Pangea Party

With the departure of our American friends back in October, we have making an effort to be more social and meet new people.  Being internationals ourselves, we mostly interact with other internationals in and out of work.  So we straightened up the apartment and invited over our eclectic group of acquaintances for an international potluck dinner party.  We asked everyone to bring a representative dish from their home country so we could all share a taste of the world.

We invited a diverse group of people, and in the end the turnout was even better than I would have expected.  We had a total of 18 different countries represented, which meant an amazing spread of food and some really fun conversations.

We had arepas from Columbia, guacamole/salsa/beans to go with chips from California, Hungarian liquor and cakes, tiramisu from Italy, Turkish food from Turkey (yeah, we can’t remember the name), spanakopita from Greece, empanadas from Argentina, muhellabi milk pudding from Jordan, roasted duck from France, chicken nuggets/cookies/cupcakes from USA (us!), sushi from South Korea, potato and carrot stew from the Netherlands, liquor and cake from Estonia, and some filo dough pockets from our one German guest.

All in all, it was really cool to know we are not the only ones trying to figure out our way in a foreign county while learning the language.  Lucky for us, English tends to be the medium for most foreigners!

Shoot for the moon, you will end up in space, or something like that

Today I stumbled upon an email from my previous-manager, dated December 9^th, 2009.  The subject title was simply ‘Germany Office‘, and it was her letting me know that there are at least 4 finance people working in Munich under the manager Brian C.  The reason she sent this email to me?  We had been discussing my 5-year plan, and apparently I had mentioned Germany to her. 

Fast forward 3 years (almost to the date) – I am living and working out of Munich, Germany, and am coming up on my 1 year Germanniversary.  And no longer do we only have 4 finance people: we have closer to 60 with the 2011 acquisition of Intel Mobile Communications (from Infineon).  And wouldn’t you know it – That Brian C. she mentioned is now my manager.

So what’s my point?  I don’t really know.  But it does resonate with me that for the longest time, Noah and I kept mentioning to people that we might want to move to Germany one day- including, apparently, my old boss.  And instead of just being satisfied with how our lives were going on their own (which, by the way, Phoenix was still fabulous) – we decided to make our strongest effort to move to Germany.  That way, if it didn’t pan out for us, we knew we gave it our best.  Plus we had to try to avoid looking like we were full of it since we had mentioned a potential move to so many people.

When we found out we both found work in Germany, and knew it would work out for us, there were so many people who told us how lucky we are.  Sure, luck was part of it.  It’s true that being an American with a good education (thanks mom and dad!) definitely gave me a leg up.  And the fact we both were able to find jobs?  Definitely some luck in that.  Oh, and Intel recently acquiring a company in Munich – 100% luck for me.  But if we only left it up to luck, I guarantee we wouldn’t be here. 

A casual remark to my manager that I would like to work in Munich one day didn’t get me here.  There was a lot of hard work behind the scenes required to take full advantage of our good luck.  I had to brush up my resume and interview skills, use my acquired network with Intel to reach out to people, and fly myself (yes, I paid) out to Munich to meet everyone and land myself a position in a newly acquired company.  And if necessary, I was ready to approach companies outside of Intel as the next step to get me here.

Also – I couldn’t keep track of the number of times either Noah or I wanted to throw in the towel and go the ‘easy’ route – staying where we were.  Frustrating calls in our broken German to set up our Internet (and often getting hung up on); moving to an apartment that was completely stripped of everything – including lights – in the middle of winter; trying to coordinate moving our dogs 3,000 miles away; I could go on.   Sometimes the challenges made us lose sight of why we chose this crazy route in the first place.  But looking back – these are amazing ‘problems’ to have, because they accompany a move to Europe! 

I am not saying everyone should go make a vision board or anything like that, but maybe I am trying to remind people that if they have a dream, why not go balls to the wall trying to make it happen?  Yeah, you might fail, but you fail knowing you tried your best, and you won’t have to think ‘what if?’.  Also – you might actually succeed, and find yourself in a completely new and exciting stage of life that you would have never imagined yourself in. 

With Thanksgiving tomorrow - here is our version of "Turkey"

With Thanksgiving tomorrow, and no plans to celebrate it, it might be a day that could leave us a bit depressed.  I mean, this is my favorite holiday, and the last 5 years Noah and I even hosted it at our home in Phoenix.  This time – I have meetings until 6pm (I mean, no one here cares it is Thanksgiving), no time to bake or prepare any Thanksgiving style dish, and no family to share the day with.  So you folks back home – you win tomorrow!!  Instead, we will just have to focus on the perks of living in Europe – one of which is having a constant stream of visitors!! 

This month, we had my brother, Logan, and his girlfriend, Ashley, come for 2 weeks.  Since I had to work a holiday the other month, I had 2 bonus days off that Noah sadly didn’t.  But at least I was able to take off the first few days of their visit to give them a proper tour of Munich.  Sadly for them, the biergartens are all closed for the winter, so instead I took them for lunch at the Augustiner Brewery, where we had a German photobomb us.

When Friday arrived, the four of us (we finally included poor Noah) were off to Istanbul!  This was the trip Noah and I had been looking forward to the most, because we had heard so many amazing reviews from friends and coworkers.  Plus Western European cities, while all amazing in their own right, tend to look roughly similar.  We were finally going to a city that should look and feel completely different.  We weren’t let down (though for those of you still to go – expect cats, lots of cats).

We landed and were whisked to our hotel, where we immediately were greeted by this view of the Blue Mosque from the hotel’s rooftop:

Our first stop was the Grand Bazaar, which is a massive maze of hundreds of stores split up by category.  And most stores are selling very similar things – but according to the shopkeepers, their store has the best items and best prices.  We were able to locate a beautiful Backgammon set (something we had wanted to get from Istanbul ever since we knew we were going), and some lunch.  Other than that – it was a lot of wandering and admiring, but also trying not to be seen looking to avoid the shopkeepers.

Next stop – Spice Bazaar!  This one was the place to get food items, mainly spices (no surprise there), Turkish Delights, and dried fruits.  I am still disappointed that I never saw dried pineapple or dried strawberries later on in the trip, because I really could have used more.  Noah’s bag of dried ginger is still going, even back in Munich, that lucky duck!

Friday night we found ourselves walking the İstiklal Avenue (Independence Avenue) looking for a fun spot to eat.  After some interesting propositions (some food, some ‘other’), we finally stumbled upon a crowded street off the main avenue filled with restaurants, bars, and people.  This is where we wanted to be.  We chose Keyif Restaurant at random, and sat upstairs with the roof open and with a band periodically playing.  I think we all fell in love with Turkish food this trip, and this place didn’t disappoint.  Logan and I also indulged in dessert, which would be a theme that developed over the trip (what is wrong with you two – Noah and Ashley?!?).

Saturday was a rainy day, so we stuck to the buildings.  First we explored Topkapı Palace which clearly has beautiful views of the city… but better on a clear day.  Oh well.

Then we moved on to the most impressive building I have ever seen – the Hagia Sophia.  I can’t believe it was built almost 1,500 years ago in the 6th century – I am amazed that they could build something like that way back then (I think it would be a difficult project even today).

Saturday night we went to see some Whirling Dervishes, and this was definitely not what we expected.  I think the videos on youtube are more ‘Hollywood-ized’ where you see a bunch of Dervishes whirling to music, and it looks like a grand time.  While I am really glad we had the experience, we decided it felt more like we were intruding on someone’s private worship time.  It was very intense, and not as much ‘whirling’ as I would have expected.  

 Our last full day in Istanbul started out with a quick trip to the Blue Mosque, then an hour or so trying to figure out how to get around the city with a marathon taking place (solution – an overpriced taxi ride to the pier).  After another 30 minutes of trying in vain to find a ‘official’ ferry to the Üsküdar side of the river, we luckily ended up on a less-than-official looking ‘public’ boat that took us to the right place.

Over in Üsküdar, we toured the amazingly over-the-top Dolmabahce Palace.  Sadly, no photographs are allowed inside (those of you who use your flash when it says not to – this is what can happen!!), but take my word for it – this place is dripping in luxury.  From crystal staircases, to gold encrusted everything, to the most magnificent Ceremonial Hall, this was my favorite of the two palaces.

Our last big stop in Istanbul before heading home the next day was to make it to Asia!!  We had absolutely no plan of what to see/do when we arrived to that side of the river, but all of us (except Noah, who has been to Israel before) wanted to be able to say we technically have been to Asia.  After walking along the coast, we found a bunch of rug-covered bleachers facing the water, at an outdoor café.  We settled in with our hot cocoa (me) and our Turkish tea (everyone else), and waited for sunset.  We then proceeded to take a more than necessary amount of sunset photos.

When we returned to Munich Monday, it was back to reality for Noah and me, and off to Prague for Logan and Ashley.  We then rented a car for the weekend to spend some time in the Alps.  We wanted to try to see Eagle’s Nest in Berchtesgaden, and while we knew it was closed, we thought we could still perhaps make it up to the area anyways.  Nope – a firm “Was machen Sie!?!” (What are you doing!?!) from a ranger made us turn around on the unpaved road, and instead we settled for a lower mountain.

The next day we hit up Chiemsee and the islands Herreninsel (man-island for the monks) and Fraueninsel (woman-island for the nuns).  Both were beautiful to walk around, and the smaller Fraueninsel even has a Christmas market!  It just wasn’t open yet, you know, because they have to wait until after Thanksgiving, of course.

Now it is back to just the two of us (and the dogs, of course), and our next visitors aren’t planned for a few months.  I guess now is a good time to start planning next year’s vacations.  Potential visitors – 2013 is now open!

Innsbruck, Tirol

While I was dealing with backing up our recent photos (methods that Noah deems extreme – with the combination of external hard drives, burning onto CDs, and uploading to the cloud with my various accounts), I realized that our trip to Innsbruck last November was left off of the blog.  Sure this wasn’t that big of a trip, but the main point of our blog is for us to be able to look back and remember all our excursions, big and small, we take while we are here.  The second reason – to let our moms/grandma share in our adventures from 3,000 miles away.  So with that precursor, I will write about Innsbruck, almost three months later, and cheat and change this date for the blog so that this falls in the right chronology – between ‘Our First Snow of the Year’ and Istanbul.

What sets this trip apart from our others this year, is that we took our dogs with us out of the country.  Yes – the pups ‘used’ their pet passports we got them.  And ‘used’ is in the most loose sense – since Germany and Austria are both members of the Schengen ‘borderless’ area – essentially removing borders between the member countries – there is no border check to verify our passports.  But that didn’t matter – we wanted to make sure we were still following the rules like good pseudo-Germans! 

First, a cute dog story:  Our dogs have always loved riding in cars, and since living in Munich they have fallen in love with Aunt Ellen’s little blue Twingo car (important detail) – it means a trip somewhere fun.  We decided to use our new car-sharing program and rent a car for the trip to Austria.  Noah went to pick up the car and parked it outside the apartment.  When it was time to leave, the dogs were beyond energetic, as they knew a road trip was in order by the fact that we packed their food and leashes in our luggage.  When we opened the front door, amongst all the cars parked on our street, there was one small blue car.  They both darted straight to that blue car and looked at us to let them in.  The problem – we rented a silver car that was parked further down the street.  I am no scientist (I will leave that to Noah), but to me it shows that dogs have both memory and proves they aren’t as colorblind as people tend to assume.

And we were off!  With Noah working to re-learn how to drive a manual transmission, we headed south to Austria.  We did have to make a quick stop at a gas station to purchase a vignette – required for driving on the Austrian highways.  Think EZ Tag for you Houstonians, except for a much steeper fine – over 100EUR.  After a few hours, and finagling the small city of Innsbruck by car, we found a parking spot and headed to our hotel – the Hotel Weisses Kreuz.  Any idea why we might have favored this place when we saw it on the internet??? 

 It was a very cute, historic hotel, dating back to the 15^th century.  It had many levels and various corridors, connecting the different sections of the hotel that were probably purchased at different times, as the place expanded.  Plus the location was perfect – right in the center of things, and just a few yards/meters away from the Goldenes Dachl & the Helblinghaus.

We saddled up the dogs and took off towards the Nordkette mountain.  We took a series of funiculars and cable cars to reach the top, where we stopped to take some family photos.  

Dog's unsure about riding a cable car

We then took the last cable car up to the very tip-top – though this was in the clouds and a bit creepy.  It felt like stepping out onto another planet.  There were all these crows that were just flying, but not moving, because the wind was so extreme.  We only spent about 15 minutes at this level before heading back down below the clouds for some hot chocolate at the restaurant.

One level below, while we were waiting on the funicular, my eagle eyes spotted the tiny yellow and blue markings of an Ikea across the city.  I love Ikea.  But the one in Munich is rather hard to get to, and there was a picture frame I wanted that the Munich one didn’t have.  The next morning we found ourselves in the Innsbruck Ikea, surprisingly leaving with more than just that one picture frame. 

After our morning shopping excursion, we picked the dogs up from the hotel and headed off to explore the city.  We stopped in Dom zu St. Jakob – a baroque church that the Asam Brothers helped decorate.  For those of you who have visited us, we probably took you to our favorite church in Munich – Asamkirche, built by these brothers a decade+ later.  It made the church a bit more interesting for us.  We then walked along the main pedestrian zone located around the Annasäule column.  This was established in 1706 as a remembrance that Bavarian invaders were defeated in the region three years earlier.

The next day it was time to head back to Munich, but we had a small side trip planned to visit Achensee – a small alpine lake on the Austrian side, somewhat on the way home.  We figured the dogs could use some hiking around before the long drive back.  To reach the lake we had to head up some steep roads – which really tested Noah’s manual driving expertise (or lack of it).  We had our first stall-out on a steep hill (versus our stall-outs on flat ground) – which resulted in the car quickly rolling downhill backwards.  Luckily we were the only ones on the road, or we would have definitely hit a few cars on our way down.  After a few scary moments, Noah was able to kick the car back in gear and drive off.  Only later did we learn of the ‘commonly known’ hand-brake trick.  It is only common knowledge when everyone drives manual – which is just not the case in the States!! 

A little while longer we all made it to the lake, the car in one piece.  This is where I will give Noah a shout out for his amazing driving abilities – I know if it were me, I would pay 10x the price to get an automatic car, and then because of that not go anywhere.  The weather was very windy, which made it rather chilly.  That didn’t matter – the dogs were happy, the lake was pretty, and we all enjoyed the fresh air.

Sadie so worn out she fell asleep sitting up in the car

All in all it was a great weekend getaway, and it is always a bonus when we get to take the dogs with us on vacation.

Our First Snow of the Year

Following up from the last blog, we made it out for Ikea and a steak dinner yesterday with our new car.  Everything was a perfect success.   However, the world decided to throw a curveball my way as I drove a manual transmission for the first time in about 10 years….a snow-curve-ball.  The weather forecasts had us expecting snow, but it seemed most people were expecting it would be minimal and would melt right away.   But no, the world really wanted to test my skills by dumping about 6 inches of snow over the last 36 hours.  Well it didn’t really matter in the end though because my driving was flawless....if you don’t count the 6 or 7 times I stalled out trying to maneuver through parking lots, and I guess I can’t really blame that on the snow anyhow.

So we woke up today to a brand new white world.  I guess this is not a big deal for most people who have lived with snow in their lives, but this is so rare for us that I couldn’t help but take the camera out this morning.  And as expected Rita becomes like a wild wolf on the hunt when it snows while Sadie tries to find the dry path.  Don’t worry Sadie, surely this was a fluke and we won’t have snow again until it really is winter.

We Bought a Car….

…sharing service!!

Ok, we kind of sort of bought a car.  The only difference is that we share our car(s) with 10,000 other people in Munich, but essentially we feel like proud automobile owners again.  We signed up for a car sharing service called StattAuto, akin to ZipCar in the States.  And what exactly made us decide to do this?  There is this amazing steak restaurant that requires a car for convenient access, and I decided I have to take Julie there.  And why is this place so special?  Well you will have to wait for the next blog, because today is all about our new car!  But trust me- this steak place is worth reading about.

So after living without a car for almost a year, we have started to miss the sense of freedom that having a car lends.  My amazing Aunt Ellen has always been kind enough to take us (and the doggies!) when we want in her car, but it’s nice to have our own independence and not stretch our invitation too far.  But we don’t really want the extra responsibility and costs that come with owning a car.  After doing some research, it seemed pretty clear that car-sharing was the way to go.  So I put together my best sales pitch and sold the idea to my other (better) half.   However, I discovered later that she was wanted to reject my proposal immediately when I first suggested the idea, and had decided to listen to my pitch only to make me feel better.  I guess those years of salesmanship training selling Cutco knives paid off…I can still close the deal!

The program works like this: 

• Users pay a 250€ deposit (refundable at the end), a 25€ one-time processing fee, and 7€ per month to participate. 
• Once these payments are fulfilled, you have the ability to make an online reservation for one of the several hundred cars which are parked around the city. 
• There is a 2€ per hour rental fee (max of 19€ per day) and you pay 0.20€ per km driven (for the mini-class... add roughly 15 % for each increase of car size).  This fee includes the cost of gas which you would pay using the company’s credit card located in every car.  Therefore, this is very cheap since gas would normally cost around 0.10€ per km given average fuel prices and fuel economy. 
• To rent a city car for one day would cost about 20€ and a weekend getaway to Austria would cost about 120€ (including the cost of gas!).  This is very comparable, and in some instances cheaper, than traveling by train. 
• And also the cars are all insured with a 500€ deductible. 

All in all, this car sharing program is more economical compared to buying a car for someone driving less than 5,000 km per year- for people like us!

I went to the introductory class last week to learn the rules and sign the contract. The best part about the 1.5 hour lecture was that I impressed myself by being able to follow along pretty comfortably in German.  Normally, I would just pretend I understand, but this time I actually did understand it!  Now, all we have to do is wait until I get my PIN card and then we can start driving some cars.  Then we will find out how quickly I can re-learn how to drive manual transmission.  It’s only been about 10 years since my last time….I’m sure it will be fine.  ;)

The other really cool thing about this program is that they have about 100 different parking stations and there is one right down our street (3 cars, just 2 minutes walking)!  We have walked by this parking station about a million times and never noticed it before.  It’s in the back of an Opel dealership which maybe explains why the three rentals there are made by Opel (one Agila and two Astra for anyone up-to-date on Euro car styles).  Basically, they are amazing and we are really excited to have cars parked nearby!

It’s looking like an Ikea and steak dinner kind of weekend!  Stay tuned….

Oh and Aunt Ellen - don’t worry.  We (including the dogs) are still counting on you for our local getaways… your car (with your company) is still our preferred method of transportation!

I can go as our couch for Halloween

I went shopping over my lunch break on Friday, and when Noah got home I was excited to show him my new dress.  

Then I looked at the couch.

And I realized, I just bought the couch in dress-form.  Hoorah.  

Too bad Halloween isn't popular in Germany.

No, the ginger girl wasn't me. I wish.

I just thought this was hilarious.
Full 'article' from buzzfeed

But everyone's all like, "You're gonna eat my soul!!!"

And you're all like, "Yeah, maybe. I'm a ginger. I do what I want."