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Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

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Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#91

Post by incompatible »

netsharc wrote: post #65
incompatible wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true in Australia, in any case, at least for people who arrive by boat or are on the way to deportation. I assume most Australians who work in Germany would have an EU citizenship by descent from their parents: not so unusual given the number of immigrants in Australia.

Actually it's quite easy to get a residence/work permit in the EU: https://www.apply.eu/BlueCard/Germany/Germany.pdf You more or less just need a university degree, a valid job offer, and you'll get a permit. For IT jobs they don't even demand that you're someone who's highly sought after in the field and whom the employer is willing to pay a lot more, the wage mentioned there is more or less entry level for IT gradu…

Interesting. It looks like the paperwork would be a lot easier if you obtain a degree in Germany, which is probably a good thing to do in any case.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#92

Post by fit2rule »

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…

As an Australian who also moved to Germany and Austria, I can say that the trains are very impressive in this part of the world - until you go to Berlin.

Berlin trains will drive you absolutely mad. I was fine with German trains - impressed, even - until I tried to get around Berlin for a few weeks by way of the local train systems. The only thing I can compare it to, is British trains, which are absolutely terrible .. Berlin is like that.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#93

Post by lumberjack »

If you want to move to Germany don't underestimate how hard it is to have a social life around here, especially if moving alone. It is the one thing that seems a constant, whenever I talk with other foreigners. Even Germans seem to find it hard to have friends when they relocate away from their previous social lives.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#94

Post by usr1106 »

netsharc wrote: post #65
incompatible wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true in Australia, in any case, at least for people who arrive by boat or are on the way to deportation. I assume most Australians who work in Germany would have an EU citizenship by descent from their parents: not so unusual given the number of immigrants in Australia.

Actually it's quite easy to get a residence/work permit in the EU: https://www.apply.eu/BlueCard/Germany/Germany.pdf You more or less just need a university degree, a valid job offer, and you'll get a permit. For IT jobs they don't even demand that you're someone who's highly sought after in the field and whom the employer is willing to pay a lot more, the wage mentioned there is more or less entry level for IT gradu…

> Actually it's quite easy to get a residence/work permit in the EU

EU has nothing to do with your residence/work permit. That is a national process and the rules differ (If you have a residence permit in EU you free to travel, but not to work in the whole EU.)

We just discussed the issue at work (Finland) the other day. We get a lot of applicants from outside of EU and not many local ones. The official duration to handle an application for a work permit is 4 months. That includes only the time when the authorities "have the ball", not the time they are requesting additional information. So in practice better plan for 6 months. Which employer is willing to wait 6 months for a new employee they don't really know yet?

Germany is officially searching for non-EU IT workers. Whether that makes the process much smoother I don't know. I remember reading the number of successful cases has been disappointing.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#95

Post by esrauch »

lucb1e wrote: post #37
learnstats2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The long-distance ones only arrive within 5 minutes 75% of the time. By standards I am familiar with, that's good. Last time I checked, my local train station had trains arriving within 10 minutes only 50% of the time.

75% punctual is good? Because I usually use the long-distance train when I need to go somewhere, not to go for a drink, and having a 1 in 4 chance of being late at a customer's or missing a plane... I dunno, that's not really a chance you want to take, so you end up planning for 1-2 hours of delay every single time, depending on how bad it is if you're late due to no fault of your own (a departing plane won't care bu…

When I used to take Amtrak in the US routinely for a 6 hour ride I believe it was 0% punctual by a definition much much weaker than that. I don't believe it was literally ever delayed less than 30 minutes.

Also in the US airports you can't always rely on security being less than 30 minutes (barring TSA precheck), so the idea of missing a flight because the train was 10 minutes late is an absurd thought here.

I lived in Europe for the past couple years and as an American it really is shocking how drastic the understanding of public transit fundamentally is in the minds of the public at large.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#96

Post by _ph_ »

blattimwind wrote: post #31
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…

You can eat very cheaply in Germany, but if you do that, you probably can't complain about the quality.

Food prices are very low in Germany. They are extremely low, if you cook yourself and even restaurants are not that expensive in international comparison.

But indeed, if you go to extremely cheap places, you can have really bad food too - but that is independant of the food style. They make bad Italian food too :).

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#97

Post by vinay427 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #57
glofish wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ok but the California Zephyr covers 4000 km - that's like going from Madrid to Moscow - I doubt any train or set of trains over that distance ever arrives on time.

Amtrak doesn't fare much better when you evaluate it on smaller sections of the routes. Not owning the rails tends to put them at the mercy of freight trains. I've seen some of the longer routes on https://asm.transitdocs.com/map have 1-2 day delays marked at times. I arrived eight hours late the last time I went from Rochester to NYC (~500 km). Look at https://asm.transitdocs.com/train/2019/12/13/19 and you'll see i…

I live in Switzerland and in my anecdotal experience with only a few samples of each (which is not statistically valid but affects my immediate perception nonetheless), Amtrak has been somewhere around as punctual as Deutsche Bahn including on Amtrak's longer routes. The long-distance Amtrak routes also have far more comfortable rolling stock, but that's only natural for a 10+ hour route.

I once took a Czech train which was perfectly on time to connect with a German train which was delayed enough that I'd miss my next German train, except that delay ended up not mattering because the second German train was also delayed, but then the second train was completely canceled so I ended up waiting in a random city to be rerouted on completely different trains.

I'm sure DB is better than Amtrak in general, but the current state of DB is much more pathetic to me given its better performance in the past (AFAIK, tried to find data on this). The infrastructure and political will seem to exist to do better, which isn't generally the case with Amtrak, so it seems less excusable to me.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#98

Post by chrisco255 »

RileyJames wrote: post #78
chrisco255 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You linked climate data that included 1981-2010. When you actually search all of the historic data in the drop down, you'll find that there's no significant trend in # of days >35C since 1861. 1981-2010 did show 10.8 for that figure, but the periods 1871-1900, 1881-1910, 1891-1920, and 1901-1930 all showed around the same figure, at 10.8, 11.2, 11.1, and 10.2 respectively. It looks more like a cyclical trend in Melbo…

“It’s getting hotter” was based on “all data” vs 81-2010. Which shows an increase. (>30, 30 -> 32.1 & >35, 10 -> 10.8) Additionally based on an abc podcast, the signal, which stated that since 1987 summer temperatures have been above average. [the signal]( https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/the-signal/changing-su... ) Let’s not get into a climate change debate. It’s not going to get significantly colder to the poi…

I just quoted four other 30 year periods in the late 1800s and early 1900s that were just as hot or hotter than 81-10. You are just comparing an above average period with an average over 150 years. Ok, that says nothing, if the data set is cyclical and you cherry pick a trough or a peak to make a point, you're being dishonest.

I wouldn't bet that.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#99

Post by himlion »

lumberjack wrote: post #93

If you want to move to Germany don't underestimate how hard it is to have a social life around here, especially if moving alone. It is the one thing that seems a constant, whenever I talk with other foreigners. Even Germans seem to find it hard to have friends when they relocate away from their previous social lives.

Same goes for the Netherlands, it's the number one complaint I hear from expats in Amsterdam.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#100

Post by _ph_ »

quelltext wrote: post #19
doopfoopdoop wrote: post #7

Edit: removed. (My post was too negative and was just me venting.)

I dunno, everyday German food in the South is not that bad. Not bad "because German food" for sure. German food is not that boring or dull. It really depends on the restaurant/cook, though, and yeah, the quality of those is pretty much hit and miss. Still, with some research you can find good ones. Cafeteria food, esp. at universities, forget it. I could never stomach it and rather cooked for myself (lunchbox or just…

Yes, cafeteria food can be increadibly bad to the point where I wonder whether the cooks are especially trained to achieve this. With the same costs as in ingredients, one should be able to make much better food. Also, they often overuse cheap oil, so that can be difficult to stomach.

If you get well cooked German food, a lot is outright excellent, with the style strongly varying across Germany. Northern and southern German cuisine is very different. I personally prefer the southern style. Also, there is quite a bit variation between south-east (Bavarian) and south-west German cooking. In a sense there is a food continuum between France and Austria, with different parts of southern Germany on different points of that continuum.

Likewise, if you go to eastern France, like the Alsace, the French food blends with German cuisine.

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