The week that was

Okay so this is my first post in six days - my apologies I've been tied up with things at work and haven't had too many exciting things to write about. I decided to do a bit of 'local' exploring today and I visited the nearby city of Reutlingen. I say local with inverted commas, because to me as a kiwi used to wide open spaces the whole of Germany, with its densely populated countryside, feels like one big village with lots of seperate town centres. Gomaringen is considered a 'rural' area even though it is less than 15 mins drive from both Reutlingen and Tubingen, cities of over 80,000 a piece each. In NZ what I'm used to rural meaning, is that your next door neighbour (also a sheep farmer) has a residence 40 km away and your nearest population might be a raging metropolis like Taihape. Reutlingen is also very nice, I'm a bit of a stuck record so far with my accusing all German towns of being very nice, well it's true they all have a certain 'villageness' about them which I'm coming to quite like. Reutlingen is probably the biggest city I have visited so far, (not counting Frankfurt and Stuttgart because I hardly saw them in my brief transit through) I think it has over 115,000 people so I guess about the size of Dunedin. I managed to catch the end of a really cool fruit and vegie market in the city centre, so I will be definitely making use of that again in the near future.

Only a week and a half to Asia arrives now, which is pretty exciting. Hopefully, the nice weather continues for another month so she can have a nice break out of the NZ winter.

Another reason for the sparcity of posts this week is that I received this new German language linkword learning CD-ROM. It takes the chore factor out of learning a new language and uses a kind of mega memory word association technique to help learn the language. For me, it is working really well as I'm starting to recognise alot more written words and also pick up a litttle more of the conversations. Although, it's still a slow process. Oh for a language brain implant.

Okay, so no photos today. I haven't taken any since my journey down south last weekend.

Tschus,
Brad

Autobahnen und Konstanz

How do you know if you are on an autobahn?
A) You are driving at 100 kM and cars zoom past you as if you were standing still
B) You are driving at 130 kM and cars zoom past you as if you were standing still
C) You are driving at 160 kM and cars zoom past you as if you were standing still
D) All of the the above
Of course the answer is D. Yes, on my way down to Konstanz today I had my first autobahn experience. There is nothing quite like the feeling of driving at 160 kM an hour in a 1.2 litre car, hey it could even have gone faster - maybe next time...

Saw this crazy cool Schloss (german for castle/palace) perched up on a hill when I was driving along the B27 (which is not an autobahn but you can still go 130 in places). Anyway, I pulled over and managed to get this shot although it is still a little hazy at this distance. It is not too far away from Gomaringen, maybe 20 mins, so I might go and visit it sometime soon.

So I took a trip down to a town called Konstanz which is perched on the edge of a lake also called Konstanz and right on the Swiss border. In fact, in one corner of Lake Constanz there is an intersection of three international borders, Switzerland, Austria and Germany, which is quite cool. The lake is fed from the Alps and is drained by the Rhein.

Konstanz is a beautiful town (pop 65,000) maybe even more so than Tubingen. I think the lake is the decisive factor there. I had a good look around through the AltStadt (old town), which even had some old Roman ruins dating back to 300 AD. I also managed a swim in the lake, didn't have my togs so had to strip down to my undies. Not that the continental europeans seem to care much about public nakedness. Spied some breasts (didn't have to look hard) while I was sitting on a park bench in the sun (like a sifty old man), so that was a bit of a laugh.

I'm starting to get by a little better with the language now. I mean I still can't follow a conversation but I seem to manage okay when buying stuff (food mainly). Oh yeah that reminds me. Everywhere in Germany they have Turkish food, apparently there was a lot of turkish immigrants in the 60s and 70s. Anyway, they do this amazing thing called a doner (the o has an umblat so you say it like dooner). Ummm, the best way to describe it is kinda like a pita bread but better and filled with really tasty meat, salad and sauces. I could live on doners, well I kinda have been because they are cheap, quick and tasty. Although I can feel the kgs piling on. Well, it's now 1810 local time and I feeling a bit peckish, might go rustle me up some dinner. I'm going in to Tubigen tonight with a few of the guys from the office. Apparently, there is this nice Bier Garten by the Neckar so that should be nice. Okay Ciao.

Where are all the cats?

Haha,

I meant to mention a funny conversation I had with this Turkish girl at the party on Saturday night. Anyway, she was like "oh you are from New Zealand, you are so lucky you have no cats there right?" I was like "sorry what did you say, no cats?" She was like "yeah, you have no cats in New Zealand right..." Haha, I laugh. "No we have lots, more than Germany I think". It took me some time to convince her. "But you have so many birds" she says. "Not as many as there used to be", I say. "Damn cats..." and so on. That reminds me, I haven't seen a single cat since I have been here. Hmmm, where are all the cats?

Tubingen and party

I had an interesting weekend. The city tour of Tubingen was pretty good, even though I didn’t understand a word that was said. Tubingen is an amazing city, some of the buildings were constructed in the 11^th century! Truly amazing to a NZer, when you consider our oldest building is probably struggling to nudge 150 years. The area down by the Neckar river reminded me a lot of the Avon river in Christchurch, with the punts, the willow trees and a meandering shallowish river.

Their was one interesting story that Martin Schmit translated for me. If you look at the photo you will see that on the second floor of the building on the left, the window frame on the right most side is painted white, unlike all the other windows which are painted brown. Anyway, as the story goes their was a game of cards and one of the guys lost all his money. Wanting to keep playing though, he decided to put up his room as collateral and sure enough he lost it to the guy who owned the building beside his. So, a door was put through from the building on the right and the poor saps room became legally part of the building on the right. A distinction that remains even today!

After the tour we went back to the office for the annual company party, where a huge BBQ feed was put on plus champers, and bier. I also managed to scavenge some of the left over food – I’m still a student at heart even though it’s been years!

Okay, I’m sitting in my apartment chilling out in shorts and a singlet, it’s 9:15pm and still real warm. One thing I have noticed about the buildings in Germany is that they are damn solid. They really keep the heat in. NZers could learn a thing or two about insulation from these guys. Although judging by the number of heaters in my apartment, I think they need it in the winter!

A picture of my 1.2L L Renault Clio. Oh well, at least it’s a manual and economical…

The Gym

Went to a spin class at a local gym yesterday evening. It was interesting going to a class where the instructor speaks in Deutsch but without exception every track that was played was an English/American song. Also, finally got around to having my first Deutsch bier after the spin class. The gym has this cool little Italian restaurant attached to it. Every second store in the south of Germany is an Italian restaurant, not that there are many stores where I’m staying. Anyway, the bier was a Fufstenberg (I think or something like that) pils. It was pretty good. I got this incredibly huge Pizza for 5 euro, which I thought was cheap at the time but I keep forgetting that I have to multiply everything by two – this is going to be the bane of my life while I’m here, things that appear cheap but which actually aren’t.

I’ve got the annual DIgSILENT work party today starting with a city tour of Tubingen at 3pm. Will definitely get to try a few more of the biers afterwards. I might go into Reutlingen tomorrow for a look around, plus I need to try and get a german simcard for my phone.

Thunderstorms and Studenplan

Well, I’ve had four days in my new job so far. Things have been a little slow so far but that is because most of the consultancy team is away. It should really get cranking on Monday.

A massive thunderstorm just passed through about an hour ago. The thunder was so loud it shook my apartment. In all my time in NZ I have never seen or heard anything like it. It came and went real fast, maybe all over within an hour, crazy…

Tried to catch a bus to Tubingen in the weekend. Tubingen is a university town similar in size to Dunedin. Well, I thought I managed to read the german timetable but the bus never came. Oh yeah, trains do run late in germany, despite the myth!

Arrival and more transit blues

Blog entry 09/07/06 – Brigette’s Guesthouse

It’s now 8am Sunday morning in Germany and I have just woken up from a great 12 hour sleep. I’m still struggling with a bit of jet lag but I feel much better today than I have for the last couple.

Hong Kong, what I saw of it, seemed pretty amazing. From the air at night it looked truly spectacular and that bridge, well I forget the name of it, so huge! I have heard that the Chinese have a strange propensity for producing funny English slogans. I’m not sure if they do it deliberately or because of their poor English skills – I reckon their just taking the piss though. As you can see from the sign I saw in transit at Hong Kong:

I had a few dramas getting to my final destination once I got to Germany. For a start, my baggage never arrived with me at Frankfurt so I didn’t have a change of clothes after traveling for about two days total. I was then supposed to pick up a rental car at Stuttgart and drive to my final destination in Gomaringen. However, apparently it is mandatory for the driver of a car to submit a valid credit card. Anyway, they were trying to charge it for €849 which is about $1700 NZ dollars which exceeded the limit on my card. Therefore, I couldn’t pick up the rental. So, I ended up having to get another train from Stuttgart to Tuebingen, where I got a short taxi to Gomaringen and Brigette’s guesthouse: Brigette, pronounced bree-get-a, was really nice and helpful and despite not speaking much English we managed to communicate pretty effectively. She showed me around Gomaringen, pop about 8500, so not much bigger than Taihape in NZ. It is a pretty small but friendly little village:

I think I definitely underestimated how difficult it would be not speaking the local language. It gives you a whole new perspective on life when you realise how much harder life is when you can’t effectively communicate. I mean even a simple thing like going down to the supermarket becomes a bit of an ordeal and takes you like twice as long as it would back home.

I went for a walk yesterday around the village and to check out where the DIgSILENT office is. Turns out it is only about a 20 min walk from where I am staying so that is pretty good. Although, it will still be a lot easier once I get a car sorted out.

Okay, I’m going to go and start practicing my deutsch now.

Auf Wiedersen

Sydney Airport

Blog entry 06/07/06 – Sydney Airport

Well, it’s currently 0941 local time and my connecting flight to Hong Kong doesn’t depart until 1425, what a drag. This is my first international travel experience, so I now understand why people say transit sucks. I just want to get there, damn it… I’m plagued by the dilemma of whether to cruise into Sydney for a couple of hours but then I have to drag my god damn laptop around the city with me – well I’m bloody glad I got the light weight Toshiba at least. Plus, trying to save the coin at the moment since it has been a bloody expensive time the last week or so. To make matters worse, it looks like a beautiful day in Sydney – isn’t Australia great!

Oh well, enough moaning – it is good procrastination though since I should be studying German, die Deutsch. Pretty scared about getting to Germany, not only do I have to try and communicate but I have to try and work as well.

Hmmm, starting to get bloody hungry. My body still thinks it is 1200. I might go get that $12 burger. Damn it better be good!