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Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

blog.alexanderdickson.com

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Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#81

Post by friendlybus »

BFLpL0QNek wrote: post #68
fefe23 wrote: post #45

I would be interested in the other direction. Would anyone from the EU who moved to Australia care to tell us about their experiences?

Trains are meh. The average train speed is 50km/h, so living out in the suburbs is a long slow commute. What should be a 20-30 min journey can be 1hr plus. Forget interstate travel as each state has different line standards. "She'll be right mate" the stereotypical image of Aussies, not so true at least these days. Highly litigious, lots of red tape, and following strict rules, love their fines, if they can fine it t…

>In the EU if you cross the road in a safe manner, cars will back off the accelerator. In Australia, it's a case you shouldn't be on the road, so they speed up intentionally to hit you.

Which is a questionable behaviour because the car driver is usually found to be at fault in most cases whenever a pedestrian is struck. The law favours the pedestrians over the car.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#82

Post by barrkel »

rayiner wrote: post #71
fefe23 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany does not have extraterritorial prison colonies. I think this is a combination of hyperbole and choosing the wrong word. Germany does have housing for refugees and asylum seekers while they wait for asylum to be granted or denied, and the conditions there might be construed as prison-like depending on your political point of view. Technically it's not a prison. Asylum seekers are not permitted to do paid work,…

Your first point is extremely ignorant. The mess in the Middle East was mainly created by the Ottoman Empire consolidating disparate ethnicities and religions into one empire, and then Europe’s dissection of it after WWI (dividing it between Britain and France). The US inherited the mess afterward. Syria, for example, is ruled by an Alawite minority. The Ottomans oppressed them and tried to convert them to Sunni Isla…

The problem with the ME is oil (resource curse) and Dutch disease creating the conditions for kleptocratic authoritarian states. I don't think a different slicing would have avoided the dysfunction much. Hopefully a post-hydrocarbon economy will rebalance things; meanwhile, Trump literally thinks that the US is involved in the ME to take oil.

The biggest problem of late was the US neocons thinking that overthrowing the previous set of kleptocrats would have a positive outcome. I think it's clear now that wasn't correct.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#83

Post by keiferski »

quelltext wrote: post #23
lainga wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame. If a country can't show you its culinary best at a university cafeteria, where else can you go?

There it is: Don't eat at cheap places. I really wouldn't bash a country's food based on bottom tier experience. I have to agree though that it's easy to end up in a bad place and in Germany there's no limit to how disgusting it can get. Germans do seem to have a higher tolerance for this. Of course nothing beats the university cafeteria but I don't know anyone who likes that food, it's just that the typical student…

The low-cost food in Japan is still quite tasty and of good quality.

Edit: I’d probably add Poland to the same camp. Basic food is still quite good.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#85

Post by [deleted] »

keiferski wrote: post #83
quelltext wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There it is: Don't eat at cheap places. I really wouldn't bash a country's food based on bottom tier experience. I have to agree though that it's easy to end up in a bad place and in Germany there's no limit to how disgusting it can get. Germans do seem to have a higher tolerance for this. Of course nothing beats the university cafeteria but I don't know anyone who likes that food, it's just that the typical student…

The low-cost food in Japan is still quite tasty and of good quality. Edit: I’d probably add Poland to the same camp. Basic food is still quite good.

[deleted]

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#86

Post by wander_homer »

coldtea wrote: post #40
looki wrote: post #9

Regarding the trains, >They are usually on time and cover basically everywhere worth visiting in Europe. He has a very ungerman definition of usually on time :) There's probably not a bigger laughing stock in Germany than our trains (Okay, there is BER). The long-distance ones only arrive within 5 minutes 75% of the time [1]. If you have tight transfers to make, that can get very annoying. I also thought the ICE and…

> He has a very ungerman definition of usually on time :) There's probably not a bigger laughing stock in Germany than our trains (Okay, there is BER). The long-distance ones only arrive within 5 minutes 75% of the time [1]. If you have tight transfers to make, that can get very annoying. Then don't arrange for "tight transfers"? If "within 5 minutes" (or close, I'm guessing the rest of the time would be some "unbear…

Their official route planer uses those "tight transfers" by default and calls them "Normal transfer duration".

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#87

Post by dirkt »

quelltext wrote: post #8

> It’s also more difficult for me as a I have a US layout keyboard at home and a German layout at work. I'd hate tp be forced to use a specific layout governed by my employer and I'm glad it's not been a problem so far to get a replacement keyboard with US layout. It's pretty common nowadays for developers to simply prefer the US layout if their country's is not great, like the German one that makes typing braces etc…

> It's pretty common nowadays for developers to simply prefer the US layout if their country's is not great

For a long time, I've been using a modifcation of the US layout with an additional modifier giving me äöüÄÜÖß in the places where they would be on a German keyboard.

Works very well, as I need []{}\| much more frequently than the umlauts.

And as it's a OS layout change, it works no matter if the physical keyboard has German or US layout.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#88

Post by enqk »

bitL wrote: post #79
looki wrote: post #9

Regarding the trains, >They are usually on time and cover basically everywhere worth visiting in Europe. He has a very ungerman definition of usually on time :) There's probably not a bigger laughing stock in Germany than our trains (Okay, there is BER). The long-distance ones only arrive within 5 minutes 75% of the time [1]. If you have tight transfers to make, that can get very annoying. I also thought the ICE and…

Heuristics for train delays: Does the train pass Frankfurt? Add 15-30 minutes. Otherwise expect your train within 5 minutes of its scheduled arrival/departure.

Yes unfortunately we made that experience many times.

When you buy tickets from bahn.de, increase the default connection time, theirs is way too low and results in missed connections frequently.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#89

Post by bori5 »

FabHK wrote: post #11
quelltext wrote: post #8

> It’s also more difficult for me as a I have a US layout keyboard at home and a German layout at work. I'd hate tp be forced to use a specific layout governed by my employer and I'm glad it's not been a problem so far to get a replacement keyboard with US layout. It's pretty common nowadays for developers to simply prefer the US layout if their country's is not great, like the German one that makes typing braces etc…

At any rate, learn to to touch type blind, and then switch to your preferred keyboard layout in software (and ignore what’s printed on the keys). My mom can do it; I’d expect any programmer to be able to do it.

being able to program does not necessarily mean you can touch type blind

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#90

Post by rurban »

netsharc wrote: post #67
looki wrote: post #9

Regarding the trains, >They are usually on time and cover basically everywhere worth visiting in Europe. He has a very ungerman definition of usually on time :) There's probably not a bigger laughing stock in Germany than our trains (Okay, there is BER). The long-distance ones only arrive within 5 minutes 75% of the time [1]. If you have tight transfers to make, that can get very annoying. I also thought the ICE and…

And he praises the food in the ICE trains... It shows he's Australian and earned a lot at BMW, the food on ICE trains are severely overpriced.

Could be that he used a czech ICE train operating the Prague-Berlin line over Dresden. This is mostly on time and serves good czech food. I wouldn't recommend eating on German trains as foreigner. Germans have similar food standards as British, the lowest end of the food chain. EDIT: Bavaria is different though. They actually have a different food tradition, more towards the more civilised countries Austria, Czech, Italy.
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