GermanyGermany

Published on March 12, 2016 ⋅ 2min read

BOOM. Berlin, Deutschland. I spent 3 days there, before heading to Hamburg for another 3 days, then down to Köln (Cologne), where I stayed in Remscheid with some family friends for a week. Now I’m heading back to Berlin for another 3 days, then planning a visit to München (Munich). Whoa, getting ahead of myself again.

Since I arrived here, I’ve tried to speak as little English as I can. Every day, I’ve found I understand a little bit more. By the end of the day I’m quite thoroughly mentally-exhausted. I’ve been to the theatre twice, and the cinemas 3 times. I think I’ve been to the theatre in Germany more in a week than I ever went in New Zealand… How cultured! Maybe I’ll acquire a taste for art too…

So, free walking tours are really good. I would highly recommend them. They’re not really free, they work on a tip basis, but if you’re cheap and stingy, or just plain mean, they could be free. I did 2 walking tours in Berlin and another 2 in Hamburg. It’s an excellent way to get to know your way around the city, while discovering some history, and where all the cools things are. Plus, you only have to pay as much as you feel it was worth. So if the guide sucks, then that’s their problem. Generally I’ve found they’re pretty good though. The guide I had in Hamburg was excellent. Despite it being bitterly cold and pouring with rain, I learnt heaps, had a ton of fun, and even continued on to do the afternoon tour of a different part of the city, inclement weather and all!

I visited Miniatur Wunderland, an enormous model railway exhibition in Hamburg, which was simply spectacular. It is the thing to do while you’re there. You can easily spend at least 2 hours just walking around looking at all the highly detailed railways. Apparently they have over 13km worth of track!

I also went into an old Russian submarine that was for some reason docked in the river… no idea why it’s there, but they’ve turned it into a museum. Having never had the chance to go in a legitimate submarine before (the “submarine” at the Great barrier reef hardly counted), I jumped aboard and crawled my way through the hatches. They are seriously tiny and very awkward to climb through. I would definitely not want to be a part of the crew living in there for months at a time and going to war. Nope.

Movie recommendation time! If you’ve not seen Das Boot, I would highly recommend it! It’s a German film about a crew in a submarine during WW2. After visiting the submarine I really felt like re-watching it because it’s a fantastic film that does an superb job at portraying the tension and suspense the men would have felt in the submarine. Don’t let the subtitles put you off. Go watch it. As soon as possible.

My week in Remscheid was a lot of fun. Dita and Mirco helped me a lot with my German. I tried to speak only in German, although I didn’t quite achieve that. It was surprising how often words came up that I knew the translation for, when they didn’t. My vocabulary practice has been paying off! Still got a long way to go, but this last week has really highlighted how much progress I’ve made over the last year since I started teaching myself. It’s very encouraging.

So, here I am on a train to Berlin again. Over the last week or so I’ve had a couple of interviews with some web development companies. They went well and I’ve made it to the next round of interviews, one of which requires me to go back to Berlin for an in-person interview and work sample day tomorrow. Hence why I am currently on a train with a couple of empty hours on my hands to keep you abreast of my travels since Asia. We’ll see how it goes…