reading and mostly understanding advertisements definitely feels encouraging to me. However, there have been a few unfortunate miscommunications that I am laughing about now.
1) “Ich moechte ein bratwurst bitte ohne mustard “. I wanted a hotdog without mustard. I received one with ONLY mustard. I have since learnt that mustard is “senf” in German, I naively thought it was the same so he probably thought I had switched to English and said “only mustard”. Only sounds slightly at a push like ohne (without)
2) I can’t remember the conversation exactly as I was quite drunk but we ordered kebabs and I said “nur chilli” to mean only chili on it. But I got everything on it, apart from chili. *face palm*
