Saturday, February 05, 2011

Week 1 of German life

So this week was my 'real' week of German life.  Real as in starting work (or, rather attending meetings and training as I'm still waiting for my work permit), grocery shopping, banking etc...

Considering, things went not too badly. I survived my first drive on the autobahn (and enjoyed taking the rental 150km/h on the speed free autobahn) and first week on the job.  I have the rental car for only a month so one of the next things on the agenda is buying a car.  One of my least favorite tasks at the best of times.  Now I have to do it in German!

The biggest challenge though is going to be WHEN to buy a car.  Why?  Well, I'm not really sure when you're meant to get anything done in this country.  Normal work hours are 8 or 9 ish to 5 or 6 ish.  Most shops (including car dealerships) close at 6 on weekdays and are only open til noon on saturdays.  And forget Sundays.  The entire country (including grocery stores) is shut on Sundays.  So, that leaves me 3 hours a week to shop for cars. 

For the most part, I've been getting along ok.  Though I know only about 10 words of German, people are helpful and even if they don't speak English, we manage somehow with broken english, German and charades.  I took that for granted today when I went shopping.  I started getting stuff for my new apartment and started stocking up on cleaning supplies.  None of the brands were familiar to me and my 10 words of German doesn't extend to cleaning products.  So I stood in the aisle and stared.  In the end, I just picked out one of everything in the nicest packaging.  I have no idea what I ended up with.  Though I suspect the blue liquid is windex.  Everything else, will be a surprise!

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