Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland

We’ll the unthinkable has happened. I left Germany. After a 2 hour flight to London and a 12 hour flight to Hong Kong, I am sitting in the airport for another 12 hours flight to New Zealand.

I don’t even know how to say goodbye to the place that has been my home for the past 2 years. I arrived in Germany thinking I would be there for a year, enjoy myself a bit and come home and continue my life. We’ll sometimes, unexpected events happen.

I fell in love. And I guess I would consider myself lucky. I fell in love with the country, with the amazing friends I have met and with an amazing guy.

I had decided I wanted to live in Munich after visiting the city for 4 days in 2009. I guess it was love at first sight. This city is nice, quiet, clean, safe and can be as crazy as you make it. It has beautiful sights, wonderful buildings and an interesting history. All of this made me want to stay here and be a part of its life for as long as possible.

When I first arrived, I met some great people who made me feel so welcome in my new home away from home. From the people I was living with (Ibo, Heidi, Franz) to the other expats that I met randomly over the course of my first few weeks (Lauren, Leah)

And threw them and others, I have truly met some of the most amazing people I have ever met. Everyone was there for different reasons. I am so fortunate to have shared this experience with all of you. I will always remember you all and thank you so much for being a part of my life. You are a great part of what made me want to stay longer than anticipated in Germany. It’s so hard to explain the connection you make with people while being abroad. Those of you in the same situation will surely understand.

I was also lucky to have met and fallen in love with an amazing guy. Go figure I come to Germany to meet someone from New Zealand. Someone who is thoughtful, funny, and who has amazing plans and goals for the future. Someone who makes me feel special, beautiful and loved.  

All I can say is danke Deutschland!

Ich liebe das Leben…. And now on to the next adventure.

We will see each other again some day.

Football, Gaudi and sunny… Just kidding, rainy

My final trip living in Europe. I spent a few days with my parents in Barcelona. I hadn’t seen my parents in about 10 months. SO it was nice to be able to spend some time with them before going to New Zealand.

It was an amazing trip. I never knew much about Spain and Barcelona and was pleasantly surprised.

We visited the football stadium on my first day. FC Barca is my dads favourite team. It was nice to see him so happy about visiting the stadium. Just like a kid on Christmas. Even as a lesser fan than him (almost not a fan at all), I thought it was impressive to see the history of the club and the stadium itself. A proud club that remembers their origins.

Another great discovery was the works done by Gaudi. I had heard of Gaudi before going, but not really anything specific he did. We saw the Guell park, the Segrada Familia and the Batllo house he designed and everyone is unique and different and incredible. To have designed such different buildings is truly amazing. Everything is different and meant something different to him. It’s interesting leaning what inspired him to do things in certain ways.

The rest of the time we mostly just walked around and saw different areas of the city. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t great. I was hoping for warm weather, but we had to wear coats almost everyday. And it rained so much. It wouldn’t last all day, but once in a while it would POUR. But that didn’t stop us from enjoying all the things the city has to offer.

We ate great food, saw beautiful buildings, experienced a different culture. What a last trip it was. 

It's been a while

So friends of mine are traveling around Europe and they are writing their blog and it made me realize I haven't been writing mine in a LONG while.

I'll soon have to change the name of the blog to something like Chantal's world adventure as I will be leaving for New Zealand soon. Before I go, I still have a few travels planned.

I just got back from a trip to Sweden and Denmark. It was quite a cool trip, although a bit cold. But hey, i'll never say no to an opportunity to travel.

I stayed with a friend in Sweden, in the city of Malmö, only 20 minutes from Copenhagen. It's really cute, but not so big. I was able to see the museums and the city in one day. We went to a crazy museum with no particular order or sense to it. You walk in and see stuffed animals, then have sections on giving birth, an aquarium, paintings and a special exhibit on toys form the 70s...

The other museum had quite cool things like a submarine that you can actually go into, planes, trains and automobiles and a cool interactive section with experiments you can try including a brain wave game where you need to relax to win.

Copenhagen took a little more time to visit. We went walking around the city, did a boat tour, went to the aquarium, went into some museums. It's really a beautiful city with beautiful buildings.

It was a little confusing with the money though. Waking up in Sweden and having to use swedish money, then going to Copenhagen and using danish money and coming back to Sweden in the evening.

One thing that was really cool though (well cool after living in Germany for so long). We were able to buy groceries on Easter Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. And not even before like 2 pm!! It's quite amazing after being used to only buying anything Monday to Saturday until 8 pm and never on public holidays.

Now just over a month before my trip to Spain with my parents!

You know you hang out too much with Leah Depue when...

Now I know most of you don’t know her, but Leah is one of my favorite people in the world. I think we haven’t gone more than 2 days without seeing each other (except for her brief vacation to the States). And we probably don’t go more than a few hours without sending each other messages.

• ·      You understand and start talking in acronyms, DTD, OOC, KMI, etc.
• ·     You don’t need a Leah-German or Leah- English dictionary anymore. (schuldi, perf, I’m just schlaging it vor)
• ·      You have to take a picture of every man wearing lederhosen and sent them to her (and for your own pleasure as well).
• ·      You don’t feel weird to start singing a random song at an u-bahn station with people around
• ·      You van tead tjis medsage and indesrand
• ·    You always have a person who will think it’s a good idea to walk outside in -10 degrees without a coat on.
• ·      You feel like everything you say, should be said in some kind of accent.
• ·      Even though it happens often, you always get a laugh when she says she’s dropped food from her roof.
• ·      You always have to be prepared for wiggle time.

After all this, I have to say, that you can never hang out with Leah too much. Love ya Leah! 

Updates

Et bien, je n’ecris pas assez souvent je pense. Je vais donc essayer de reprendre un peu de temps perdu.

Je me suis fait quelques groupes d’amis. Il y a d’abord mes amis “toytown”: Leah, Lauren, Cherie, Sonny et mes amis de mon anciens appartement: Franz, Heidi, Steffie. La, je commence a rencontrer des gens de mon travail.

J’ai commence a travailler. Ca fait environ un mois que je travaille. C’est un peu weird de recommencer de travailler, mais c’est bon. A date, je ne suis pas super occupee au travail. Je fais des formations et tout et je m’habitue tranquillement au travail ici.

J’essaie de profiter au maximum de mon temps en Europe. Je suis quand meme occupee. Chaque fois que les gens me proposent des activites, j’accepte. Parfois on va prendre un verre, un souper chez quelqu’un, se promener dans la ville, aller au cinema. Dimanche dernier, je suis allee a la piscine avec Leah et Sabrina. Il y a deux piscines, une exterieure chauffee et une interieure. On a passe presque tout l’apres-midi dans la piscine exterieure au milieu du mois de novembre. C’etait vraiment cool.

Mes gros projets a venir sont – Fin de semaine de party car Ibo revient debut decembre pour la fin de semaine, nouvel an a Istanbul avec Ibo, ma soeur, Fabian et un autre ami des gars. En mars, je vais aller voir Snow Patrol et Simple Plan (haha les deux sont des SP) a Munich et  je vais a Leipzig pour voir Rise against (et visiter pour la fin de semaine) et en mai, je vais voir un concert allemand – die Arzte!

Christkindlmarkt

So the season of Christmas markets has begun. They are EVERYWHERE. You walk from Karlsplatz, to Marienplatz, to Sentlinger Tor to Odeonplatz, to the site of Oktoberfest (called Tollwood for Christmas) and pretty much at the exit of any U—bahn station. Christmas markets are plenty of stands selling (usually) hand made products. Most of them are food, hats, scarves, Christmas decorations, and of course, Glühwein. If some snow would come, it would make it just perfect.

It’s so nice to walk around at night when everything is lit up. The Christmas spirit is all around. I’ve been going quite a bit (almost every day). I usually go with Leah, Lauren, Cherie, Sonny, Sabrina. It makes me realize how lucky I am to have met these girls. They are so amazing and we get along so well. They are like my german family. It will be hard not to see them for a few weeks when most of them go back home for the holidays. I don’t think I go one day without talking to them. And soon I will have to survive 2 weeks! 

Differences

Differences

So since I’ve been in Germany, I’ve noticed some things that are different than what we are usually used to in Canada. Here are some random observations

-       There are not really any Supermarkets here. You know how you can walk in a Loblaws, or Maxi, or Metro and find EVRYTHING you would ever need. So many choices. Well here, the stores are tiny compared to back home. And there is only one of everything. In Canada, you could find 10 different kinds of cans of corn: small, big, 5 different brands. Here, there is one. If you want corn, you buy the one there is.

-       I’ve never seen so many people with leg problems here. Everyday, you see at least 5 people with crutches, or canes or people that limp or have weird feet. I don’t know why, but there are so many.

-       The bikes are probably more dangerous than the cars. Bikers do whatever they want. Don’t get in their way cause they won’t stop for you. And almost no one wears a helmut. You also have to have a light on your bike, if not, you can get a ticket from the polizei. Most of the lights work when you pedal.

-       People in the buses, s-bahn or u-bahn don’t give up their seat for older people.

-       When I was visiting apartments, I noticed that most german apartments don’t have living rooms. You come into a hall surrounded by closed rooms. Even the kitchen is in a closed area.

-       Most people have washers, but no dryers.

-       This is more of a European thing, but you have to pay to use most public toilets. Usually 50 cents.

-       People almost never bring lunch to work. Everyone goes out for lunch and has a big proper meal. Some companies (including mine), give you pay for lunches. When I am at the office, I get 3 euros a day in the form of coupons that I can then use in restaurants or grocery stores.

-       People usually don’t drink water or something when they eat (unless it’s a beer). So people will go an entire lunch without drinking.

-       When you order water in a Restaurant, unless you specify, they will bring you sparkling water. They drink sparkling everything here. Even if you say without, there is usually a bit of bubbles in it.

-       Most men do not lose their hair. I haven’t seen a lot of people with bold spots.

If I see any other interesting differences, I might have to make a part 2 to this post.