Flights are booked!

Roland: Things are getting serious now since we have booked our flights to Europe. We will have a stopover in London, and to ease the transition from Anglo to German culture, we decided to spend a few days in England's capital before we fly home to Düsseldorf. We will leave on April 30th with destination London and arrive in Düsseldorf on May 4th. We are starting to get excited!

Also, we had to wave another goodbye today, this time to our trusted and beloved Audi A3, maybe the best car we owned so far. We are both pretty sad that it cannot accompany us on our trip to Europe, but this would just have been too expensive. But it would certainly be nice if we could buy another Audi in Germany, and I already laid my eyes on a certain model...

Lots of errands to run!!!!

Roland: I am back in Canada for a week now, and Sonja keeps me REALLY busy with all kinds of errands, e.g. to deal with our bank, our real estate guy, and the notary, to have our Audi appraised for the lease return, to prepare the move that will happen next week and so on, and so forth...

Currently my most important job is to get rid of junk (fortunately we do not have a lot of THAT!). Some of our stuff can be donated, other sold on Craigslist and the likes, or given to friends and colleagues, and so I continue to clean out the closets and cupboards, while the wife is still working.

Moving boxes will be delivered tomorrow, so the weekend will be all about packing up!

Another Day, Another Interview

Saarschleife

Roland: The next day the alarm clock rang at a more reasonable time, and at 8 AM I was on the highway to Saarland, a small Bundesland (= state in US; province in Canada) at the French border.

The job interview was in a small town right at river Saar. I felt very welcome, and it was a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere as I already knew some of the people at the company from a previous life. This job opportunity certainly made it on my short list!

Saarburg in Rhineland-Pfalz(Palatinate)

A Day in Bavaria

Roland: I had a job interview in Salzburg, Austria, right at the Bavarian border. This meant setting the alarm clock too early for my taste (4:30 AM) to catch the first flight out of Dusseldorf. With arrival at 8:30 AM, but the interview arranged for 4 PM, there was more than enough time left in the day to explore.

I rented a car to check out the cities on the German side of the border, just in case that the interview went well, and we would have to look for a place to live. Unfortunately it was a very cold day, and with the jet lag taking its toll, I did not have the energy to leave the warmth of the car for too long.

I had breakfast in Bad Reichenhall, an old German spa town with various salines, and had a look around. It is a very beautiful city in the German Alps, surrounded by snow covered mountains. Spring was still a couple of weeks away, though. This picturesque area could definitely be a good place for us to live, although we would likely help reducing the average age significantly...

The picture above is showing Café Reber where the famous original Mozartkugeln are made. I resisted the temptation to buy some and had to take a beating later from the wife for not bringing any home....

Afterwards I drove up to Berchtesgaden and to Lake Königssee, but again it was too cold to spend more time outside than necessary. By that time I got really tired from the combination of jet lag, getting up early and fresh mountain air, so I went for the next picnic area to take a nap. Zzzzzz...

The interview went ok, but it will take a few weeks before I can expect any feedback. I flew back at night arriving home shortly before midnight and slept like a log after...

ALDI Talk!

OR: Where to buy a cell phone contract? At the grocery store, of course!

Source

Roland: With a population of 82 Million people - and probably just as many cell phones - competition is extremely fierce on the German market. Hence, even some of the supermarket chains offer their own cell phone contracts.

After thorough internet research I went to the next ALDI store and purchased a SIM card for €15 ($20). The package already includes a credit of €10 to consume during the first month. The monthly fee for 300 minutes of airtime and 300 MB of data costs €7.95 ($10.50), and the contract can be cancelled at any time! Additional roaming is available for purchase online using your cell phone and at €5 per week!

Setting the phone up was a easy as pie, and two hours later the phone was activated. Sometimes life can be very simple (and cheap)!

At the Einwohnermeldeamt!

Roland: Presenting Leverkusen's City Hall during the last 50 years:

Sources: 1, 2, 3

All three of them were pretty much at the same location, the first one still being mourned for by the people here. The second one was hated by everybody, and nobody shed a tear when it was demolished to make place for an integrated shopping centre / City Hall.

Leverkusen is a city of 150,000 inhabitants in the Rhineland area near Cologne. It is not exactly a beautiful city, and it exists for just one reason: the Bayer headquarters. When I was little everybody in the family used to work for Bayer in some capacity; if the father worked there the son would be finding a job there as well. These times have changed for sure now, but my mom and my dad worked and met at Bayer, I was born in this city, and my mother and sister still live here, so it seems a natural choice to start the European adventure!

The first thing you have to do when moving to Germany is to go to the 'Einwohnermeldeamt' (Resident's registry office, one of these beautiful long words in the German language that combines three words into one!) and inform the powers that be that you are back! Germany has a compulsory registration system for residents, which means you MUST notify the registry where you live. So you better get over this rather sooner than later!

I went there on my first day, and the very first thing I noticed is how grouchy Germans are. Everybody has to pick a number ticket and wait for their number, but everybody does so with a grumpy face. I occupied a seat in the waiting area, and an old Lady came and sat down next to me. She asked me if I could help let her know when her number came up, because she could not see very well. 'Of course', I said, and right after the old Lady switched to complaint mode, about not being able to see properly all her life, 'this is not an old age problem, I was born with that!', about only getting 80% disability pension, all the forms you have to fill in when dealing with the public services, and how slow these registries are: 'I have other things to do!'

I did not dare to ask what other errands were she had to run that day, but I helped her finding the way to the right counter when her number came up. Then I waited for another thirty minutes before it was my turn. Everything went pretty smoothly from there, and after showing my German passport and answering a handful of questions I was 'gemeldet' (registered). Next thing on the list is to get a 'Personalausweis' (Identification Card), but first I need a new passport photo for that.

I rewarded myself with a Currywurst for my successfully achieved first target, but no historical document of this moment exists...

On my Way Home

Roland on the plane to Germany

Roland: I had a good flight back to Germany. Although the plane was slightly delayed the pilot still managed to get it to Amsterdam in time. I had booked a small upgrade for a seat that could lean back further than standard, so I was actually quite comfy and able to sleep a few hours. Luckily most people were too scroogy for the upgrade, so I had the whole row for myself although the plane was otherwise pretty full!

Now it's time to adjust for nine timezones!