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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)

#181

Post by CodesInChaos »

coldtea wrote: post #41
lucb1e wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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... If you're gonna miss a plane because a train is more than 5 minutes late (I'm guessing closer to 10 or so, not 30), then you didn't plan your trip to the airport that well...

10 mins delay is often enough to miss a connecting train, forcing you to wait for the next one, which is typically 1h later than the previous one. So planning for a 1-2h delay on a multi-leg train journey is prudent, if you need to be on time.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#182

Post by ericmay »

fit2rule wrote: post #176
ericmay wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first I’m hearing about concentration camps in Australia. Could you elaborate? When I think concentration camps I’m thinking about what’s going on in China - what is going on in Australia?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_immigration_detenti... See also: https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/our-detention-centres-are-int...

Those aren't concentration camps. You might be able to argue on a technical definition that they are, but that's not how the term is used in everyday language.

I'm kind of getting annoyed by everyone throwing around the term concentration camp. It's like when we were calling everyone a Nazi.

Concentration camps are what's going on in China. People in their own country are being rounded up, murdered, raped, harvested, forced to work, and other horrific things because of their religious beliefs, nationality, or political beliefs.

When someone gets on a boat and tries to immigrate to Australia or any other country without the proper paperwork and then they are held in a center until the government figures out what to do with them (i.e. not harvesting their fucking organs) that is absolutely not a concentration camp.

When you try and create this false equivalency between a real concentration camp and a detention center, you devalue what a concentration camp is, and the terrible experiences of the victims of the holocaust. When people think concentration camp, they are horrified. When you call these detention centers concentration camps, they start forgetting what a concentration camp actually is, and start associating it with these detention centers. It actually enables white supremacists; what great gift you're giving them when they can gaslight us into thinking that Jews were just held at these detention centers and not these horrific concentration camps.

That's not ok. These aren't concentration camps. It's not even close to the same thing, and be propagating this idea that they are, you devalue past experiences, lessen the horrors that people are currently experiencing, and generally make the world a worse place to live.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#183

Post by Koshkin »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #155

Honestly it's getting to the point in North America that I'm seriously considering uprooting the family and transferring to my company's Munich office. My father is from Germany and I have cousins and aunts there. If I could dig up the proper birth certificates and paperwork I could probably get a passport. Quality of life seems like it would just be better. Unfortunately we have chickens, and a border collie ... so.…

What is “getting to the point in North America”??

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#184

Post by fit2rule »

ericmay wrote: post #182
fit2rule wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_immigration_detenti... See also: https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/our-detention-centres-are-int...

Those aren't concentration camps. You might be able to argue on a technical definition that they are, but that's not how the term is used in everyday language. I'm kind of getting annoyed by everyone throwing around the term concentration camp. It's like when we were calling everyone a Nazi. Concentration camps are what's going on in China. People in their own country are being rounded up, murdered, raped, harvested,…

Well, you have a right to disagree, but there is absolutely no reason for these camps to be called anything other than concentration camps, since their purpose is to concentrate refugees off-shore in order to deny legal access to them, and to ensure international laws on the subject of refugees do not apply.

You may not like it, but given Australia's history for inspiring tyranny, these concentration camps are a heinous thing for the Australian people to be supporting - in any way.

I live within spitting distance of your 'real' concentration camps - Mauthausen - and I have worked with refugees from the Wests' illegal wars for over a decade now.

I'm very much afraid that calling the Australian camps 'dention centres' is a propaganda effort by the Australian government to ensure its own people have no responsibility for what happens in them. If these camps were on the mainland, Australian civic society would have oversight - and this is a can of worms for which Australians, particularly its war-monger classes, are ill-prepared.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#185

Post by bitL »

nmnim wrote: post #119
bitL wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I lived in Frankfurt for a year and now I live in England. I was so frustrated at DB and RMV when my trains were a bit late (3-5 mins for RMV, 15-20 for long DB) once in a while. Now I take a regular train from my town to a city and I've literally only caught it on time TWICE in two years. Usually 20-30 minutes late or suddenly cancelled. Trains here are a whole different level of bad.

Privatisation did "wonders" to British rail transport system...

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#186

Post by ericmay »

fit2rule wrote: post #184
ericmay wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those aren't concentration camps. You might be able to argue on a technical definition that they are, but that's not how the term is used in everyday language. I'm kind of getting annoyed by everyone throwing around the term concentration camp. It's like when we were calling everyone a Nazi. Concentration camps are what's going on in China. People in their own country are being rounded up, murdered, raped, harvested,…

Well, you have a right to disagree, but there is absolutely no reason for these camps to be called anything other than concentration camps, since their purpose is to concentrate refugees off-shore in order to deny legal access to them, and to ensure international laws on the subject of refugees do not apply. You may not like it, but given Australia's history for inspiring tyranny, these concentration camps are a hein…

It's ok to be critical of how Australia is handling people trying to cross into their country without going through the proper process. I don't think it's ok, at all, to call these detention centers "concentration camps" given what's currently going on in the world and what has happened in the past. It's simply not ok. That you live next to Mauthausen and you still think it's ok is baffling to me.

I've gone to places like the Holocaust Museum in the United States and witnessed the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis, people being executed, starved to death, gassed, forced into slavery (many of which currently going on with China's new Holocaust of Muslims) and I simply don't see those same activities being systematically conducted by the Australian (or any western) government. It's just not even remotely the same and I don't know how you can justify coming to that conclusion.

Even if you thought that these governments were doing much worse than what may be in view of the public, I'm bewildered as to why you would think that intentionally equating concentration camps (Nazis and Chinese) with detention centers is in any way helpful. Do you think when the Nazis rounded up Jews they gave them medical care and food and water?

Maybe you should revisit Mauthausen and get a more proper perspective. To me it seems that your work has clouded your judgement.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#187

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#188

Post by petre »

ericmay wrote: post #175
fit2rule wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great Barrier Reef. Concentration camps. Awful pollution stats. Heinous censorship laws. Rotten politics. Racism. There are many things to change about Australia. Sunny dispositions are one thing; true grit to make the effort to change things, something else ..

This is the first I’m hearing about concentration camps in Australia. Could you elaborate? When I think concentration camps I’m thinking about what’s going on in China - what is going on in Australia?

They're not in Australia but offshore in Nauru and other islands.

https://g.co/kgs/Ju5EzM

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#189

Post by petre »

ericmay wrote: post #186
fit2rule wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you have a right to disagree, but there is absolutely no reason for these camps to be called anything other than concentration camps, since their purpose is to concentrate refugees off-shore in order to deny legal access to them, and to ensure international laws on the subject of refugees do not apply. You may not like it, but given Australia's history for inspiring tyranny, these concentration camps are a hein…

It's ok to be critical of how Australia is handling people trying to cross into their country without going through the proper process. I don't think it's ok, at all, to call these detention centers "concentration camps" given what's currently going on in the world and what has happened in the past. It's simply not ok. That you live next to Mauthausen and you still think it's ok is baffling to me. I've gone to places…

Read this then:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/worl...

Sorry about the amp link. NYT paywall bypass.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#190

Post by benhurmarcel »

cjslep wrote: post #101
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.

As someone who moved to Switzerland from America, Germans and Germany seems easier to integrate with than integrating in Switzerland. To be fair, I'm learning High German and not my local Schwiizertüütsch.

German-speaking Swiss is like Germany on hard mode
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