at home
allison has done an excellent job of keeping everyone up to date with things around germany. i’ll give you a little insight into what i think of all this too.
the weather
it does rain a lot. it seems like few days go by without some kind of rain happening. and yes, there are many kinds of rain. thankfully, the real good soakers seem to be a little more infrequent. most of the other stuff is just drizzle, spitting, sprinkles, whatever you call it. all in all though, the weather here is great. it’s the middle of june when we should be hiding indoors, cuddling up to an air conditioner (in atlanta at least). we spend all day and night with the windows open. but, cologne is at 51 degrees N latitude, about equal to Calgary in Canada. so the weather seems fine considering that.
the dogs
some germans do in fact dislike the way we are attempting to train our more active dog. at first, it is quite surprising to have some perfect stranger stop you and chatter away (or yell from across the street) in german while pointing at the dog. i’m getting to where i can understand more and more every day and certainly when they start dropping ‘hunde’ (dog) and ‘polizei’ (police). the only thing i can assume is that all of these people that have had an issue with us are certified dog trainers and can tell from 5 seconds of interaction between me and my dog that i’m an insensitive human who doesn’t deserve a dog. i tell you what, kaya (the active dog) can pull me up a hill (granted a small hill) on my bike. me and my bike weigh about 235 pounds together. though she is small, she is mighty. i’d love to see some of these older ladies that have chastised me hold on to her for a little ‘walk’, especially when kaya catches sight of: another dog, a bird, a blowing leaf, a rabbit, etc… but, we are in their country, so i bite my tongue (not that i’m the type to talk-back anyways).
the apartment
this is coming along very nicely. we have lots of pictures up on the walls now, carpets on the floor and finally, light fixtures on the ceiling. and yesterday (june 21) we finally got our dining room table after about 7 weeks of waiting. we had to compromise on the chairs as the ones we wanted wouldn’t be ready till august, so we just got some different ones. and the chairs we ended up with are better anyways. we only have two barren walls left to cover. unfortunately, one of them is about 25 feet long so the options are many. i’m sure allison will come up with something.
drivers license
this is a new development. we have recently had access to another couples’ car and it has been nice. we can get big bags of dog food and not worry about carrying them to the train and then home. we can get bigger pieces of furniture or more importantly, bigger quantities of beer in a single trip. also, the next time a vacation comes along, we won’t have to bum a ride to transport our pooches to the kennel….again. so, there is a process to getting the license here. 1. get current license translated to something that is meaningful to the german authorities. 2. attend a first aid course (6.5 hourse in length) designed with drivers in mind (theoretically offered in english but the rumor is it’s all in german). 3. study for and take a written test (average study time needed – 15-20 hours). we’re hoping that is all that’s required of us. some folks have to take actual driving lessons (about 10-12 lessons, 1 hour each). we’re hoping that won’t apply to us. the lessons are determined by which US state you come from. and then there is the car. they have a couple car-sharing programs here in cologne. i’m hoping that’s going to be a good option as neither one of us is really interested in acquiring a car here in germany. we’ll keep you posted.
the language
hmmm. it’s a work in progress. my schedule doesn’t really lend itself to regular classroom attendance so most of my study is done online. there are a few good programs out there. unfortunately, with no instructor or grade to worry myself with, the study time is elusive. but i can understand more now than even after my 4th year of US high school german. unfortunately, that doesn’t mean a whole lot.
we promise the next post(s) will contain stuff about our trip to italy last month. just had to get caught up first.
catching up
sorry for the absence. i know everyone missed my writing with bad grammar, poor punctuation and lack of capital letters. but i’m back now. i’ll attempt to pick up where i left off.
my last post concerned me getting stuck in oslo, norway with a busted airplane. that was fine, we got to tour oslo a little and sample some of the 14 dollar (US) beers. it was delicious but yikes. we sampled some of the local fare which was quite delicious also. i couldn’t resist what i ordered, it was called “norwegian meat” plate or platter. the next question was, “one piece of ‘meat’ or two”? as a general rule with mystery meat in foreign lands, go big… so… two please. my colleague ordered the “whale meat” plate. we were both very curious about what was going to show up when you order whale meat but alas, they were fresh out of the whale. must be a popular item. durn. my food:
norwegian meat plate
the brown item in the foreground with the onions on it is the meat. i’m pretty sure it was hamburger with brown gravy. kind of like a salisbury steak i guess. it was good though. after the food we did a little more walking. there are a couple of actual ski-jumps in oslo, a lot of government buildings, a few palaces, a big train station and a really cool opera house. the opera house is designed so that you can walk all over it. and i mean literally over it, the sides are ramps which lead you to the top. we didn’t actually go in the opera house but we did wander on it. pretty neat.
unfortunately, our hotel was out by the airport which was a 45 minute bus ride away. so, after food and touring it was back on the bus. our plane got fixed the following day and we were tasked with taking it to barcelona to put it back in service. we did so and then were released to go home. it was a good trip.
broken in norway
i know it’s been a while since my last update. it’s not intentional, just had some things going on.
the least exciting thing that happened to me was a nice, fat european cold. it plugged up my sinuses real good. picked that thing up while finishing a trip (thankfully not in the middle of it) and it hung around for a good 10-11 days. so that interfered with a lot, including some really nice weather when i would much rather have been drinking beer in a garden somewhere. hopefully that fills my quota of colds for the next several months.
beyond that, as Allison mentioned, we got all moved in to our new place. it’s pretty awesome. a huge park right out the front door, great food and drink very close by and a nice yard in back that every once in a while makes a nice dog track. it’s so nice to be able to let our two pooches run to their heart’s content unencumbered by leashes. naturally, kaya feasts on whatever nasty thing happens to be on the ground while we’re back there. we’re not really sure what it is she eats back there but my guess is mouse poop. the area around us is kind of lousy with mice. thankfully the mice haven’t shown up inside, probably due to the german insistence on having an air-tight living space. maybe the mice are the reason for that, or at least part of it. whatever, hopefully kaya gets tired of eating whatever that stuff is cause i’m pretty sure it’s gross.
our place is great though, 1.5 baths, 2 bedrooms, sweet kitchen (with a quiet dishwasher) and a pretty massive living / dining room area that overlooks the park. it was a little more expensive than some other places but still well within our budget. i’m glad we happened upon it with a little help from a co-worker. thanks tricia and andrew.
the work side of things is going well. i’m starting to feel a little more at home with my new company and equipment. the plane is forgiving and thankfully so are the other pilots. although, we did manage to break something on our way into norway this morning. well, we didn’t really break it, it just broke on its own. it’s a valve between the engine and the wing that is pretty important and not readily available. and now we have a little time to sit and contemplate the norwegian way. first lesson in norway is: expensive. train to downtown? 32 bucks please (USD). one way. beer in the hotel bar? 15 dollars (again USD). but the folks are friendly and courteous and i get the impression they speak english better than me (i?). they probably at least use capital letters when typing. weirdos. this trip has involved some interesting body clock adjustments too. first night starts at 1am and ends at 8am. sleep the day away then turn around and end about 1am. 24 hours later, start again, end at 8am and repeat. oddly enough, sleep and fatigue haven’t been a problem. i am apparently blessed with my dad’s natural gift of sleep. thank you dad. the best part is, when we finish at 1 or 2 or 3 in the morning and i make it to the hotel bed, i feel perfectly justified in sleeping till noon or whenever. i’m recovering. that justification makes for a nice, squishy pillow. the only time that gets jacked up is when there is a delicious free breakfast in the morning. sleep is important, but that breakfast buffet has an expiration time to it. my bed will still be waiting when i get back.
hopefully we aren’t staying in norway too long, it’s nice but there are many things to do at home. like buy and install light fixtures. that’s another german apartment-ism that i can’t remember if i addressed before. the previous tenant moved in and installed their own light fixtures and when they left, they took them. perfectly normal around here. so now we have loose, live wires exposed on the ceiling in various places throughout the apartment. the ceilings are high though so not to worry.
all for now.
‘flugzeug-in’ around europe
as the title suggests (flugzeug is airplane – auf deutsch) this is mostly about my first work trip around europe.
it all started with a very reasonable 1130pm showtime at the airport for a 1230am departure. i met my captain who then showed me how to actually get to the plane, which is not always obvious for the cargo side. we had the usual pre-flight discussions (which involved me explaining that i’m just legal enough to be dangerous at the wheel). he didn’t seem concerned. to the airplane.
lots of different procedures here in europe compared to the US. but nothing too drastic. the biggest barrier that only gets easier with lots of exposure (i hear) is the strong accents of the air traffic controllers. they say ‘fly direct @$%#! and contact #@#$ on 132.575.’ which leads to me looking at the captain with a question mark on my face. he looks at me, laughs and says, ATKOS and Makadonia. Then I say what the captain said to me back to the controller on the radio. it’s a 3 person loop now, not just 2. and there’s lots of other things that are mostly minor but usually have to do with making a jet-powered airplane as quiet as possible. a challenge for sure. we mostly climb as fast as possible and descend as close to idle power as possible. this involves lots of planning ahead and knowledge of what the airplane can do and cannot do. not that i’m real good at either of those things right now, but i’m new. and i’m getting a little better than i was.
our first night of flying took us all the way to israel with a stop in athens, greece. i’m sure europe is lovely to see from the air, but at 2 am, we could’ve been over colorado or south africa and it wouldn’t have made a difference. and flying into athens is probably amazing but we saw mostly dark, some lights, and some really dark where you could make out the hills and mountains. bummer. i’ll have to see that some other time. and of course, when we got to israel, it was cloudy. oh well, it was approaching 6am and all we wanted was to be on the ground so we could get to the free breakfast at the hotel, and then bed. and we stay at a pretty fantastic hotel in israel that’s right on the water. no complaints at all.
the next day was easy, just deadhead to paris and we’re done. perhaps you have heard that the israeli’s are somewhat security focused? it’s all true. i had the pleasure of getting questioned a lot because my overnight bag is pretty stout with metal rails and a metal frame. it’s a travel bag made for flight crews, and it’s designed to be tough. apparently it also looks highly suspicious if you’ve never seen one. my bag handler had not seen one so he had lots of questions. this also earned me a trip through the ‘you’re suspicious’ security line, which is really, really slow. but, i have no issue with this treatment. i’m pretty sure they have every reason to suspect every single person that shows up at their airport. it’s not every country that gets told daily by their neighbors that they shouldn’t be allowed to exist. my takeaway from this was, bring a different overnight bag to israel.
then on to paris. i was excited because this flight warranted first class, and i love big seats and food. well, only half disappointed. the seats were regular with a little extra leg room and with the middle seat blocked so no one can sit there. but the food was good. first class on air france was a half full experience. i imagine their long-haul stuff is nice though.
paris was good. also a nice hotel in a good location. i didn’t do much there though because i felt compelled to study in anticipation of our 2 flights the next day. there’s lots of information available to us to study in preparation for a flight. so i read that stuff…and watched rugby with french commentating. i don’t get rugby at all but it’s still fun to watch.
then back to israel the next night. this was a long flight from paris but the company was good and we are provided with more food and coffee than we could ever hope to consume. and the food is good too. i was unfamiliar with the food ordering process and just what everything was so i over-ordered (too much food i can handle, too little…).
israel was good again. i wanted to head out and see the sights this time around but i felt a little bit of a cold coming on so i took it easy with water, juice and bed. boring, but hopefully it will keep that cold (which is going strong now) a little shorter than if i had gone out and drank all night. when we left this time, we were operating the flight out so security was less interested in me.
then it was off to munich and back home to cologne. this was daytime flying so i got to see some stuff. we flew between turkey and greece, over macedonia, bosnia, croatia, austria and probably some others as well. it got cloudy after croatia though so i didn’t get to see much of the alps. i took a picture of greece, but it could be any piece of land sticking out in the water. you’ll just have to trust that it’s greece.
then into munich which was nice but only for as long as it takes to unload and re-load the plane. then back to cologne. successful trip with no violations that i’m aware of, and i think the captain would fly with me again if he had to. we just got our schedules for the month of april, and i have some exotic new destinations coming my way including: oslo, norway; helsinki, finland; and stockholm, sweden. should be fun.
apartments and other things
Did some apartment hunting two days ago (thursday). It was a successful trip in that we saw a couple places that we could easily make our home but we didn’t pull the trigger on anything yet. First, a few rules about renting in Germany. unfurnished means something a little different. truly unfurnished means: no kitchen (anything at all kitchen, no appliances, no cabinets) no light fixtures, certainly no dishes or curtains or the like. we only encountered one place like that but it was so far removed from town that it was not much of a concern to us as we didn’t want to be that far out. there’s lots of rules about down payments (usually 3 months rent deposit), cleaning, refurbishing, utilities (usually you prepay an estimate of future expenditures) and some other stuff. the refurbishing was a little intimidating to us when we read about that but we’re pretty sure that won’t apply to us as it is pre-negotiated (by our agent) and we don’t anticipate being in one apartment for that long. so mostly standard stuff but not everything. and thankfully fedex supplies us with an agent to show us around, speak german to the other agents and inform us of all the little things we need to be aware of. our agent’s name is Signe (Zig-nuh) and she’s pretty great. on to the apartments.
the first place was pretty amazing and a tough act to follow for the rest of the day. it was big (150 sq meters i believe), or about that. it had an indoor pool that belonged only to that apartment, an amazing kitchen, big closets, a big sun-room, a private garden, pretty much everything. the base rent was quite reasonable for what you get, but unfortunately, the energy costs were way too high. that pool put everything over the top apparently because it needed to be heated year round (it’s in the ground in the basement) which jacked the elec and heat bills way up. we were told to estimate at least 850-900 euro a month in energy. pass.
the second place was nice also but far outside of town, four floors up with no elevator and completely unfurnished. no go on that one.
the third place was good and we’re still thinking about that one. it’s in an area called nippes (nip-us) which is kind of like virginia highlands in atlanta. cool, young, hip, lots of artists. and turks. not sure why so many turks but there they are. the apartment had a big kitchen, even by american standards with all the fixings. there is a big bed that comes with the place as well as lots of closet storage. it also has a little garden out the back door which is nice. ‘gardens’ are what we call yards. if you rent a place with a garden you typically have to take care of it. this place requires us to take care of it. that’s fine, they provide most of the tools necessary and based on what it looks like right now it shouldn’t be hard. another feature that we’ve seen a couple times are these hardened plastic shutters that can be electrically raised and lowered for theft protection. they are installed on most ground floor windows and you close them in the evening and open them in the morning. this place had those on all ground level windows and doors. they’re very cool and they give me and allison a nice secure feeling. but it makes me wonder a little why the private citizens go to this trouble to protect their goods when more police could be hired to do the same. i’m sure there’s some fine literature out there on the subject but it’s probably in german and we’re only here for two years. we’ll just go with it. good place overall and reasonably priced.
the fourth place had the best location by far. it’s in an area known as the ‘belgian quarter.’ it’s about a 6-7 minute walk from our hotel and is near everything including parks, train stations, bars, food and of course starbucks. unfortunately, it has only one bathroom, the kitchen is not amazing and it’s on the third floor which means stairs everytime the dogs have to pee. but it’s priced well and the location makes us willing to give up some luxuries for the convenience. we’ll see.
we have more places to see on monday including one in an area called lindenthal (linden-tall). that one has some possibilities but it would require us to purchase the existing kitchen for about 4000 euros (another german rental oddity). when we leave the place in 2 years we sell the kitchen to the next person for some rate lower than that if they want it and i don’t know what we do if they don’t want it. maybe we just worry about that problem in two years.
switching gears..
last night (friday) we joined some fedex folks in the downstairs lounge area for the official ‘fedex happy hour.’ not too many people there but they’re pretty much all new faces to us so it’s good to start small. i met several captains that i’m sure i’ll be working with over the next 2 years and everyone was really nice. then allison and i were treated to a tour of some of the cooler parts of the hotel by the manager and the designated fedex handler, Rolf Slickers. now he’s a cool guy. he showed us the restaurant at the top of the hotel which is the only one in town that boasts a completely organic and natural menu. he showed us the restrooms of that restaurant which boast the only urinals that you can ‘use’ while admiring a view of the Dom (sorry ladies, standing room only). he then took us to the rooftop where he has his very own bee population growing. the bee thing is apparently causing quite the stir because honey bees in general are on the decline but his population is doing well. they plan to offer the honey in their restaurant, his wife makes candles from the wax for sale and if they have enough honey left over, they’re going to sell it. pretty darn cool. we ate in that restaurant later that night and very much enjoyed it.
today (saturday), we walked a lot. and we brought the dogs along to see cologne. from the hotel to the Dom, north to the zoo, northwest to nippes where we stopped for lunch. we had thai food that i ordered using the numbers on the menu rather than the labels because i know how to say numbers. it was delicious. the dogs got to join us in the tiny restaurant which was nice. then we caught the train back to our area of town. this was our first attempt at mass transit in cologne and it went well. Breezy was a litte timid about the train so allison carried her onboard (she struggles with openings beneath her feet like train platform gaps, elevator gaps, metal grates on sidewalks. breezy struggles, not allison). once onboard everyone was calm throughout the journey. when we exited the station the only way up was by escalator and we figured that might be too much so we carried the pooches for that ride. successful first train ride and to our knowledge we didn’t break any rules by having the dogs there.
and that’s all for now.
And a little from me (Jeff)
Where to begin….
I’ll start around about the time we were getting checked in at the airport. I dropped off Allison and bags and pooches and returned the rental car. I got back to my little family to find the dogs were caged, had pee’d and looked sufficiently freaked to begin our journey. Good. To the checkin counter. Lufthansa knew there were two dogs coming that day and when they found out it was us they immediately gave us the paperwork to attach to the dog-crates. But first we were challenged with filling these forms out properly. Nothing too difficult, names, species, address of destination, flight number, etc. All stuff we had dealt with before but somehow, amidst this process, we just couldn’t handle this quickly or even accurately. Forms were filled out wrong, names put in wrong places, phone numbers left out, addresses all wrong. The good folks at Lufthansa took pity on us. “What you have there is fine, just need something on the forms.” All this info could easily be found between the two of us but we just couldn’t quite make it happen. Bear in mind, with my job, stress comes around once in a while and you’re asked to rise to the occasion (mostly in a simulator thankfully). Engines on fire, cargo on fire, explosive decompression, landing gear won’t come down, flaps won’t come down to name a few (again, thankfully all simulator so far). But this…..forms! Too hard. Whatever, we survived the checkin process.
You’ve heard about the doggy transport from Allison. I concur. I wasn’t terribly impressed with their handlers gentleness but to the best of our knowledge he did properly secure the dogs to the pallet. Arrival in Frankfurt was alarmingly simple. Enter terminal, clear passport control, enter baggage claim, meet Manfred (who magically knew who we were without knowing anything other than our names), claim bags and dogs, exit building. Had Manfred not been there to guide us I would’ve thought we were doing something wrong by just leaving. He explained later, Lufthansa does some background work on the dogs to make sure it’s all normal. If you say so Manfred.
Autobahn ride to hotel. Interesting. And fast. Though we still got passed by the bullet train doing the same run from Frankfurt to Cologne. They go real fast.
Hotel arrival. Great place with comfy, American friendly rooms. Big beds, hot showers and delicious espresso.
We did the immigration and work permitting process on Monday. It was a quite comfortable process with our friend from the Frankfurt law firm there to guide us through. We just show up, she expedites us to whatever person we need to talk to, they ask questions and create forms, we sign the forms. She had a cab waiting for us to take us to the next spot, more questions, forms and signatures. And some fingerprints were done too which I had a little trouble with. The nice German lady informed me afterwards that she hadn’t seen anyone have trouble with the fingerprints since they started using the electronic fingerprint scanner. Super. I’m just doing my part to keep the dumb American stereotype alive and well.
Tomorrow (Thursday) we meet with our realtor lady who seems quite nice to show us some apartments. Should be fun.
On a side-note, my first trip has been assigned as part of my European familiarization flights. My overnights will be in Tel-Aviv and Paris. Stopping in Athens and Munich somewhere along the way too. I’m not sure I ever in my life expected to be visiting some of these places, much less in a big ol’ cargo jet. I can’t wait to get started.
A European Adventure 