Today I had an interesting experience when taking the S-Bahn (metro) to work. Immediately on my stop, a woman with a baby entered the train. The baby kept whining and yelling for mostly all the time, which really stressed out most of the people on the train, mostly due to the mother not really making an effort to make him stop. So when I (and I guess more people than should) exited the train at Marienplatz and got on the escalator, an elderly lady, an obvious Munich born lady turned to me with a very annoyed face and said – That was horrible. The society we live in today, it makes me sick (possibly referring to how the mother did not attend to the child and let it whine and yell, obviously annoying everyone on the train). It sickens me how it gets worse and worse. But I blame the politicians, they all do it for the money. USA starts the wars and we get stuck with the refugees.
An interesting train of thought, since you could not tell if the woman with the child was a refugee or not, but I did not take a good look. Does not matter anyway, it got me thinking, is it really what people think? I know the Germans are not happy about the influx of the refugees to Germany, but on the other hand they get a very good work force for a very cheap price. But yes, she thought I was German, I nodded a few times, said a few words in reply, I wonder if she would not be that honest if she knew I was not German.
I did it! Today was the day that, after manly long years, I have finally finished reading a non-business related book. This book was on my to-read list (amongst about 60 others) for the last two years! Thankfully the person, that I borrowed it from has not missed it by now, so I had it available for all that time. I have carried this book with me to at least 4 countries so far, with no success in actually starting to read it. The book in question is Alamut by Vladimir Bartol and what a read it was! Actually I first started to read it earlier this year, but made it to about page 30 (of almost 500) and then I got distracted by everything else again.
Well, thanks to becoming a bus rider once again after years of driving by car or train (I could read on a train, but usually just work on my laptop, silly, I know), I have started reading this book again. I managed to read a few hundred pages on the bus ride and then it laid on my shelf here in Munich again, waiting for the day when I will actually read it to the end and see how the story turns out. The story started pulling me in and I must say that it even inspired my dreams, which was fun. Today I had my head full this afternoon and decided to take a few hours off from everything and finished the book.
I must say that I am truly amazed by how a novel, a book that I would typically put on the end of my priorities to read after all the articles and business related books, affects me. First of all, there was this sense of satisfaction that I have actually taken the time and spontaneously read a book that has no immediate effect on what I do or how I act. Oh, how I was mistaken…
This read was one of the most relaxing experiences in the last years. Today my head was full of various things which I usually get sorted out when doing sports, but reading that story really focused my mind on the events that it describes, my mind did not wonder anywhere else and I stayed focused until the end. So besides the satisfaction of finally taking the time off to read a book that I have planned to read for so long, the relaxing state of mind, really thrilling story and very good thinking points, there was also a great benefit to it. The book really sparked my imagination, I forgot how it felt, when your brain had to imagine how everything looked, how the characters are, the surroundings and how the events transpired. A wonderful feeling which I want to achieve again, so I am already searching for the next one. Truly a long time has passed since I have had my imagination wonder and imagine a story.
So if you also deal with the same problem – wanting to read, but never finding (or rather taking) the time to actually do it… I hope you will get a chance to do it, the feeling was truly awesome and I feel completely at peace, so an advice from me to anyone would be easy “You feel stressed out? Read a good novel!”.
As I mentioned, I am already looking for the next novel to read so all suggestions are welcome, feel free to drop me a comment with a good novel that you can recommend. Tickle my imagination!
So living in Munich is something you may be considering. Everything looks great on paper, salaries seem good, living standards are high and a lot is going on. Munich seems like one of the places you want to be living in if you want to see the world happening first hand.
However, relocating to Munich brings with it a challenge, with which many are faced only after making the decision or already making the last steps before coming here. Where to live in Munich?
Nope, you can forget living in a place like this 🙂
You might have already heard that, but I can confirm, real estate in Munich is expensive. When I was first doing research in 2014, I was surprised at how high rent prices seemed to be for apartments, so I was thinking that maybe an even better option would be to just go ahead and buy an apartment and consider it an investment. Well I was in for a nasty surprise. Housing in Munich is insanely expensive, one could argue that, except for some elite locations in Germany, real estate in Munich is the most expensive in Germany. And rightfully so. If you already live in one of the world global hubs like Singapore, London, Paris, New York, San Francisco, then you will not be shocked at the prices, but for myself, coming from a capital of another EU country, I was surprised at the fact how high the prices were for (often) mediocre real estate.
For the last 10 years real estate prices in Munich have been on the rise and there is much more demand than there is supply. Even though you can see so many construction sites in Munich, the prices are rising substantially every year. This is of course due to the influx of new people moving to the city due to the rise of open positions to be filled, for which there is not enough supply in the local population, so companies are turning to the global markets for experts, the best paid jobs being mostly in the IT sector. Here is some general official statistics for the city of Munich. But be careful, what may be a good salary on paper, may diminish quickly if you are used to living in a normal sized apartment on your own. For high end jobs usually the employer will offer to set up housing for a certain period of time, after that you are on your own.
So, once you are here (or ideally before you arrive), you have three main options on how to live:
A shared accommodation (WG or Wohngemeinschaft) – so if you are younger or do not have problems sharing a flat or a house with others, then this might be your best option. Typically a WG will cost you anywhere between 500 and 800€ per month total, so it is one of the most affordable options for living.
The second option and also by far the hardest to come by is renting an apartment. Usually when an ad for an apartment is posted, people tend to receive a few hundred applications in the first few hours. You can use an agency or try to rent it on your own. Often competing for an apartment means you will have to convince the landlord that you are the best option (if you make it that far). That means providing your employment contract, credit history and basically making the landlord like you as much as possible. A typical rent for an apartment (heating costs, electricity and communal fee included) in Munich will set you back between 900€ for a tiny studio apartment and 2.300€ for a nicely furnished apartment of about 65m2 in one of the more posh and central areas of the city (i.e. Schwabing), prices have no upper limit of course, but an average 50m2 apartment will set you back somewhere between 1.200€ and 1.500€, if you will be lucky enough to be chosen. Most of the apartments are rented out empty with no furniture or equipment, kitchen and bathroom are of course installed. So you need to include the cost of furniture into your financial estimate. Moving companies do big business in Munich with the constant flow of people, so sometimes people also give away stuff or sell it really cheap when they move. If you are on the money-saving side you may profit from various give-away, just pick it up web pages and you will find a lot of good stuff cheap on ebay. Also when you move this is a great option to get rid of the stuff you do not want to take with you.
Renting a house – by far the best value for money, but also an expensive option. Houses are a lot easier to come by, since there is not that much demand for them and you can rent a house for about 1.800€ and up per month. Of course there is no upper limit here as well, depending on the location, furniture, estate, etc. A nice house will set you back between 2.200 to 3.300€.
If you are smart you can rent a few rooms out in the house, preferably to people who spend only little time in Munich (you have those as well), so you will mostly be on your own but can push the costs of the house to other people as WG and end up paying almost nothing if anything extra for your own accommodation.
Buying real estate – the final option if you plan to be here long and are a bit on the speculative side. There is a lot of talk of the Munich real estate bubble, but it has been growing for years. The price for a square meter might come as a shocker. The statistic is somewhere betweeen 7.500€ and up for a square meter. Typically you can consider that for something normal it will be 10k€ and up. From my experience a central apartment near Marienplatz, owned by a young millionaire has 200 square meters with a terrace and is worth about 25k€ per square meter – so totalling 5 million EUR.
Rent contracts usually have a three month up-front security payment for events of damages or unpaid rent and a three month termination period. If you are looking to rent for less than one year, that will make you less desirable in the eyes of landlords. Also, expect that rent contracts are done in advance, which means you might need to wait for a month or two to move in after you find a place.
You can also check many Facebook groups where you can also sub-rent an apartment when somebody goes abroad for a few months, you can get an apartment for a shorter period of time, this is of course only a temporary option before you get settled and know your way around if you plan to stick around Munich for a longer period of time.
Here are a few that might come in handy, get your google translate ready if you do not yet write and understand German:
Not so long ago the prices of real estate in smaller cities or suburban areas were substantially cheaper but in the last year or two, they have gone up and now rent out only a little bit cheaper than the city area, usually when you add the amount of time you will need to spend travelling to and from work and the (public transport or gas) costs, it makes more sense to look for something in the city.
So the real estate market is tough, sometimes there are cases when people bribe the real estate agents to get selected for the apartment, even though that is illegal, what you can expect to give out (especially if you really really like the place) is somewhere between 2.000 and 4.000€. In cold, hard cash of course.
When I was driving home from work yesterday, there was an interesting political speech about how people from Munich have enough of being intimidated by rising real estate prices due to speculative investors buying up properties. The sad fact is that if you are somewhere in the middle-class income segment, you can forget about buying real estate. Especially if you do not have credit history in Germany and a really good job. Making between 4.000 to 7.000 Gross monthly income and unmarried will net you somewhere between 2.400 and 3.900€ per month. So you can do the math on your own. You can play with numbers here.
So the city is growing and population is growing fast as well. Infrastructure and real-estate investments are unable to keep up with the demand at the moment. Unemployment is extremely low, some estimates even set it at about 1.5% for the city itself.
Many of the original Munich inhabitants have already moved out of the city and decided to rent out their real estate. You also have cases where people have really low rents due to the fact that the city provided long-term rent guarantees to people in the 80´s and I think also the 90´s in order to attract people to the city. Many of these people signed contracts for several decades and still have low rents of a few hundred EUR. They often sub-let their apartments to newcomers and relocate somewhere else.
There is, however, a great trick if you have a place in Munich, that can make you a substantial amount of money. Often people use that option – Oktoberfest. During that time many people rent-out their apartments via Airbnb to the massive number of tourists coming to visit the city. They use the money to take a vacation and when they come back, they still bag a nice profit. A nice example was a friend of mine, he sub-rented his apartment to 6 guys coming for two weeks for 11k€, went on vacation with his girlfriend, spent about 4k€, he was left with a nice 7k€ profit that he pocketed. If you have a house at your disposal, that might be a nice option. Usually people spend most of the time on Oktoberfest and by the time they come home they just fall asleep.
There, I hope this posts helps you understand the real estate situation in Munich a bit better and gives you an idea what to expect on the real-estate market. Good luck with finding a nice, cosy place to stay that will help you miss home less when you relocate to Munich.
So what really counts in life? The magical question – is it success, is it money, wealth, respect, religion, good deeds, family, friends, that one special person that makes everything beautiful, children, what is the true ultimate goal that makes our life wonderful?
This perspective changes for me every 10 years or so, priorities change, goals are achieved and new ones are set. Wishes change, surroundings change, list of priorities is shuffled constantly. Things are lost and gained, people come and go, but what is that really important thing that matters?
For me my guideline for the last 8-10 years is to have stories to tell. I want to know that what I do in life, makes a good story that I would be glad to tell at my deathbed to whoever would be willing to listen. When I was younger it was all about making money, as that was the only way I knew how to value myself, but the better I did at that time, the more pointless it seemed. I was never motivated by the wishes for material things, I never wanted the most expensive cars, the biggest houses, the most envy. What I wanted was to explore, experience, achieve, prove to myself that I can, that is my main driver for most of the things I do in my life. To do these things with a smile on my face, at least for most of the time.
But today I can say, that there are really few things that are really crucial to me, one is finding (and being with) that special someone that makes your life more, with whom you share the moments of (her life) and your life and gives you that feeling that nothing else matters when you are together and to start a family. The second one is having people in life that make you feel as if you always knew each other, where no word is forbidden and always make you laugh when you meet. In my life I meet many people and being a people person I establish relationships quickly, people trust me fast and I tend to trust them as well. But as everyone can say, true friends that you can always rely on are few, most of us can count them with the fingers on one hand, even the sloppy carpenters that might have lost a finger or two, and then there are people, who are not a part of your life on a daily basis, some of them you see maybe once per year or once every few years, but when you meet, you feel as if you last saw each other just yesterday.
I was lucky enough that in my high-school years our class was one of the most connected classes that ever existed. Of course we had groups and some people tend to like other people more, but overall we have always stuck it out together and there was this bond between us. Even today, whomever I meet from our class, we always stop to talk, laugh, remember and talk about personal things. When I talk to others, I often get surprised responses, as to how is it that we still meet every year and in such high attendance and confirmations that such a connection is very rate with ex-schoolmates. Our class meets every year in the same location, an old-school grill place that seems stuck in the 1980´s in Ljubljana, which surprisingly enough has a FB page! (Kersic) Whoever can, comes, and the evening is always nice, exchanged with stories and laughs. We share personal stuff and we remember the good old days. Often we tend to go out afterwards and party it out, even though we started noticing that we do get a bit calmer every year. But what I wanted to say – people like that matter, they make life many smiles richer. That is also the reason why I rarely miss out on the opportunity to meet my former classmates, they are all wonderful people and it is so interesting to see how each and every one of us follows his or her own path in life, but still on that one evening per year, we share as if we were still sitting in that classroom or on the school courtyard during recess. No matter how you feel, how fast-paced life is, what you do in your professional or private life, stopping for that one evening always makes everything feel like we are back there again just having a good time. That is one of the things I find priceless, I know that in 10 years this tradition will still exist. Whoever will be able to, will come, and there you have it, that is what matters to me the most. Relationships with these special people, that make life what it is, that make it nicer.
Thank you 4.D, 1997/2001, you are a big part of my life story, were and will be.
My relocation is not a typical one, I spend time in my home country as well as in Germany. The distance between Munich and my home city is a mere 400 kilometres, which means I can travel home often. I have the added bonus of working for a subsidiary of a Slovenia based company, so I often visit my home city also to meet and work in the HQ office. At first it was expected that I would spend less time abroad, but it turned out it makes much more sense that I am close to the market, customers and people, than to work remotely most of the time. In the first few months I travelled home very often, almost every weekend as before we arranged all the operations and built a team, there was little sense for me to sit in an office in Munich. But now our operational team and work is in the critical stages of setting up a running company operation and I really need to spend as much time here as possible. To get the clearest picture and to help wherever I can.
This situation will last for at least a few more months as this is the most fragile time when establishing a company operation in a new market and country, so I spend more time at once in Munich and travel to Slovenia only about once or twice per month for a few days (mostly weekends with a few working days for meetings). What quickly became obvious was, that driving home by car every few days is an expensive and tiresome option, as a four to five hours drive (my record was 9 hours due to three accidents on the highway) really leaves a mark on how you feel. So I started considering other options and the fastest one is taking the bus. There are good connections between Ljubljana and Munich, several bus lines connect both cities every day and also the bus is the most affordable option, as you can get a ticket for as low as 20€ one-way. So a bus ride being the most obvious option, I finally tried it out. People who visited or travelled often either used Arriva or Flixbus. There is no big difference between the two, but I decided for Arriva due to tales of free coffee, WiFi, toilet, only one stop on the way and that busses are double-decker buses. So there I was, a new passenger on the regular connection between Munich and Ljubljana. I decided to travel on Thursday from Munich, since with winter weather, snow storms in Austria and weekends coming closer and closer to holiday season, Fridays tend to be hectic on the roads. I expected it all, and empty bus, where I could sleep on the top level of the bus, unbothered and where coffee would be freshly ground maybe even with an artistic programme or a live music performance. My dreams shattered immediately. The bus had no two floors and there was a bunch of people waiting to get on. What I did not know is that you have two options – either buy a ticket beforehand, or just risk it and wait for the bus and check if there are seats free. To my disappointment the bus was full. But still, I found a free seat, which would be adjusted that there was more space between my neighbour and I and that I could really find a good position where my knees would not hit the seat in front of me (which supposedly happens on Flixbux).
When the bus was full, looking at my fellow passengers I felt like I was in the movie Ko to tamo peva (Who’s Singin’ Over There?), a classical Balkan movie, which is known throughout all the countries of the former Yugoslavia. It is a movie that shows the political and social situation at the time (the movie takes place 1 day before the occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941). So there were people from many of the Ex-Yugoslavia countries on the bus, some older people, a guy who look like a shepherd by the clothes he was wearing and the stick he was carrying. It made me smile. What stopped me from smiling though was a lady sitting behind me, who in the polite manner noticed a free seat and asked the gentleman next to that seat if it is free. She sat down. And started talking. And if you ever had experience with people from the Balkans, we tend to be quite talkative, some more than others. And that lady… she had a lot to say. I listened for five hours (the entire ride) of empty stories about what somebody said to someone or how someone mentioned a German word and she did not understand it, or whatever. From neighbour disputes, from stories at work, legal proceedings, how good her work is, etc., etc. The gentleman next to her managed to squeeze out a word or two every five minutes, encouraging her to continue. What surprised me was, that her vocal cords were actually able to endure the entire ride, as my ears were almost bleeding just from trying to block out the ramblings. But other than that, the bus ride was great. I managed to make decisions on trading positions (which made me a substantial amount of money by Friday) and arrive to Ljubljana quite rested. I even joyfully let the taxi driver of an unmarked taxi scam me for a few € for the ride home, even though I asked him if he is going to charge the normal tariff (about 1€/km in Ljubljana) – he said – you won´t get a better tariff than that. Which I did, I got the Munich tariff, at about 3€/km 🙂 I didn´t mind as we had a funny talk during the ride, he told me a few stories on the brothels he visits and drives his tourist customers to and how we switches the taxi meter on and off every few kilometres so that his wife or boss would not suspect he went to Nova Gorica on the border with Italy to a brothel to spend some time there with friends.
Making a stop at the Tauern OutletIf you are a quick shopper you have 15 minutes to buy stuff and be a good consumer 🙂
What I forgot to mention was, that the bus does make one stop in Austria, next to an Outlet shopping centre, so if you are a spontaneous consumer, you get to spend some money in the 15 minutes you stop for. I do plan to stop there the next time I am with car, as they do have some interesting deals, though.
But I was happy. I was not as beat up as I usually am after driving (and I tend to not stop on the way), the snow storms in Austria did not affect me and my brain was relaxed and happy.
So, I spent four days in Slovenia, took care of stuff on Friday, had tires changed on my private car, met friends, took care of mail, bills, enjoyed our traditional high school reunion, which was awesome as always, slept through Saturday, enjoyed a Sunday meal with my parents, coffee with friends, played basketball in the evening and on Monday went the the Ljubljana office, said my goodbyes until next time and ran to the bus again.
This time it was different. It was a Monday bus, so the driver mentioned when I chatted him up, that we can expect some traffic at the tunnel and potentially some delays. That did happen, as well as the weather was really crappy and upon arrival in Munich some tunnels were closed, so we built up one hour of delay. I barely caught the last train I had to home and dropped dead in bed. I did manage to get two seats for myself, the bus had no one really talking, except I suspect that the guy sitting behind me drank about 10 beers, as he always had a can of beer in his hand and was burping all the time. But what can you do, at least he was not talking for five hours 🙂 I managed to read a book for most of the time and it felt great.
I managed to take a sneak peak at what youngsters do on their smartphones for 6 hours, I was negatively surprised at how boring it was and I think I could have even slept on the ride if the book would not interest me so much.
So taking a bus – yes or no? Definitely yes if you are sick tired of driving as I am. I do want to try out the train in the near future, it does take one hour more, so 6 hours to get to Ljubljana and is more expensive, but I guess it is independent of the traffic conditions. I was also surprised that we were checked for documents twice – on Slovenian-Austrian border and on Austrian-German border, so I guess border controls are back (I only got checked once when travelling by car) even though that on the German side of the border police has checkpoints everywhere.
But to make my point – taking a bus to and from a Balkan country – without a doubt. You will always have an experience as people tend to be more interesting than the classing western-European polite people who keep to themselves. You might get caught up to an interesting conversation, get drunk or just have the opportunity to enjoy your book or browse social media in peace, you will never know, until you get on that bus.
Lets go backAlmost forgot how it was to read a book uninterrupted for hoursFunny pictures at a stop in AustriaOf course ski history is a big partIf you live in a place with snow 🙂And off we go. This rest station even had a free toilet, well done!
I guess we all have one of these days every now and then, when we just think that our life is a complete mess of things. For me, today is such a day. After arriving back to Munich in the middle of the night, the first time with a bus (which deserves a blog post of its own), freezing my ass off at the S-Bahn station to get home, finally getting to bed at 2 in the morning and having a miserable night with two weird (but interesting) dreams worth of a movie and being completely dried out due to the heating being too high in my bedroom, waking up late completely dehydrated and worn out, spending the whole day working, I am finally home. Every day new ideas pop to my head on what to write about, but this one is the first one I need to get out of my system.
So, yes, today I feel that my life is a complete mess. Juggling living in two countries, running a company, trading the FOREX market, starting a blog, desperately trying to maintain relationships with people close to me, wanting to live healthier, exploring the world, meeting new people, learning new things, just stopping for a day or two to read a book and getting back in shape, I feel I am out of strength, that is it just too much to handle.
But I persevere, I always work best under pressure and get the most done under such conditions. The more stress, the better results I tend to deliver. How this impacts me and my life, I have no idea, no clear picture. I know I live a full life with many interesting stories I will be able to tell, but is that really it? Would I not be happier just winding the tempo of my life down and enjoying nature, quiet time, relaxation, quality time with great people. No idea, but I know on such days I just want to let go of everything, crawl into bed and sleep until I feed rested. I sometimes daydream of taking the first plane into some new country, throwing my phone away, closing all my social media accounts and just enjoy a far off beach or mountain range, spending days enjoying in the shade, reading books, starting a bar and mixing cocktails. A daydream that gives me the feeling everything would fall in place and I would really start enjoying life.
There really is no specific point to this, except for the duality of it all. Would I be missing out if I would not accept the challenges I did? Or would I really live the way one should.
I had a lot of thoughts on the society as it is today, at least what I see from my perspective. All this “need” to live, experience, enjoy, broaden the horizons… should it really be that? Are we really all that special to be at the centre of everything? Do we really need to be the ones that have done it all? Or are we better off just enjoying a simple life, having a family, caring for our loved ones and being closer to nature, enjoying what is has to offer. I often think that we have lost that touch, that our generations feel we need to achieve sometimes meaningful, but at the same time spend throwing away our days following the social goals of travel, cool hobbies, following social media and being consumer drones.
I get that feeling more often when in Munich where the tempo seems to be much faster and the pressure much bigger on people to either be achievers or consumer drones, who sleep, work, shop and watch TV. No idea if that is true, it is just my perception. Yesterday I have read a book. After a very long time. Before that, for the last few years, I have only been reading on airports and before that I actually took time in my everyday life to read. I miss that, I have over 60 books on my to-read list, waiting on my shelves or written in my notepad. The list keeps growing, yet I do not take the time to read, there is so much more to do I think. But… books take me to another place, they inspire my imagination and I also believe that that was the reason for my two very vivid dreams yesterday (I was reading the novel Alamut by Vladimir Bartol), the book that I wanted first re-read three years ago. Until yesterday I thought that I have read it in gymnasium, but now I am not so certain, since I do not remember anything what I have read so far.
So at this point there should be a conclusion, but do I have one to give? Right now I feel that I am not capable of reaching it, but at the same time I know that once I get rested, sleep this off, I will fall back into track juggling everything again, with an occasional day when my thoughts will wander to that country far far away where I would find my inner peace… and for now that will need to do, I have so much that I should do, before I could let go and just relax… so much to prove, to me and others. Or so I was taught to think. I hope that some day I will look back and know that all of that was just part of the road to that peaceful enjoyable place where time moves slow and days do not feel like seconds again.
I remember yesterday on the bus, in front of me sat a young student. I was reading the book, and I could see her smartphone. In the 6 hours of the drive, every time I glimpsed at what she was doing, it was either Instagram, Facebook or messenger. I could have sworn it was same posts all the time, photos of clothes, make up and female models… I thought she must really have been bored and all that was going through my head was, how good the batteries on her smartphone are to have lasted her through all that browsing of endless clothes, accessories and trend setters through the whole bus ride. Only at the end it hit me, how different we were. I was happy to have had the opportunity to read a book after all this time, she was probably some 10 to 15 years younger than me and 6 hours of social media was something that she passed her time with being more than content.
On the way home from the office I listened to the radio in the car, there was a piece on the 1920´s history in Hannover, Germany about a poet who was criticised for his work. It explained the political situation at the time and how this was connected to him disrupting the society with his work. It got me thinking of how times changed, how in the past young people followed their callings, how they knew what they wanted to do, how they did not take education, art, science and medicine for granted. Or even the social system. I feel that in the times we live in today the young (or middle aged, as I am) people do not have that perspective, that all is just a blur, that very few stop and think, that we all just run on a track… to no clear goal, pursuing something we cannot even specify.
Maybe I will sleep that thought off, or maybe I am right, who knows.
On Saturday last weekend, after leaving Freiburg, I decided that rather than to visit Switzerland on my way back to Munich, I will visit Strasbourg in France. This was (surprisingly, as I worked for a French Corporation for 14 years) my first visit to France in my life.
The idea came alive when I was talking during dinner in Freiburg to Jurek, a friend of Anselm, they met when they were working and living in Mexico and Jurek ended up relocating a few weeks ago to the company HQ in the vicinity of Freiburg. They used the opportunity to meet up and I was kindly invited to join them. Jurek mentioned on that evening that Strasbourg had a very nice Christmas fair that opened on the 24th November and they received an in-company e-mail that whoever heads there should be ready as the city centre is closed for vehicles due to safety precautions because of terrorist attack risk.
So, goodbye Switzerland, hello France! One of the main drivers for my decision was also that due to morning rain in Freiburg and also Basel, the weather forecast for Strasbourg was a bit nicer and rain should have stopped at around 11 in the morning. And it was also just a tiny deviation from my route home through Stuttgart and Ulm as Strasbourg is immediately at the border with Germany.
A wonderful drive in the rain to reach deep into ones soul
It took me about an hour of rainy driving to Strasbourg and I must say I did enjoy the ride despite the fact that the drive has nothing special to offer, but it just felt good to put on some good music and enjoy the ride to France with an occasional comment from the car navigation for company.
And on that note, some non-sponsored (Opel, I would accept a sponsorship) – a praise to Opel Insignia and the Diesel engine, I love the efficiency of that car and the way it drives it has proven a very reliable, effective and comfortable car for longer drives.
I love to see that range with a full tank
Upon arriving to Strasbourg, it was true, the city centre was closed off for vehicles, so finding a parking spot within walking distance was a bit of a challenge. I love it that cities now have the signs that state where the parking garages are and how many spots are available. If you are visiting Strasbourg and have a car that is larger than a Renault Clio, I do recommend you use the parking garage Saint-Nicolas. This place has a dark secret… but it will come in handy. As you enter the garage, you will see there is no way you can fit you car in any of the parking spots and be able to open the door. So as persistent as I am I insisted until the last floor, which opens up to a nice rooftop parking space, where you could easily park a Humvee. It also offers a stylish view of the city. So that secret is revealed only by people that do not quit.
So parked and ready to go, I walked approximately 10 minutes to enter through one of the checkpoints controlled by armed police, security and military personnel to the city centre. As freakishly as that seemed, I have googled it a bit and I must sadly say that terror threat has obviously become one of permanent issues in countries like France and Germany. There was a prevented bomb attack at the Christmas fair in 2000 and people were arrested in 2016 in Strasbourg. Upon reading the fresh BBC report today on a prevented terror attack in Potsdam in Germany. So yes, Christmas fairs seem to be a target for terror, sadly this is the world today. It was a bit odd seeing armed military patrols walking amongst the crowd, but I am slowly getting used to this in larger European cities. Something like that is, however, completely inconceivable for me and someone used to living in Slovenia.
One of the checkpoints to the city centre, also checking trams entering the centreAmongst civilians there were many 4 solider patrols fully armed
As far as the Cathedral and the fair itself go, it was wonderful. I only spent a few hours there since I had a long drive ahead of me and wanted to stop or at least drive through Stuttgart and Ulm, but it was magic. Great atmosphere, which probably gets even better in the evening and the closer it gets to the new years eve. I cannot comment if that is one of the better Christmas fairs in the region, but I must say that the city centre where it is placed in a circle around the cathedral, with different markets being full of stands with candy, chocolate, food, the would-be presents and holiday trinkets, it does have a really nice energy and feel. I would recommend anyone to visit if they have the chance.
An interesting store with everything for horseback riding
Candy time!
And more,
more, and
more.
Tea selections all around
Without duck special dishes, France is not France!
French fashion
At french fashion prices
It seems the market is there
Good ideas
A piece for decor instead of garbage
The swan knows!
A time when all is fluffy
Chocolate tools, a first, very good idea
Cupcakes, need I say more?
To conclude my writing. Christmas time does have something special in it and even though I sometimes find it way too commercial and exploited, Strasbourg is a very nice city and I really recommend visiting it during the Christmas fair time. I was also happy to help out some people find the right streets and turns and brush up my french skills (which were never very good and deteriorated quite a lot in the last 10 months). I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the city and all the nice shops and stands in the city centre. Also a lot of very nice architecture and one of the cities one should visit if in that part of Europe. I would say it is well worth an up to 2 hours drive, for more, they should serve Vin Chaud (mulled wine, or Glühwein in German) for free (hint to the mayor of the city).
Crossing the border
Classy french trams
Some new buildings
But mostly nice historical ones
The capital of Christmas
with stylish floors
A memorial to general Leclerc
The line to see the cathedral is mega long even in the rain
Last Friday, I had to go to a business meeting with an important potential partner to Freibrug im Breisgau. It is quite close to Basel, Switzerland, but sadly not very close to Munich, so it was a 4 something hour drive.
Starting off in Perlach
To sum things up – it was very well worth the drive. Business wise and to experience this wonderful city. My colleague Anselm is from here and I was invited to stay as a guest in his parents house, which I appreciated as it was much more comfortable than a hotel room or driving back in the night.
The drive already offered some nice sights. Due to traffic conditions and good experience we decided not to take the road through Stuttgart, but went on the southern route instead, through Lindau and then along the Bodensee lake. This is wine country with some amazing sights, sadly we did not have time to stop.
Wine country along the Bodensee lake
So upon arriving to Freiburg, you see the standards are set high as well, even dogs have their own Porsche cars, something you have to get used to in Germany 🙂
He did not really feel like taking a picture and was a bit shocked 🙂
After getting gas on the petrol station, we hurried to catch the meeting. So the city itself has some 200k+ inhabitants and is spread out through several valleys and is bordering on the Dark forest (Schwarzwald) which is a wonderful green part of Germany with some mountains and hilltops including ski slopes. You might also have heard of the cake that is named after the forest. I did have my ski gear in the car with me, since I knew I could use up Saturday, but in the end I visited another country, but that is already material for another blog post.
So Freibrug – I got the opportunity to check out the city centre, which is beautiful, has a great atmosphere and there are many young people as well as Freiburg is a university city. It has a fairly similar standard to Munich, so housing is expensive so is the food if you eat out, but I am already used to prices in some German cities, so I was not surprised at all.
There is also a small hill in the city from which you can see almost the entire city and reminded me of Roznik and Cankarjev vrh in Ljubljana. That is a small big thing missing in Munich, the city itself is completely flat except for a small artificial hill in Olympiapark and that sometimes really makes me miss Ljubljana and Slovenia. Freiburg I could adapt to much easier as there are a lot of hills and climbs to choose from in the vicinity.
So being in another state I can see that language is a bit different than in Bavaria and I did have some problems catching up to everything that was being said in the meeting but luckily my German is already good enough that I can fill in the gaps of the dialect words that are sometimes used by people I meet.
Freiburg has a great vibe to offer, very nice city centre and I would gladly spend an extended weekend there to get to know the city better. Here are some photographs captured by my professional Samsung phone camera. If they don´t convince you, still go and visit, you will not be sorry.
This was where we had the meeting and I assume it is one of the tallest buildings in Freiburg. the top has a dance club, but of course, it was still closed after the meeting 🙂
The theatre house
University library, a stylish building
Part of the university campus
A memorial on the location of a synagogue that was destroyed by the SS and SA during the Night of Broken Glass in 1938
One of the streets in the city centre
These are engravings on the church wall used by the traders on the marketplace as measuring tools for units
These are engravings on the church wall used by the traders on the marketplace as measuring tools for units
A nice mosaic on the street, Freiburg has many to offer
The city centre streets still have the canal system that was used for distribution of drinking water in the past
A view from the hilltop
A view from the hilltop
The famous Freibrug crocodile in the stream in the city
One of the local breweries. The beer is brewed right then and there and you get it at the bar
A view from the hilltop
What also got me thinking was a memorial to a synagogue that was destroyed in 1938 by the SS. I do want to explore that part of Germany more as well, I have been to Dachau, but I would like to understand the politics and the times better and there are many places in Germany someone can do so.
Freiburg today is a bit atypical, as people tend to try to find work in Basel, Switzerland, since salaries are much higher there and continue to live in Freiburg. It is about 1 hour drive between the cities. French people tend to try to work in Freiburg, as I guess salaries in Germany top the ones in the nearby parts of France. An interesting mix.
As far as first impressions, after spending some hours wandering in the city, go, I can really say without a doubt that Freiburg is a place worth visiting. Also the region has much to offer. My first plans were to visit Switzerland and then Lichtenstein on the way back towards Munich and try to get some skiing done somewhere in between, but when I woke up on Saturday and saw that rain was pouring (even though Freiburg should have the highest number of sunny days in Germany), I decided to go to France and visit Strasbourg as the Christmas fair was being opened on that day, but as I said, Strasbourg is well worth another blog post on its own.
What I also noticed in Freiburg and it was the first time I saw that (but was frankly never very specific in examining churches) on the walls of the main church in Freiburg there were engravings used by the market traders as measuring units. So for example how big should a loaf of bread be, a “underarm” length unit, called Elle in German. What was interesting the bread sizes differed and different models should be used based on how fruitful the year was. I found that quite interesting and ingenious. So the prices stayed the same, but the unit size was changed based on the general community welfare and stocks.
So enough about Freiburg, for a first visit it was short but sweet. I do hope I will get an opportunity to know the city better and if I spoke Germany well enough maybe even be there on business more often, as the company we met might just be the right partner for the banking sector in Germany and Switzerland. I will be happy to dedicate more posts to Freiburg in the future either way.
This blog post I will dedicate to quitting smoking. I have smoked cigarettes since I was 14. It started off in the 1st year of gymnasium and I kind of kept on going from there. Today I am 35 years old and have been smoking most of that time. I have had periods when I have quit, sometimes just for a few weeks, a longer period was at about 25 years old, when I quit for about 3 months and at 29 years, when I quit for 6 months. The moment I heard the term “chain smoker” in English class I knew that I fall into that category without a doubt. I have an on/off switch so I either smoke 1-2 packets / day or I don´t smoke at all. There is no in-between for me and my smoking habits. In the past my main motivation for quitting was better performance at half-marathons and sports in general, but I would quit 2-3 weeks before a run a few years ago when I was running on sports events quite often. I also quit smoking for 4 months this year, on 2 January, since I simply did not feel comfortable smoking as it really started to affect my lungs and coughing.
I always remember a medical checkup I had at 30 years old, which was a routine examination paid for by the state for people. Part of this examination is also a lung capacity test. At that time my lungs were perfectly fine and being a chain smoker I had no problems running 21 kilometers run with my 100+ kilograms of weight even due to smoking. But I remember the nurse telling me that the time to quit is really now at that age, as the future with smoking does not look bright – especially because of the disease called the Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) . you can read more about it here on this Wiki page.
So cancer is just on of the things that you risk when smoking, but COPD is a widely spread deterioration of the lungs. That means that at older age as your lungs become practically dead, you have problems catching your breath even when walking. This later on puts more strain on the heart as it needs to work harder to pump oxygen in the body and of course heart failure is often an outcome of that burden. So, definitely not a good thing.
So I started smoking again around the beginning of May this year and have been a really good chain smoker until recently. Since in Germany you can get the big packet with 27 or sometimes 29 cigarettes, I was able to off 1 – 1,5 packets a day, that being cca. 40 cigarettes daily on average. Mostly in the morning and evening hours before I would go to or return from the office.
I have quit again now, due to not feeling well and I really knew I overdid it again with the smoking. A cold finally got me and I had to lay in bed for two days, not being able to smoke (even though I wanted to as a true junkie), I took the chance to quit again. I felt much better after the first two days (as always) and I managed to push through the first week, which is usually the hardest to keep away from cigarettes. What always motivates me are the WHO (World Health Organisation) data on what happens with your body when you quit – I am always driven by small goals towards the big one – if that´s your thing as well, check the WHO statistics out here.
Ok, so far, for me, nothing new. But what really got me thinking was this. In my former company I received the FitBit Charge 2 bracelet as a parting gift from my colleagues and it measures your sleep, heart rates, etc. I keep it on me most of the time and it gets me thinking a lot – how much I move, what my heart rates are, about my exercise and calorie consumption. So changing my life broke my sports routines and I am really not living as healthy as I would like to. What really sobered me up on smoking, was the heart rate at rest that the FitBit measured. This chart told me everything and it is giving me true perspective on why I really should not start again. I am posting it below, so that you may understand what I am talking about.
So to keep it simple. My resting heart rate dropped (I quit smoking 14 days ago) from about 65/66 to 55, which is a decrease of about 15%! 15% is a lot if you look at it long term. Taking into account that I really don´t do as much sports as I would like to (but have started running and workouts again in Ljubljana and Munich) it is a huge difference. Also of course after about 10 days I usually start sneezing and coughing out all the junk that got stuck in my body from the smoking and I must say having that sense of smell and taste again is wonderful. Not to mention the feeling of taking a really deep breath without that burning feeling in the lungs or inducing a cough.
So, yes, I really hope that this was the last time I quit and even if I slip up again that I will be able to refrain myself from becoming a chain smoker once more, as I clearly am affected by smoking.
Wishing you all the best if you are on the path to quitting this expensive and senseless addiction. Keep it up, you know it´s worth it.
So here we are… my first blog post. Thankfully I do have some experience with WordPress from work, so I am able to start off writing. Maybe the first entry should be boring so that I do not set the standard too high. So I will start by sharing when and how I will most probably write future blog posts – so, here we are, evening hours in Munich, when I am home from the office, sitting at my computer and eating vegetable soup… 🙂 The entries should be more interesting than that though. Hopefully 🙂
Today was a very specific day not to the facts that I lost some money in the Forex market, had a very good (and long) day in the office and am getting ready for an important meeting for our position in Germany tomorrow. No, this day will be remembered as the day that I finally acted on my idea to start a blog. Hopefully I will at some point look back and remember this day with a smile of nostalgia on my face.
Of course as it is appropriate for a blog, here is a photograph so that you may relate to the environment in which this post is being written.
The soup is an interesting addition and will be a big topic in the future, as being healthy was one of the first things I stopped caring about when I went abroad. The sports routine from home falls apart and you end up eating junk food most of the time due to super long hours in the office. So my main challenge now is to get my health and fitness level back on track and to a level that I deem acceptable for my age (which means I need to be able to run a half marathon again). I guess I have a topic for the next post…
End the day with some healthy food
My life, my stories, your fun read
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