Give me all Das data

Vodafone is on crack.
Me (when getting my phone plan): “I use a lot of data. What’s the most you have?”
Dude: “20 GB but NOBODY can use that much.”
Me: “I’m pretty sure I could. What’s your second highest plan?”
Dude: “8 GB - but seriously, no one ever uses that much. You really want 3 GB”
Me: “Are you sure? I use a LOT of data. I pretty much live on my phone”.
Dude: “Absolutely.”


I got the plan on Tuesday afternoon. It is now Thursday evening. Total data usage to date? 1.7 GB.


Of course I don’t have wifi right now so maybe it will decrease when that kicks in, but seriously. I can go through 3 GB in my sleep.

Das Henchen und die Spargel und Das Brot. Dinnertime, German-style! #germanadventure #instafood #travel #expatlife

Ah, my home state. Where folks are strapped to go buy a chicken sandwich. #ohio #nowords #darwinaward

Best part of Germany so far? Besides the super fresh produce, beer, bretzels and 98 letter words? GUMMI BEARS! Bouncing here and there and everywhere, with adventures that are beyond compare - all the way to my mouth. #noms #germanadventure #expatlife #gummibears #haribo #instafood #germany

It took me six days to find you, but hello Garlic Pepper, Onion Powder and Garlic Salt. #germanadventure

This is how the Germans handle Das Abfall (trash): with three color coded bins and a set of instructions. #germanadventure (at Ingelheim)

Scenes from the town of #Mainz where I did some wandering today and bought a German/English phrase book. This is also the town where I’m pretty sure I got hit on by a guy at a cafe - had no idea what he was saying, but some hand gestures are universal (at Mainz Rhein)

Das temporary flat. Clockwise: Das big couch, Das kitchen, Das washing machine (no dryer), Das office (that is a TV in the background), Das bathroom, Das evil hard uncomfy bed, Das shower. Note: the washer, shower and toilet/sink are all part of one huge room. #germanadventure (at Ingelheim)

My trip to the German store “Real”, which is like a Wal-Mart. Look at that bread…right next to the sporting goods. #germanadventure

I'm Legal!

Today’s adventure involved basically signing my name about 1000 times. I met my relocation consultant this morning and we proceeded to go to the Town Hall (where I filled out many, many forms and became “registered”) and then another set of government offices where I completed my visa paperwork - including being fingerprinted. I received a nifty stamp in my passport and I should receive my official residents card in a couple weeks. Interestingly enough, while my current visa is tied to my new company, after 2 years I will be free to stay and work for anyone I’d like.


The entire process was ridiculously efficient, and made easier by Julia from the relocation company who served as my translator and answered such urgent questions as “where do I buy cough syrup”, “what is a good shoe store” and “should I pick T-mobile or Vodafone”. Answers: The Apothecary, Frankfurt (too many to name) and Vodafone.


Once I was determined “legal”, the next step was to open my German bank account. This is the key to German life. Nothing happens without one. Also, this country is going to be great for me because they really don’t use credit cards. It’s cash or bank card. So anyway, we go to Deutsche Bank and there I meet Gunter, my new personal banker. One thing I love about Germany is how polite everyone is. They always offer you water or coffee.


After many more forms, I finally received my covered account number and my bank card should arrive in 1-2 weeks. I can now have my salary deposited and pay bills. The first thing I did was run to Vodafone and get a real plan with data and a European package. I know I will get a work phone but I like the idea of being able to turn that one off at the end of the day or on holiday.


After my triumphant run of filling out paperwork and signing my name, I treated myself to lunch at a cafe and my first beer here. I ordered the “kleine” (small) and it was HUGE. These people do not play when it comes to Das Biere. I finished that and then came home and promptly fell asleep for an hour. Because I am a party ANIMAL.


Tonight I have dinner with some new work colleagues. They are both American so I’m hoping they have lots of tips and tricks.


Tomorrow I plan to hop on the train and explore a bit, seeing as how I finally realized that the large yellow building at the end of the main square was the train station I had been searching out 😝


E-Fed out.

Das Shopping und Das Autobahn!

Today’s mission: purchase a GPS and some pillows.
If you weren’t aware, Germans apparently LOVE the square, flat pillow. I don’t understand it, as it is pretty much about the same as sleeping on no pillow, but it seems to be all the rage here. I have been waking up with backache from the hard-as-rocks mattress and a permanently crimped neck from the lack of suitable pillow.
I had the foresight yesterday to google directions and write them all down. My first stop was to be a store called “Real”, which the interwebs promised to be some sort of German Wal-Mart. While driving there with my hand-written (wrong) directions, it occurred to me that the youth of today will never have to experience such hell. I remember the days of maps spread wide open, looking for landmarks and going in circles, circles, circles. Well, I experienced that today, and let me just say THANK YOU AL GORE FOR INVENTING THE INTERWEBS. After some aimless driving and purely accidental navigation, I finally ended up at the Real.
And yes, boys and girls, it IS like a German Wal-Mart. Except that it has a bakery, a travel agent, a weird flea-market looking stall, a tobacco shop and a hair salon. Truth. Inside it is like a combination Costco + liquor store + low budget grocery store + ghetto Target. And I’d like to add that the employees also didn’t disappoint. They were true to the Wal-Mart spirit of slow movement, heavy sighs and an almost religious effort to ignore the customer.
So, there I am, wandering the many aisles of German bounty, desperately searching for a GPS. Up and down I went. I found televisions, keyboards, headsets, batteries, electric shavers, coffee makers, home security systems - but no GPS. I was approaching annoyance, as I had specifically googled in advance to be sure this store carried what I needed. I finally turned my data on (remember my ghetto phone that only gets 250MB of data a MONTH? Well I’m already up to 100MB. Thank goodness I can get a real phone tomorrow) - and I went to my iTranslate and typed in “Do you carry a satellite navigation system” and then I walked up to the information desk and showed the nice man the screen.
He sat there, looked at me, looked at the screen. Looked at me some more, and then looked at the screen. Then started laughing. “You want GPS?” he says. “Ja!!!” I all but yell back. My happiness knows no bounds. Not only do they have what I am looking for, but I seemingly have found the one person in this town who speaks passable English. No matter that he looked like Orville Reddenbacher.
Thirty minutes and a few crazy conversations with the checkout lady later, I was happily off to explore with my brand new Tom-Tom. To say that I felt like a weight had been lifted was an understatement. This thing works in 45 countries - nothing can hold me now!!
So off I went to Ikea, and to my first experience on das Autobahn. I should start by saying that it has been absolutely pouring today - I’m talking windshield wipers turned all the way up, limited visibility, rain on the roof the car sounding like Riverdance, pouring. Or, as the Germans seem to perceive it, no big deal and lets go 9000 mph because we can. I am a defensive driver by nature, which is good, because I’m pretty sure that I could have been run off the road at least eleven times today. I might be crazy, but when I CAN’T SEE THE ROAD DUE TO RAIN I am not going to be zipping along at 100 kph. I’m going to stay in the right hand lane and go a more moderate 80 kph, and allow for a safe distance in front of me. That approach, however, did not seem very popular with my fellow drivers.

It’s weird driving in metric, although going 100 kph seems awesome. I did a quick conversion and it is only 62mph, but the mental effect of going three figures was incredibly exciting. So I finally got to the Ikea - and then remembered why I don’t shop at Ikea. People EVERYWHERE. On a freaking Monday. And it isn’t a holiday. And it was working hours. And the place was huge, and everything was in German. Thank goodness the store had free Wi-Fi, as I spent most of my time translating things to ensure I was buying what I thought I was buying.
When I went to check out, I was extra diligent as I had been warned that only 2 lanes take actual non-German cards. It doesn’t matter if it’s a bank card or credit card, if it isn’t from Germany, they won’t take it in that lane. The signs were beyond confusing, even with my handy translator - so I just gave up and picked a lane that looked like it had a lot of foreigners in it. Biiiig mistake. Huge. I went to pay and I swear the cashier nearly had an aneurysm. She started yelling at me in German and then pointing and then got on the cashier batphone to someone else and began yelling some more, and sighing and putting her head in her hands, and generally acting like I had just told her David Hasselhoff had met an untimely end at a Hard Rock Cafe in Berlin. Girl was freaking OUT. I kept apologizing - “Es tut mir leid! Es tut mir leid!” (which I’m pretty sure is German for “It’s all my fault”) but to no avail.
Finally, this really nice woman came by and rescued me. She took me to the right lane, kindly explaining that the signs are indeed confusing and that only lanes 6 and 11 are good for the future. I was checked out with minimal fuss - but when I looked back at that cashier, she was STILL having kittens over the whole situation. I sure hope that maybe someone takes her out for a beer later, or something. I’d hate to be responsible for her losing it and going all postal up in the Wallau Ikea.
On my way back, there was “Das Verkehr” (traffic) and so my GPS re-routed me through central Wiesbaden. It took me about 2 minutes of driving before my brain was going Yes Yes Yes I want to Live HERE. I don’t know about all of the town (still need to explore) but the street I was on was gorgeous. Reminded me of Paris or central Barcelona. Beautiful old buildings facing the street, with balconied apartments. I’d take a studio to live in something like that. So at least now I have a few streets to tell my relocation helper lady when we meet tomorrow.
And that is it for today’s adventures. Tomorrow I get to fill out loads of paperwork and open a German bank account and then (fingers crossed) get a real, live, complete-with-data, phone. I’m also super excited about giving my new mattress pad and pillows a try tonight. Getting crazy up here in Ingelheim! :P
E-Fed Out.

Das Germany Ist Closed.

As everything is closed on Sundays, I’ve had a pretty lazy day of doing pretty much nothing but thinking (always a bit scary, tbh).
It hasn’t quite sunk in yet that I’m not just on a business trip, but that I now LIVE here. I think this is largely due to the lack of having my own stuff. I remember when I moved to the UK, it didn’t really feel like “home” until I moved from the hotel into my flat and unpacked my boxes. I have several months of rather transient living to adjust to - and I’m fighting the urge to handle that by taking lots and lots of trips.
I’ve realized that, for whatever reason, I have a bit of a problem staying in one place for too long. I can’t pinpoint why this is, but it’s like I reach my saturation point after about 18 months and then I get itchy for something new. Three years is about the longest I’ve managed to stay anywhere (excepting Cincinnati, where I grew up). I like to move apartments, cities, jobs, countries. I don’t know if I like the adventure of starting over, or if I get scared by the possibility of being “stuck” somewhere. Something to ponder in the coming months, as I think about this new chapter in my life and what I want to do beyond this.
It’s kind of funny - I wasn’t really a big fan of Philadelphia until the last couple months I was there. I think a lot of this had to do with the fact that I found people to be a bit slow to warm up to you (my Midwestern super-friendliness can be a bit off-putting) - but also I think it was due to the fact that I had decided to make a career change and wasn’t so stressed out. I wasn’t traveling non-stop, and I wasn’t so tired. I was able to actually hang out and focus on the people around me without a million thoughts running in the back of my mind. Taking some time off work has been so good for me, mentally. (Maybe not so good for my liver, but hey - carpe diem and all that.) I’d pretty much been running non-stop since mid-2009, when I decided to move to the UK, and it has felt so nice to just live. It makes me wonder if it isn’t time already to write that book so that I can spend my days how I would like, and not chasing the clock or stressed out over PowerPoints and Excel. Something tells me I’d be much, much happier.
People have asked me how long I think I’ll be in Germany. The honest answer is that I don’t know, but considering my track record, I’d give myself 18-36 months, tops. I am really excited about the adventure and everyone knows I like a challenge, but I’m not getting any younger and there is a part of me that would like to eventually settle down. Of course, my version of settling down involves an island, a generous income and the freedom to travel as much as I want so maybe I have a bit more work to do on my 401k before that can happen ;).
They say that home is the place that when you go there, they have to take you in. I prefer saying that it is the place that, when you go there, they want to take you in. And I now have three homes - Cincinnati, London and Conshohocken - with wonderful people and memories in each. I don’t know if Germany will end up being another refuge - but what gives me strength for this journey is knowing that I have not one, but three places to land if this doesn’t all work out.
I’m pretty sure that my Internet Key (the weird USB thing I have to use) is about to start smoking and explode, so that’s all for now on this cool, grey and lazy Sunday in Ingelheim.
E-Fed out.

Sprechen Sie Englisch?

So I arrived in Frankfurt after a fairly uneventful 8 hour flight from Philadelphia. I say uneventful because for only the second time in my life, I slept through nearly the entire flight. (The first time was coming back from Cincinnati after I found out my mom was sick and dying). I have my good friends in Philly to thank for my exhaustion, as they treated me to nearly a week long going-away extravaganza, complete with more alcohol than any living person needs to be drinking in such a short time. By the time I got to the airport, I could barely keep my eyes open and at one point, I did doze off in the Admirals Club and then wake up in a puddle of my own drool. Classy, all the way. That’s me.
After collecting my 4 huge suitcases, I began what ended up being an hour long adventure of “find the driver”. My company had arranged for a driver to pick me up. As I didn’t have a working cell phone upon landing, we agreed to meet in “Arrivals”. Apparently, in Germany, “Arrivals” translates to “Level B, Departures”. Adding insult to injury was that I had no way to contact my company because it was before working hours and so I was just rolling this huge cart of luggage around, looking like a pale, cracked-out Fraggle in desperate need of sleep.
I picked up my car at the Autohaus (love that word - it makes so much sense!), and discovered that i had reserved a mid-size Skoda. I really wasn’t sure what I had ordered, as my conversations with das Autohaus consisted of emails of basically pictures and a language I’m quickly coming to know called  “Germlish”. The car is nice, although it doesn’t have a navigation system so I’ve had to go old school in terms of getting around. It’s also a manual transmission, which I have really missed.
Note to all readers: If you learned to successfully navigate roundabouts in the UK, and you are jet-lagged and in a new town, you might want to pay just a bit more attention while driving. I was cruising along and I saw the roundy-roundy (as I call it) sign. I thought “Oh, snap, I got this” and proceed to look LEFT. Dammit, England, ye hath ruined me for roundabouts. Good thing there was other traffic or I’m pretty sure I would have gone the wrong way around. In fact, going on a roundabout on the right side just does not feel correct.
I made it to my temporary (6 months) flat with minimal fuss, seeing as how I had the foresight to write down directions before I left the US. Something told me that might be a good idea, and I’m so glad I did. My flat is in the center of Ingelheim (which isn’t that big as far as I can tell) directly on a reasonably busy road. There is a gate and a “driveway” (in quotes because it is basically as wide as my car plus about 4 inches - I kid you not). There are four garages, of which I have #3 - but none of them are marked, which resulted in my picking one at random and leaving a note on the car. I tried calling and texting the landlady but she didn’t respond, so here’s hoping my car doesn’t get towed.
My apartment is a decent size and it is on what they call the third floor, which really is FIVE flights of steps. No lift. FIVE FLIGHTS OF STEPS + JET LAG + FOUR HEAVY SUITCASES = being less than amused upon arrival. I eventually got all the luggage up the stairs without injuring myself, which I count as a major win.
The flat is four rooms - a HUGE bathroom (why it is so big, I have no idea), a medium size bedroom with minimal closet space, a larger office (bigger than the bedroom, again - weird) and a medium size kitchen. It’s decently appointed but clearly for temporary use. The TV is only slightly larger than my computer screen. The bed is NOT COMFORTABLE. I MISS MY BED. I know I can suck it up for six months, but when my bed arrives, I swear it is going to be a near-religious experience. Everything is small, like in London. Small refrigerator and teeny freezer. Washing machine (no dryer). But it is clean, and safe and I don’t have to share and so I’m pretty happy.
The first thing I tried to do upon arrival was get a working German phone number. Turns out I can’t do so without a German bank account (which I will get on Tuesday). So I had to get pre-paid, which comes with a cap data of 250MB. I’m pretty sure I can use 250 MB on one text message. So my data has been off and I have felt disconnected from the earth. I then tried to use the internet in my flat - I have this odd USB key from T-mobile. I went to install it and it told me I needed Java 6… which I had to download from the internet. See the problem? Yeah. So I gave up and went to the local grocery story (Rewe) for supplies. Turns out you can’t get a grocery cart without 1 Euro. I didn’t think I had a Euro (turns out that I did, but in my tired state I had forgotten that I had switched purses and all the Euro were in my purse). I was flummoxed. I tried asking a few people for help and NO ONE SPOKE ENGLISH. There is no acceptable mime for “I need a Euro for the cart and all I have is American money”. I was sort of just standing there, wondering if I really did want to eat after all, when a very nice woman walked over and said “Here, you hafs one Euro!” and put a coin in my hand. I thanked her profusely (the German I do know) and she just smiled. So I guess there are good people in this world.
I will go into the grocery store later, but suffice it to say it is really fun to shop when you don’t know the words for anything. Sometimes there were pictures and sometimes it was a guessing game. What is the German word for Garlic? I don’t know. What about almond milk? Cough medicine? And so, and so forth. I did manage to basically get what I needed with a minimum of frustration but I can’t wait for my German lessons and for working data on my phone so I can use the translator.
I then came home, put everything away and proceeded to sleep for about 21 hours. Woke up today and have only left the bed because I had to sort out the internet situation or lose my mind. So I walked to the town center (about 5 min away) and went into a cafe that showed up on my Wifi list. Turns out they have wifi, but it would not work on my computer. It worked on my phone, but that was it. I was able to use it to translate enough to figure out that if I sat in the center square (outside), I could pay 5 euro for T-mobile hotspot to download the damn Java 6. So, after a nice salad and salmon tartare, that is exactly what I did. I then went to a store called Muller (but with the funny u) to get some hand wash, and to try to find cough medicine and a washcloth. Again, no one spoke a lick of English. I found most of what I wanted in the store (yay, washcloth!) but needed help for the medicine. It basically devolved into me pointing at my throat, making an “ouch” face and then coughing heavily. I have no idea what she gave me - one is a box of tablets I’m supposed to suck every 2 hours (thank you, Google translate) and the other is - inexplicably - Eucalyptus oil that not even Google translate can make heads or tails of the directions. But it is “Husten -und - Erkaltungs-tropfen” that is supposed to “Lindernd be Erkaltungsbeschwerden”. So I hope that means something good.
So, learnings so far:
- If I ever move again, I don’t care what it costs, I’m getting some sort of international phone plan.
- This “everyone speaks English” is for the birds. They don’t. Maybe in Frankfurt, and I’m sure in my company but not in this town.
- Not knowing the language is sort of fun when on holiday, but really frustrating when you want to buy garlic and onion salt, or cough medicine, or ask if they have a loyalty card at the store. I have seriously taken for granted my ability to piece together Spanish and Italian based on my French. German will be fun to learn but is extra annoying because I can understand every third word but those words don’t really help me.
- Pillows. Bring pillows.