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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)

#141

Post by zizee »

geowwy wrote: post #137
fit2rule wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also from Perth, lived around the world, including some years in Germany .. had the same set of observations. On this: >I always wonder why Australia seems such an angry place after travelling abroad. I think Australia has a lot of deep pain in its history, and in its culture, and this manifests in a hostility. Every time I go back, I wonder why its such an angry shithole. Australians just seem to be getting madd…

I've traveled around a bit but haven't noticed Australians are more angry than anyone else. Interested in this comment.

I'm not sure if it is a thing unique to Australia, but there are seem to be a lot of Australian's that have a chip on their shoulder and will tell anyone that will listen to them about how badly Australian's do things/behave. I suspect they have not traveled very much, or just feel better doing something similar to self-flagellation. Like anywhere Australia has it's issues, but in general things are pretty good compared to most countries in the world.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#142

Post by zizee »

lucb1e wrote: post #3

> [My car is] impractical with only two doors and four seats I like four doors, but only two isn't too bad (drove one of those for five years). Seats though, is it normal to own a bus in Australia? The people I would expect to own a car with more than two rows of seats are families with 4+ kids, which is nobody here. I've recently been thinking about a 2-seater to save on gas/CO2 since I have no kids anyway and you c…

> Seats though, is it normal to own a bus in Australia?

Two of our last cars have been 7 seaters. Neither have been "buses", just a fold up seat in the boot section. Quite comfortable, even for an adult.

> The people I would expect to own a car with more than two rows of seats are families with 4+ kids, which is nobody here.

We're a family of 5, and whilst we can fit it a standard five-seater, as soon as we have a +1 which is fairly common with friends of our kids you either need two cars, or a 7 seater.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#143

Post by zizee »

fit2rule wrote: post #129
marcus_holmes wrote: post #124

I moved from Perth to Berlin. The biggest thing that hit me was the alcohol. I can buy a (good!) beer at anytime (even 3am) for about 2 euros from a spati ("late shop"- like a deli but mostly selling beer), and then walk around in the open air drinking it. All the supermarkets sell alcohol all day(and so cheap). People gather by the canals in summer, just drinking and talking. No-one seems to get drunk, there's no vi…

I'm also from Perth, lived around the world, including some years in Germany .. had the same set of observations. On this: >I always wonder why Australia seems such an angry place after travelling abroad. I think Australia has a lot of deep pain in its history, and in its culture, and this manifests in a hostility. Every time I go back, I wonder why its such an angry shithole. Australians just seem to be getting madd…

> Every time I go back, I wonder why its such an angry shithole. Australians just seem to be getting madder and madder...

Anectdata, but the last German I talked to said "When i first arrived in Australia I was really confused by strangers smiling at me in the street and supermarket. My family doesn't understand it, but I want them to visit so that they could experience a different, more relaxed way of life."

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#144

Post by cylinder »

ObsoleteNerd wrote: post #140
fit2rule wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also from Perth, lived around the world, including some years in Germany .. had the same set of observations. On this: >I always wonder why Australia seems such an angry place after travelling abroad. I think Australia has a lot of deep pain in its history, and in its culture, and this manifests in a hostility. Every time I go back, I wonder why its such an angry shithole. Australians just seem to be getting madd…

I’m from Australia, lived a decent portion of my life overseas in various countries, and traveled extensively (never lived anywhere more than a year in my life). I’ve always noticed Australians in general are very easy to get mad, take things the wrong way, etc. I’m constantly surprised by how many of my friends have so much loud hatred for things that seem so.. trivial? I’m constantly made fun of for being a “hippy”…

People raised in Australia are just used to things being easy and when they're not they get grumpy. Which is happening more as the population grows and the big cities become proper cities and not giant suburbs. It's even happening to me as a migrant after becoming too comfortable. Also read comments pages on press sites and blogs etc. They have no sense of perspective for their complaints as they've spent no time living anywhere else.

Another issue is cultural cringe.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#146

Post by Semaphor »

dirkt wrote: post #87
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 keyboa…

I use an adapted US-Intl layout that removes the deadkeys and Ctrl+Alt+o becomes ö (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+O Ö) and the same for the other Umlauts. Took some getting used to not doing "o for ö anymore, but it’s great for programming.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#147

Post by rorykoehler »

djrobstep wrote: post #118
bitL wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the same problem as Russia. Only a tiny part of the country/continent is populated, the population is spread along coasts, and even that not continuously. Building advanced trains is not economical, they won't service sufficient population per km traveled.

People often say this, but I'm skeptical the raw distances are the problem at all. I think it's simply a lack of vision. Melbourne-Sydney is not much longer than Barcelona-Madrid, Which is served by a very successful high speed train route.

Airlines will try block it at every step

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#148

Post by cylinder »

djrobstep wrote: post #118
bitL wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the same problem as Russia. Only a tiny part of the country/continent is populated, the population is spread along coasts, and even that not continuously. Building advanced trains is not economical, they won't service sufficient population per km traveled.

People often say this, but I'm skeptical the raw distances are the problem at all. I think it's simply a lack of vision. Melbourne-Sydney is not much longer than Barcelona-Madrid, Which is served by a very successful high speed train route.

Spain has govt debt of 100% of GDP too.

Flying between Melbourne and Sydney is incredibly easy and will only get easier when the western Sydney airport opens. There's nothing and nobody between the two cities worth putting stops at.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#149

Post by zizee »

friendlybus wrote: post #81
BFLpL0QNek wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Which is a questionable behaviour...

It's a questionable statement. I haven't ever had this happen to me in Australia.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#150

Post by cylinder »

chillfox wrote: post #63
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…

I don't know about trains, but where I live in Australia buses can be up to one hour late.

I live in Sydney and my train is literally never late, always to the minute. I'm just slightly out of peak (just after 9am).
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