
Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016) - ericdanielski
http://blog.alexanderdickson.com/moving-to-germany-as-an-australian
======
looki
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 non-ICE dichotomy was funny. I would split them
into long-distance (IC, ICE, EC) and regional (RE, RB, S-Bahn).

[1]:
[https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen...](https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen_fakten/puenktlichkeitswerte-1187696)
(Db-Fernverkehr tab)

~~~
learnstats2
> 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.

~~~
mtmail
"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](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
asia-42024020)

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

~~~
lucb1e
> 94.2% of trains have reached their final destination within six minutes of
> the scheduled time

That's a terrible statistic. First off, connections are designed to be just a
few minutes, so 5 minutes delay (not included in this stat) makes you miss an
average connection.

Secondly, that statistic is about trains, not people: one could manage to have
50% of people be delayed by 30-60 minutes every day and still have 94.2% of
trains run on time just by having only the busiest trains between 8-9h and
16-18h delayed enough to miss people's local connection.

Finally, the final destination says nothing about intermediate stops (why not
just look at every stop?). Things like switching drivers, refueling, or just
introducing some slack in the schedule is most often done at endpoints. Heck,
if I know this is the statistic being used, I would be sure to design my
schedules to have even more leeway at the endpoints than I otherwise already
would.

I'm curious to see how this statistic changes when it includes intermediate
stops and counts delayed passengers rather than empty trains running on time.
Optionally, counting the full delay (missed connection / actual frustration)
instead of the technical train delay would also be interesting.

As one datapoint, my girlfriend takes a train from Cologne in rush hour that
is 4-20 minutes late more than half the time, with a connecting bus that goes
once an hour that is always on time or even early. She usually misses it.

~~~
merb
also this statistic is favored towards the north of the country. because there
are way more trains. he lives in the south I guess (near munich) probably
which has way less trains for regional traffic

------
marcus_holmes
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 violence or shouting. It's such a pleasant
change.

Also smoking in bars. I don't smoke, but I don't mind it.Ny gf hates it and
prefers to sit outside in the cold rather than inside in the smoke.

The bureaucracy is about the same - Aussie bureaucracy is less finicky but
feels more hostile.

People are people. Though Germans seem less angry than Aussies. I always
wonder why Australia seems such an angry place after travelling abroad.

The graffiti and street art is also striking. Perth goes in for tagging, but
not on the same scale or creativeness as Berlin. I really like it, but I
understand why other people don't.

I'm really enjoying my time here. Miss the beach, though.

~~~
fit2rule
I'm also from Perth, lived around the world, including some years in Germany
.. had the same set of observations. On this:

>I always wonder why Australia seems such an angry place after travelling
abroad.

I think Australia has a lot of deep pain in its history, and in its culture,
and this manifests in a hostility.

Every time I go back, I wonder why its such an angry shithole. Australians
just seem to be getting madder and madder...

EDIT: Germany does have deep pain in its history. Germans are aware of that,
and overt about it. Australians not so much.

~~~
ObsoleteNerd
I’m from Australia, lived a decent portion of my life overseas in various
countries, and traveled extensively (never lived anywhere more than a year in
my life).

I’ve always noticed Australians in general are very easy to get mad, take
things the wrong way, etc. I’m constantly surprised by how many of my friends
have so much loud hatred for things that seem so.. trivial? I’m constantly
made fun of for being a “hippy” and “not caring about anything” because I
prefer to always try stay positive and as stress-free as possible.

Of course this is a vast generalisation, but it’s purely my experience and
something I’ve distinctly noticed too, and I agree it seems to be getting
worse.

I don’t think the nations history has anything to do with it though. I don’t
know where it started but I think it’s just a cultural thing that spreads like
most cultural things.

~~~
cylinder
People raised in Australia are just used to things being easy and when they're
not they get grumpy. Which is happening more as the population grows and the
big cities become proper cities and not giant suburbs. It's even happening to
me as a migrant after becoming too comfortable. Also read comments pages on
press sites and blogs etc. They have no sense of perspective for their
complaints as they've spent no time living anywhere else.

Another issue is cultural cringe.

------
awy
Hello, author here. Thanks a lot for reading my post!

A few things to clarify:

\- indeed I am now in London, but have very fond memories of life in Germany
and still enjoy practicing my German

\- I took a US keyboard layout to work, which made things fine except for when
I was on the laptop only (some keys are different shapes as well)

\- I found it amusing the comments about the German trains. I will confirm
that the standard was pretty low in Australia :P (hopefully that's going to
get better)

\- the impracticality of 4 seats and 2 doors in the car was meant to imply
that it means it's more difficult to put people in the rear seats in this
configuration

\- thanks for the corrections on train speeds and naming of the ground floor,
I'll fix that

Let me know if there's any other corrections I should make, anything I missed
or should expand on.

------
lucb1e
> [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 can always rent or borrow a car for that one time a
year that you need it (since friends and family have 4-seaters, when we want
to go somewhere, we can go with their car and pay for drinks or whatever). Of
course, I'm in an exceptional situation with only a girlfriend and no plans
for kids. I just can't help but wonder if this "4 seats is impractical"
statement comes from being scared of "but what if I need it one day and then I
don't have the option?" when logically, it is really much cheaper to rent a
van once every four years than permanently own a huge car.

> The trains are so awesome in Germany

hah, try the Netherlands. Living in Germany for more than a year now, I think
the trains here are quite crappy. Not unusable or filthy, but also not like
the Netherlands. And the ICEs go 300km/h, not 250, and are very unreliable
punctuality-wise.

Related: "You also won’t find automated checkouts [in Germany]." again, try
the Netherlands :)

> it’s normal for all shops to be closed except for servos (there’s a
> confusing word for Germans)

Eh, I'll say. Servo(s) only exists in merriam-webster as well as the
community-based dict.cc as I know it: a motor. Is this from a Brisbane dialect
or something?

~~~
sjwright
> 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.

~~~
bagacrap
all the cars you listed have 5 seats. M235i has four. Also every car you
listed has way more cargo room. So saying the m235i is less practical than the
norm is, I think, accurate.

------
lumberjack
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.

~~~
kfk
I think the issue is that here in Germany there is a lot of unspoken peer
pressure in regards to where you should be in life at your age. That pressure
makes it hard to keep things in a flow and basically people (German and
expats) tend to put a structure around everything. Social interactions? Needs
to happen at the appropriate time and scheduled at least 2 weeks in advance.
Fancy restaurant dinner with girlfriend? Needs to be scheduled weeks before.
Work life balance? You must have work life balance and you must go out on
sunny days, which is great until it feels again like pressure to be something
you don't want to be. Hiking? You will find another zillion people on that
mountain because again you are supposed to go out on sunny days.

It can feel very "robotic" and I think people just end up detaching themselves
from what they truly want or truly need from their social interactions.

~~~
fit2rule
As an Aussie who's lived around the world with stints in California and
Germany, I really miss my American friends' ability to just show up when they
figured I'd be around, unannounced, and hang out for an afternoon - or not, no
worries, nobody home - compared to my German friends who literally needed a
weeks notice to come over and have a couple of beers, even in this mobile-
phone era. Or, my Australian pals who would come over, let themselves in, do
the dishes, have a beer, and wait until I got home.

Then again, there are the Austrians. Never, ever be even a minute late to an
event involving Austrian friends.

Strange how things are more and more rigid, the further from the frontier one
gets ..

------
quelltext
> It’s also more difficult for me as a I have a US layout keyboard at home and
> a German layout at work.

I'd hate tp be forced to use a specific layout governed by my employer and I'm
glad it's not been a problem so far to get a replacement keyboard with US
layout.

It's pretty common nowadays for developers to simply prefer the US layout if
their country's is not great, like the German one that makes typing braces
etc. a pain in the ass.

~~~
FabHK
At any rate, learn to to touch type blind, and then switch to your preferred
keyboard layout in software (and ignore what’s printed on the keys). My mom
can do it; I’d expect any programmer to be able to do it.

~~~
lucb1e
> and then switch to your preferred keyboard layout in software

If only. They have a different shape shift and enter key. It's not impossible
to type on different keyboards at home and at work without mixing it up _too
much_ , but it is annoying, and not just a software configuration. (Source: am
Dutch, live in Germany, have different keyboards at home and at work because I
don't want to throw one away when it still works fine even if it's a little
annoying.)

------
magicbuzz
Interesting! And I think it's a good alternative to the typical 'work in the
valley for a few years' that many Oz devs do. He seems to be working for
Facebook in London now.

------
barrkel
Worth noting that the chap is now in London.

------
vt100
I would have thought as an Austrian you would find it quite easy

~~~
hh3k0
I hate that I laughed.

------
cmrdporcupine
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...

~~~
mseidl
I don't know what to do with the chickens. But the dog is easy to bring.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
My dog has 6 acres to run right now... I can't imagine keeping this tasmanian
devil in an apartment...

~~~
Symbiote
Check with the Munich colleagues, but some of them will live in houses.
They're unlikely to have 2½ hectares though.

As well as all apartment-vs-house compromises you'd have anywhere in the US
(cost, noise, travel time to work etc), moving to a new country and living at
the edge of a town or in a small village can feel more isolated, if you don't
speak the language.

------
fefe23
I would be interested in the other direction.

Would anyone from the EU who moved to Australia care to tell us about their
experiences?

~~~
BFLpL0QNek
Trains are meh. The average train speed is 50km/h, so living out in the
suburbs is a long slow commute. What should be a 20-30 min journey can be 1hr
plus. Forget interstate travel as each state has different line standards.

"She'll be right mate" the stereotypical image of Aussies, not so true at
least these days. Highly litigious, lots of red tape, and following strict
rules, love their fines, if they can fine it they'll be a fine for it! You
often find police officers in Sydney CBD fining pedestrians for crossing the
road or police sniffer dogs around the train stations randomly plucking
commuters for strip searches. Australia often gets a bad write up from the UN
on social justice, take the encryption laws rushed in as an example.

The car is king. In the EU if you cross the road in a safe manner, cars will
back off the accelerator. In Australia, it's a case you shouldn't be on the
road, so they speed up intentionally to hit you. Similarly, if you want to
cycle, you better be brave. Driving standards seem far worse. On the topic of
cars they have high import duties so your average European car becomes very
expensive. Instead, there's tons of Toyota Hillux's and Corollas, Landcruiser,
etc and the odd Holden but they've stopped being produced in the AU so don't
seem as popular as they once were.

It's impossible or near impossible to eat out after 8 pm.

Shops close at 6 pm so no after work shopping.

Sydney has zero nightlife for an international city, it's like a ghost town
now after dark. They introduced "lock out laws" essentially killing the
nightlife as bars close early, prevent you from getting into bars after a
specific time, and limiting drinks that can be purchased over a specific time.
They have recently backed down from this and reducing the restrictions in the
new year. The damage has been done, bars have shut and turned in to
apartments.

A high cost of living. You have two grocery stores, Coles and Woolworths, so
far less variety. There is a third chain called IGA that tries to carry a
little higher quality produce, you see them more in smaller towns.

Being so far from anywhere, it's a long journey to travel outside of
Australia. Perth to Sydney is a 5hr flight, a 5hr flight you've crossed
Europe.

Australia is on fire, the prime minister denies climate change and walks into
parliament with cole saying don't be afraid it's only cole, kind of sets the
standard.

Tech jobs, you get your usual low barrier agency knocking out website jobs
writing javascript. Then the other popular work is big data doing questionable
stuff with user data or cryptocurrencies. When you search on Linkedin, for
example, for EU jobs or US jobs compared to Australia, Australia's
availability of meaningful, interesting, well-paying tech jobs is
lacking/behind other parts of the world. Some do exist but few and far
between. The computer science degrees here must be good though worked with
some very smart Aussie's. The US companies tend to cherry-pick the graduates
due to the special AU-US visa agreements.

The housing they've yet to discover double glazing/insulation. A lot of the
properties look like they haven't been renovated since the 70's. Slight
ignorance that insulation works to keep the heat inside during the winter and
heat out during the summer when the aircon is on. Also the mean Sydney house
price is $1million +, although that $1 million won't buy you what you'd expect
for a $1 million house. Instead, you'd get some shitbox that needs renovating
or what is popular knocking down and turning in to apartments.

On the plus side, if you like an active outdoor lifestyle, it's fantastic. If
you like the beach it has them, bushwalking, lots of that, outdoor sports lots
of that.

Great coffee that's down to the high multiculturalism, although there's is a
lot of quiet racism the more regional you go.

Also in the cities etc food is really good. I eat out a lot more in the AU for
brunch and dinner. Lots of variety from AU / EU style food to Asian etc.

Work-life balance is generally ok. It's certainly a comfortable lifestyle.
There's also less crime. I've never walked down a street or through a suburb
that's felt unsafe.

Life is good in the AU if you get a tech salary, it's a bit of a bubble,
though compared to the rest of the world due to the isolation. I don't love
it, I don't hate it, it's comfortable, for now. My partner is Australian, so
I'll be sticking around as she wants to be here when we start a family. We did
plan to go overseas to Europe for a little while to live and work, but due to
the mess of the UK and brexit that might not be as easy as we thought. I'm
currently waiting on my permanent visa to come through so we can make our next
plans until then it's hard for us to plan ahead.

Australia, the lucky country.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_Country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_Country)

~~~
friendlybus
>In the EU if you cross the road in a safe manner, cars will back off the
accelerator. In Australia, it's a case you shouldn't be on the road, so they
speed up intentionally to hit you.

Which is a questionable behaviour because the car driver is usually found to
be at fault in most cases whenever a pedestrian is struck. The law favours the
pedestrians over the car.

~~~
zizee
> Which is a questionable behaviour...

It's a questionable statement. I haven't ever had this happen to me in
Australia.

~~~
cookie_monsta
No. As well as insulation we have vehicular manslaughter.

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

~~~
lainga
It's a shame. If a country can't show you its culinary best at a university
cafeteria, where else _can_ you go?

~~~
quelltext
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.

~~~
blattimwind
You can eat very cheaply in Germany, but if you do that, you probably can't
complain about the quality.

~~~
_ph_
Food prices are very low in Germany. They are extremely low, if you cook
yourself and even restaurants are not that expensive in international
comparison.

But indeed, if you go to extremely cheap places, you can have really bad food
too - but that is independant of the food style. They make bad Italian food
too :).

------
PavlovsCat
> the bottom floor is 0, not the ground floor

In the elevator sure, though just as often it's abbreviated EG for
Erdgeschoss, which does mean ground floor. We call the floor above that
"erstes Geschoss" or "erstes Obergeschoss", whereas that would be the second
floor in English, but we never say "nulltes Geschoss", always Erdgeschoss.

[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Erdgeschoss](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Erdgeschoss)

~~~
DominikPeters
Calling the ground floor “first floor” is a North American thing, and everyone
else (including UK) agrees with German numbering.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storey)

------
throwbackThurs
I moved to Berlin from Melbourne about four years ago. It's been a great move
for my swdev career. There is really interesting and diverse projects and an
abundance of work. It's a developers market. European infrastructure is
amazing in general. It's also nice to be able to ride 20 minutes with a
bicycle to work and feel like your not going to get hit by some moronic bogan.

I think that Berlin could be the most liberal and free city in the world at
the moment, I love it.

I realised how culturally isolated Australia is and how English centric we
are. Speaking any other language is kind of frowned upon in Australia . There
really is this elitism attitude globally relating to english and it's a double
edged sword, it makes us uncultured and insensitive. In Europe and Berlin
specifically it's a melting pot of languages, cultures and ideas and I
absolutely love that. What Australia lacks in culture it compensates with
Sports. For better or worse.

I think violence is pretty common in Melbourne at least. I don't feel safe
drinking in stkilda, Prahran or in the city. Everyone gets so drunk and if
it's not racism it's petty masculinity that causes a brawl. The culture
definently values "sport" over nearly everything else. Therefore it's a
breeding ground for this kind of behaviour. I really dislike this about my
fellow Australians. Conversely, I feel incredibly safe in Berlin.

Quality of food is arguably better in Australia overall, but great produce can
be found here also.

Obviously Australian nature is incredible and offers a lot, it's also a very
geographically isolated place, so it's hard to feel connected with the rest of
the world. No quickly jumping over to Africa or the middle east!

Anyway, I love Europe and germany, they are doing some really forward thinking
things and align with my beliefs. There is still a long way to go, but at
least they are trying to steer their economies in a progressive direction.

