Happy German Unity Day!

On By StevenIn Life In Germany

Today was my first day on a new schedule to support our German office.  I’m basically working a 9-5 day for Germany now, but since I’m still in Florida, my day starts at 3 AM. (I still don’t have a date for my relocation; we’re still waiting on my paperwork with the German government.)

As you can probably imagine, this has me really turned around and very, very tired.  Luckily for me, my first day on the new schedule wasn’t too busy.  Sophie from our German office told me this morning that today is German Unity Day, and I got to do some reading on that.

I’ve been living with the same basic set of holidays for my entire life so far, and having to get a sense of an entirely new set of holidays is an interesting mental challenge.  I intellectually understand this holiday, but I don’t have a sense of what it really means to Germans-  I don’t know whether this is as big to them as Independence Day is to Americans, or if it’s only observed as much as, say, Flag Day here.

Note to self:  Read up on other German holidays as soon as possible.

Germany

On By StevenIn Life In Germany

I’ve been clearing out an ancient LiveJournal in preparation for deleting the account. While most of the stuff there is utter fluff, a tiny portion of the posts are worth preserving. What follows is one such post. The original was written on the LJ in September of 2011, as I was considering a move to Germany. This blog was actually created the following month, in October.

Details are beginning to emerge regarding my potential stint in Germany.

For those of you who missed the previous post about this, I’ve put my name in for consideration to live and work in Regensburg, Germany. The commitment is supposedly for three years now, up from the one to two years I was originally told. I would be about to turn 42 when I return to the US. That’s kind of fun.

I’m the only person who volunteered for this, so it’s not a competition. If I remain ghung ho, it looks like I’m heading to Germany. Soon. Definitely before 2012.

Apparently I need to travel to Germany to find a place to live, because I have to have a German address in order to even apply for the work permit- German labor laws for foreign nationals are pretty stringent. I’ve seen some of the exchanges between local HR and the folks in Germany, and it’s enlightening, to say the least.

If this all happens, and things look like they’re definitely heading that way, I’ll need to offload a bunch of stuff from my storage unit- the fees involved in storing a house full of furniture for three years are well in advance of what it would cost to simply replace that furniture when I come back. I’m likely giving away my bedroom set, couch, the dining room table, and a bunch of other stuff. I’m keeping my coffee table, damn it. I love that thing.

The area where I’ll be is Regensburg, about an hour outside of Munich. It’s a scenic,temperate place that has a lot of businesses. Siemens is there. There’s a BMW factory. There’s an Ikea.

It looks almost stereotypically German. The Old Stone Bridge, pictured here, is a famous local landmark which was supposedly built by the Romans, so there’s that.

The folks in the office there are all pretty fluent in English, so I’m not going to be totally adrift at first. I plan on getting myself Rosetta Stone, at least level 1, before I head over. I fully expect to be fluent in German after three years there, but my accent will probably be shit. We’ll see.

This is exciting. And terrifying. And happening.

Europe, ho!

On By StevenIn Life In Germany

I’ve been clearing out an ancient LiveJournal in preparation for deleting the account. While most of the stuff there is utter fluff, a tiny portion of the posts are worth preserving. What follows is one such post. The original was written on the LJ in September of 2011, as I was considering a move to Germany. This blog was actually created the following month, in October.

I just put my name in for consideration to live and work in Regensburg, Germany, for between one and two years. I don’t know yet if this will happen, or precisely when it will happen, but it’s an intriguing thought.

The timing couldn’t be more perfect. Right now, I have no mortgage- the house closed this week. I haven’t signed a new lease anywhere yet. Most of my stuff is all in storage. My financial obligations are at their lowest right now that they’ve ever been. I would have to decide what to do with my car- store it with family or sell it- but that’s probably the hardest decision I’d have to make before I left.

If I did wind up doing this, it would give me the opportunity to explore the surrounding countries a little bit at a time- The UK, Spain, France, Italy- all short flights away. And trains could take me to Prague or Budapest or Amsterdam.

I’ll be talking more about this as details emerge, I suspect. It’s possible this will all fall through, and it’s equally possible that details will come up that would make it untenable, but for now, it’s a very interesting possibility of what the next two years of my life might look like.