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Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

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Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#21

Post by mtmail »

learnstats2 wrote: post #16
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…

> 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.

"In Germany, there are two kinds of "on time". So far [2017], 94.2% of trains have reached their final destination within six minutes of the scheduled time, and 98.9% within 16 minutes."

The article also goes into detail how every country measures punctuality differently.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42024020

(Yes, Germans love to complain about the train company)

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#22

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#23

Post by quelltext »

lainga wrote: post #13
doopfoopdoop wrote: post #7

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

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 cannot afford to avoid it.

On the other hand there are not that many countries I can think of with high standard of living and minimum wage where food is consistently great even when comparatively cheap.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#24

Post by FabHK »

doopfoopdoop wrote: post #7

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

> Everyday German food is absolutely horrendous. […] It is the worst of the seven countries I've lived in, by far.

Lucky you, sounds like you haven’t lived in countries with bad food.

First, everyday food in Germany is also Italian, Turkish, Croatian, Lebanese, etc. - delicious cuisines. Second, there is plenty of good traditional German food (Käsespätzle, Leberkäse, Currywurst, Rouladen, Bratkartoffeln, Erbsensuppe, Schnitzel, not to mention the huge variety of bread, cold cuts, and cheese). It’s not haute cuisine, but tasty. Third, even the run-of-the-mill everyday German (Schnitzel, Pommes, Salat) is not as bad as you make it out to be. Lastly, any larger city will have somewhat decent instantiations of other cuisines available, too.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#26

Post by sjwright »

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…

> is it normal to own a bus in Australia?

No. The market for three row vehicles exists but is small, served mostly by a few mid-sized* SUVs with a third row only suitable for small children. Most people I know with families of 5 make do with two row vehicles.

The modal private car in Australia is a five door hatchback (Mazda 3, Toyota Corolla) closely followed by the compact* crossover (Mazda CX-5, Toyota RAV4, Subaru Forester). Work vehicles are dominated by "utes", which are small or medium* pickup trucks (Toyota HiLux, Ford Ranger).

Three door/two row cars used to be common as the base ("poverty") specification of some small economy hatchbacks—but it appears this trend has completely died away. Toyota's cheapest new vehicle is a five door, for example. Three door/two row hatchbacks are horrid things: worse for the customer in every respect and any cost savings probably offset by increased chassis development costs and SKU counts.

* Per the North American lexicon. Australia and the rest of the world sizes cars a bit differently.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#27

Post by lucb1e »

FabHK wrote: post #24
doopfoopdoop wrote: post #7

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

> Everyday German food is absolutely horrendous. […] It is the worst of the seven countries I've lived in, by far. Lucky you, sounds like you haven’t lived in countries with bad food. First, everyday food in Germany is also Italian, Turkish, Croatian, Lebanese, etc. - delicious cuisines. Second, there is plenty of good traditional German food (Käsespätzle, Leberkäse, Currywurst, Rouladen, Bratkartoffeln, Erbsensuppe,…

What (kind(s) of) countries would you say have bad food?

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#28

Post by looki »

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…

I was actually almost happy when the other day, my train in the Netherlands got cancelled and I had to wait a full hour for another connection. Good to know you're human as well.

Self checkouts are definitely a thing here, although typically not in small grocery stores. Larger stores like Edeka, Real, Ikea, Hornbach have them where I live. I'm aware that even the small stores like AH in city centers have them in NL though, which is nice.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#29

Post by lucb1e »

onreact wrote: post #2

Some fun albeit superficial information. You forgot to mention that Australians are not simply allowed to move here. Having a job or at least money to support yourself is a prerequisite. A friend of my wife is from Australia and she had a hard time to prove she's not a burden to Germany even though she basically lives off renting her house in Australia and selling her art so that she is quite well off. Also Germany l…

> People from Africa or Asia routinely get held at extraterritorial prisons indefinitely.

I'm going to need a source on that. As someone living in Germany (am Dutch), I've never heard of this. Either the government is good at controlling the media, the media don't care, or it's not happening, and the latter seems most likely to me but if you have (a) reliable source(s) I'm fully prepared to learn something new and be convinced.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#30

Post by FabHK »

onreact wrote: post #2

Some fun albeit superficial information. You forgot to mention that Australians are not simply allowed to move here. Having a job or at least money to support yourself is a prerequisite. A friend of my wife is from Australia and she had a hard time to prove she's not a burden to Germany even though she basically lives off renting her house in Australia and selling her art so that she is quite well off. Also Germany l…

Immigration can be a bit unfriendly (like in many countries), and your treatment might depend on your origin or citizenship (for obvious reasons), but it is quite a claim to insinuate racism or racist motivation.

The claim that people “routinely get held at extraterritorial prisons indefinitely“ is wrong, I’d say. Do substantiate it.

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