Rookie Mistakes

Rookie Mistake #1. Buying a whole loaf of broad.
There is a reason that most loaves are sold as "half" loaves - they get moldy very quickly! Everything is fresh so that most things don't last long (even when you put it in the fridge).
Note to self: buy nifty "half" loaves. This one has 10 slices and is delicious!

Rookie Mistake #2. Paying to use the toilet at the train station
I was running really late the other morning and I missed my train to work (Luckily, I had planned on taking an early train, so I ended up not being late for work, just a little rushed.) With some time to kill at the train station, I decided to visit the bathroom. I walked in and realized that it cost €0.50.  It is not uncommon to pay to use a public bathroom in Germany. I put my 50 cent euro coin in the machine and it got stuck. That really put me in a bind. My German vocabulary of numbers and greetings wouldn't help me to explain, "I paid, I swear, but the door won't open." A euro coin wasted. Once my train arrived, I remembered that there were bathrooms on the trains. The bathrooms on the train are free and very clean. Why didn't I think of that earlier?

#3. Purchasing individual train tickets
Trains are surprisingly very expensive here, but they get you to the most remote parts of Germany. To save money, always buy group tickets or multi-day tickets. While in Munich, Damian and I paid €14 total to ride the trains for 3 days and we could've had three other people with us for free.
I have bought many individual round-trip tickets to work each worth €15.40 - Yikes! Buying multi-packs cuts that cost in half.

#4. Assuming it wouldn't be so bad to find an apartment
We are still looking...
Damian heard on the news last week that the government was asking home owners to rent out their spare rooms to university students since there is such a problem with housing here.

I am useless in our searches too...I wish I knew German!



















#5. Going an entire month without a bike
I found a bike with a sign on it for €50 and a phone number. Damian called and met with the owner. He was able to negotiate it to €40. Now I have a bike and I rode it to the train station yesterday- AMAZING. My 30 minute walk is now a bike ride of less than 10 minutes!

Snacks?

This is a vending machine at Damian's office. I want to point out some interesting items that you can purchase. Look at the top row, second from the left - that small brown oval item is an egg! You can purchase a hard-boiled egg from the vending machine! On the top right you will find a pear and an apple. Don't think that it's all about health, on the bottom right you have three different types of wine from which to choose.

 

München

Even though our trip to München was futile in regards to getting the U.S. visa for my husband, we tried to make the most of it by exploring the city and all of its cultural offerings.

(FYI: My husband passed the interview process and was approved a visa, but due to the government shutdown, the embassy employees could not complete the visa request. He will therefore, unfortunately, not be attending my mother's wedding. :(! )

We happened to be in Munich a weekend in the middle of Oktoberfest so we decided to check it out.  Even though all of the tents were filled by 1pm, we miraculously got into the Paulaner brewery tent because a worker had let us in through the back door! I use the word "tent" because that is what it is translated to in English, however, these are not tents. They are massive, wood structures with elaborate detail, including balconies and artwork.

 Drinking my first stein outside the tent in the beer garden.

We found seats inside with some Germans, Canadians, Italians, and people from the U.S.

And then the singing and dancing began...

After several hours of dancing on tables, Damian was quite hungry:

The next day we hopped on a train to see the Neuschwanstein Castle.  Bad luck followed us here as we were supposed to see this view:

and all we saw was this:

The only things to cheer us up were delicious Bavarian pretzels and Glüwein (hot, mulled wine).

Fortunately, we live very close to the castle and will make another trip.

The following afternoon, we rented bikes to go around the city.

The Rathaus, watching the Glockenspiel

The Hofbräuhaus, just like the "tents" at Oktoberfest, but  maybe a little tamer...

We watched surfers on a canal in Munich.

and saw some other cool architecture and monuments.

Supermarket

Supermarkets are different...

1. Most supermarkets are small (except for the beer selection) and Germans only buy a few things - not much room in their tiny refrigerators.

 2. The lettuce has just come from the farm - the whole lettuce plant is for sale with all of the farm dirt included.

3. The price already includes the tax. When I paid €1.35 for the Colgate toothpaste, that was all I had to pay for it, VAT (value-added tax) included.

4. You are charged for some glass and plastic containers (PFAND) that you can then return to the store to get your money back (check out the receipt below). On our brewery tour last week, we learned that on average, beer bottles can be reused 40 - 50 times before they become too fragile. In between their beers, Germans find the sobriety to be conscientious of the environment! Go Germans!

5. Check out this AMAZING beer selection... It's great because you can buy just one bottle if you want.

This one I tried last night and it was very tasty!

Now, I'm off to the grocery store to recycle my bottle (and maybe to try another one)!

The Red Man

This is the German version of the WALK / DON'T WALK light:

Red Man standing means DON'T WALK while green man in walking motion signals that it's okay to cross the street. Not so different, right? Well, the difference comes from how the Germans obey the Red Man even when there are no cars around! If you're at a quiet intersection and there aren't any cars, you cross the street even if it says DON'T WALK. If you try to tell me that you wait, I will find witnesses!

Germans don't cross and they capitalize on guilt by putting up the signs that you can see in the picture of the little girl looking up at the Red Man. The sign is translated to: "Set the example. Stay on red. Go on green."  

After the first few days, it started to annoy me, but I've found a solution! For the stop lights and streets with very little traffic, I cross the street in the middle of the block, rather than waiting to cross at the intersection. That way, Germans can't look at me with disgust and I don't have to wait impatiently - a win-win!

Our First Saturday: Schönbuch Brauhaus

We started the day with lunch in the Old Town at a traditional Swabian (the region of Germany where we live) restaurant. The food was amazing! I ordered, not knowing what I was ordering since the offline translator app nor Damian could translate some of the traditional food names. The meal started with an amazing pumpkin soup and then a salad with what I found out later were Swabian raviolis. DELICIOUS!

 Then we met with a group of post-docs from the Max-Planck (where Damian works). There are a few from the U.S., but surprisingly there is a couple from Argentina! We went to a brewery in a local town to learn of the beer making process and to try some local brews.

My favorite picture of the day...

 We ended the evening at the Brauhaus, trying more varieties of the Biermeister's collection and getting to know some of Damian's colleagues.

Our home - Tübingen

Here are some pictures of the town center that I took yesterday.  It was a cloudy day so the photos don't capture the beauty with natural light.  Wednesdays and Saturdays are market days.

Bank Accounts

It was a successful day because I finally got a bank account.

The other day, when I asked the principal at my school for a recommendation of a bank, she told me to wait and made reference to Germans having moral issues with choosing their bank. I don't even want to state what bank I chose on this blog for fear that, later, it might come back to haunt me.

This morning, after Damian equipped me with some important phrases ("I don't speak German. I'm sorry. Do you speak English?"), I went bank shopping.  When I entered the first bank and got to the point of wanting to open a bank account, the bank associate, in broken English, told me I would have to make an appointment. So I made an appointment for the following afternoon. Then I proceeded to talk with the guy in detail about all of my options, he took a copy of my passport, and he told me it would be a minimum of $5/month for the account.  Two things stood out to me from this conversation: 1. After spending so much time with me, why can't this guy just take the next three minutes to establish the account? Why can't he make an official, "appointment to open an account" for now or 10 minutes from now? I'll just walk out the door, stroll through the bookstore next door and come back in 10 minutes.  2. Are you seriously charging me to keep a bank account? I'm giving you my money so that you can go invest it somewhere and make money from that money. Why would you charge me for that?

A similar situation happened at the next bank I went to except this time the monthly charge was equivalent to $6.50/month.

Luckily for some regimented Germans and their appointments, I didn't open the bank accounts with those banks because I found a better deal...

Later in the day (after the German siesta) I ventured out and stopped at another bank (there are A LOT here).  This time, they setup a FREE account within 10 minutes - no appointments and no fees! Win for Katie! I was hoping for an interest-bearing account, but that probably would've been asking too much.

Mail

We got our first piece of mail. Yeah!

So happy for these two - hopefully we can make the big celebration!

Bikes

No wonder why Damian fell in love with this place...

This is a picture from the train station:

For all of the non-bikers of Chicago out there, I need to point out something. It is shocking that all of these bikes (and some expensive) are only locked with a flimsy chain and often just to itself. In my many years of biking in Chicago, if my bike was not locked with a U-Lock to a metal frame that was bolted into the ground, it was stolen.

Germans are smart with their bike lanes on the sidewalk - just brilliant.

They even get traffic lighs.

Now I just need to get one!