Employment Permit

Here’s an interesting scenario I’ve encountered. Get a job and then apply for a work permit or obtain the work permit and then search for a job.

For individuals like myself (spouse that’s moved here with her husband that works for a local company (on delegation)) I currently hold the resident’s permit. Technically I can get a work permit once I have a job. The employer has to know if I can legally work here and the city has to know when I have the job. To further clarify, the city will change my status from a resident to a “working resident” once I secure employment.

The problem arises when the employer asks me “do you have a work permit?” and my answer is “no, after I obtain employment, get an offer letter, the city will supply my work permit. However I am able to work here legally. ” Then the employer says “But you have to have a work permit now to work here.”
So I ask the city for a work permit. That conversation goes something like this. “Can I get a work permit?” “Have you secured a job?” “No” “Then we can’t provide a work permit. Work permits are only for those that have secured employment with a company and until you do you can’t get a work permit.”

Really?
I must get a job to get the work permit or is it the other way around?

Here efficiency is another name for red tape bureaucracy.

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

Movie Night

For us date nights are scheduled for Friday or Saturday nights, except in Germany. Finding an English movie on the big screen on weekend evenings can be tricky. We’ve encountered this many times; we plan for a Friday (or Saturday) evening dinner and a show. First it’s the restaurant search and reservations. Then comes finding and picking the movie in the local theater. This is often when we run into trouble. They have many, if not all, Hollywood films on the big screen but most of the time they are dubbed in German. For instance, The Iron Lady. The first few weeks it was released in United States, it played in Germany, dubbed. Then when it was nominated for the Oscar they scheduled some shows in English. Thankfully we were able to catch it in English. (We both found it just average. Meryl Streep’s acting is spot on however the movie's plot didn’t grab our interest.) Another example is The Descendants. I hadn’t heard of this movie until the Oscar nomination so I looked for it in the theater. They were playing it in German as well as English. Unfortunately, they played the original version for only 2 weeks before and during the Oscars. We missed it. I admit, this is our fault for not scheduling a time to see it but I am also frustrated they played the original movie for only 2 weeks. 

The other concern is films in English are shown at peculiar times. When searching online, we’ve seen showings at 11am or 2pm on a weekday. This is wonderful for the afternoon or evening workers however since he works and I’ve had German classes until now, it’s hard to catch a movie, unless it’s evenings or weekends. 

With that out of the way there are some things that we really appreciate about the theater here. One, the movie theater in the Altstadt is enormous with many big screens and many movies (German and foreign) showing. Second, to see a movie one must make reservations by phone or online for a seat. This means, we can reserve exactly the seats we want (unless taken) for the movie. Then 30 minutes prior to the show, we pay and get our tickets with seat information. This makes things much easier to get good seats in advance, as opposed to the American way, where if you’re late you’re shit out of luck. The catch is if you reserve and don’t show 15 minutes before the movie begins, your seats are sold to someone else. This is definitely a foreign concept but we like it. Due to this, we’ve always had great seats because we picked them in advance. Third, most movie theaters in the city have 5 Euro movie days on Monday & Tuesday. Any movie at any time is 5 Euros. Who doesn’t love a discount? And finally, for those sweet popcorn lovers the theaters here offer salty popcorn as well as sweet. Salzig oder Süß? 
Salzig, immer.

Hiking in Kitzingen

Many of my posts are long overdue, forgive me? The comment section was missing and I couldn’t get myself to write one more post until I had that fixed. Every so many weeks, I looked for ways to fix the problem but couldn’t find a solution. Finally, I found it, on the design/settings page, it.was.right.there. But it was easier to find after I reformatted the layout design, hence the new look.

Anyway, I am back. I hope to post regularly but a nudge here and there will help tremendously. So don’t forget to leave a comment and tell me to write and share if I disappear again. Please?

Late fall last year when the trees were changing colors and the air was becoming cool and damp, we decided to go on a hike to Kitzingen. Kitzingen is a small village along the train route to Wurzburg. We planned to go there on a Saturday morning with a picnic to hike for few hours and to return in the evening. What followed was anything but that.

We arrived, we hiked, we saw beautiful vineyards, we picked some grapes off the vines (that wouldn’t be used for the harvest because the frost had settled), we picnicked and we drank. Once we saw the vineyards, we knew there’d be places around that would sell local wine. Upon searching the old city for 30 minutes in circles, we finally came upon an unassuming place tucked away behind barnyard doors. I only checked the place because I heard people talking, loudly. It was a gem and I am glad we stopped in. We had 3 glasses of wine there and bought couple bottles for home. Instead of saving them, we opened one (with the owner’s wine opener) and headed for our train home. Fully equipped with an open bottle of wine and another one in our backpack, the train ride that ensued was not only fun and comical but also grand. This is all part of living in Germany, I say.

I didn’t know anything about Kitzingen before and I am pleased we went for that hike. It was gorgeous with temperatures in 50s and the sun shining in all its glory. The wine was typical German wine- a tad sweet and briefly aged. And although I look forward to trying the Riesling from the Mosel region, wine from the Romantic Road region is fine in a pinch.

Mallorca

A best friend came to visit and it couldn’t have been more perfect timing. She was here for exactly one month and it was just what I needed in the dead of winter. We were experiencing the cold front in late January and February so a friend to go out with for hot chocolate and drei im Weckla was nice. She is also a chef by education and an amazing cook so it was great to be able to cook dishes with local ingredients found here. And in addition to lots of cooking and eating at home, we also had few trips planned. One of the trips was to Mallorca. It was a girlfriends trip. We were in the Balearic Island for 5 days and it was a delightful escape from the -20F temperatures in Nürnberg. However the first couple of days in Mallorca were cold as well because they were also suffering the cold snap that mainland Western Europe had but after the 3rd day the weather was full of sunny days and mid 60F temperatures.

One thing I learned during our trip is Mallorca is the land of citrus fruit. While hiking, we saw “citrus estates” as I called them because it was land filled with just citrus trees. These included Clementines, oranges and lemons.

We stayed in Valldemosa, a mountain town 30 minutes by bus from Palma (the main city). Our host at Es Petit Hotel de Valldemossa was very kind and helpful. And nothing beat starting the day with freshly squeezed orange juice with a hearty Spanish breakfast at a Bed & Breakfast. The only concern we had was being 30 minutes away from Palma made scheduling tricky. We often traveled to Palma by bus (departed every 2 hours) to travel to other cities.

Food wise, I tried a lot of fresh seafood that I was hoping to eat and we both thoroughly enjoyed the local lamb and pork dishes. One thing that I tried was the squid and tomato stew. It was sautéed garlic and onions with potatoes and sliced squid cooked in rich tomato sauce. Definitely memorable. As was the calamari (sliced squid that’s breaded and deep fried); both times I had it, it was cooked perfectly. (It’s very easy to overcook squid but clearly the Mallorcans know what they’re doing in the kitchen.) She doesn’t eat seafood so ordered mostly meat or vegetarian dishes and was happy with her food most of the time. La Bodega was a restaurant we tried in Palma. It looks like a large wine cellar with bottles from many Spanish regions. The menu, service and décor are fancy and the price reflected this much. I ordered a fish main entrée and she ordered a lamb, both were cooked magnificently. But what we both loved at the restaurant was the homemade aioli served with bread. I think between the two of us, we probably ate 8 rolls of bread dipped in aioli.

There were couple restaurants we went to that didn’t live up to the high expectations we had but this kind of thing is bound to happen when traveling. For instance, a pinxtos restaurant in Palma that sits off the beaten path from the tourist routes was just average with its small plate offerings. The menu was lengthy but unfortunately the food wasn’t overall impressive.

We also bought many bottles of olive oil from locally grown olives. It was neat to walk into a small, private olive oil producer’s shop to buy olive oil from him. We also stocked up from local grocers that supplied some veggies, mostly oranges, cured meats, sea salts and olive oils.

One day, we traveled to Santa Maria and Binisalem, the area with the most wineries on the island for wine tastings. We enjoyed the local wines but agreed they aren’t top shelf wines and good enough to be house wines.

The most unforgettable part of the trip was when we hiked to various towns and soak in the scenery. Mallorca is a beautiful island with views of the ocean in all direction so for a girl that loves water, this was bliss. One time when we were hiking from Soller to Fortnalux, we got off the trail and were lost. We asked one of the many car drivers that were driving up the mountain for directions and he helped us find our route by walking down part of the way. In that hike down, he mentioned he had been to California to see Pamela Anderson, which we thought was comical. When we found our route, he went back to fetch his car and said good bye with a “peace sign”. We now know Mallorcans most commonly associate the US with Pamela Anderson and the 60s.

Overall a great trip with a friend that I am thankful to have in my life. Now that I’ve seen Mallorca, I would say it’s time to explore other islands of Europe.

Happy New Year

We’re both astounded it’s already 2012 and it’s been 7 months since our move to Deutschland. For the Christmas break, we traveled to US to visit family on the east coast. And on the 31st, we arrived home to celebrate our 1st new years in our new home. What came as a surprise to both of us was the Germans’ enthusiasm for fireworks. When the fireworks started at 8pm, we were intrigued and went out for dinner to see the fireworks. Although we didn’t see any particular group of people with fireworks, we certainly heard them around the city. After dinner we returned home since one of us was feeling sleepy and needed a shut eye. However I was determined to stay up until midnight to experience the clock tick to midnight. By 11pm, the fireworks had increased in frequency so we trekked back out to the castle (Burg). By 11:45, there were close to thousand people near the Burg and the fireworks were being lit successively. We watched the sky lit up at midnight and returned home at 12:30. To our surprise, the fireworks went on until 1:30- 2am.

The husband, who grew up in India, said this is the first time he has seen fireworks put on by private citizens, outside of India. Regardless, we are thankful for a great show and happy we rang in the New Year with the Germans by the Burg.

Housekeeping
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The Mömax Guy

Spoiler alert- we have a couch.

Here’s how it started. When we were on the market for a couch (and a TV, guest bedroom furniture and many other things) we mostly looked at three furniture stores. Massive, retail Lazy Boy type of shops. Germans love paying top dollar euro for high end furniture and there are plenty of shops that cater to that market. We are not that market. We are Ikea folk. The last home we had, we bought nice furniture for our living, dining and master bedrooms. Guest bedrooms? They had Ikea furniture. And although it isn’t bad or won’t fall apart when someone’s sleeping, it isn’t the highest quality of furniture. Knowing that this Germany stint is temporary, for now, we had the same goals as the last time. Get decent furniture for decent price.

The three shops we looked at were Ikea, Mömax and XXX Lutz. (Everytime I read XXX Lutz or see a sign for it, it makes me think it’s a porn shop.) And to make things even more comical, Mömax is owned by XXX Lutz or vise versa. XXX is the higher end of the two.

We saw a couch we liked at Mömax and asked one of the retail guys for more information about material (leather or pleather), cost, delivery and etc. After getting the answers from him, we told him we’d wait a day or two to think things over. As we were leaving, another guy approached us. He said, “I saw that you were thinking about buying that couch.” Do you have any more questions about it? We answered, “No, we just need time to think about it.” He then said, “If you buy it now, I will give you the couch and the matching ottoman for a discount.” Our eyes and ears perked up so we asked about the percentage of discount. As he was walking to his desk to look at the numbers, we followed him. He sat down so we sat down. Then he gave us the discount rate which we were happy with but we wanted to know if we could come back couple days later to make the purchase. He, of course, sternly said, “NO! It’s a onetime offer and he wouldn’t offer it again later.” So then the husband asked about cancellation, “Could we cancel the order if needed?” (The reason for this question was so we could check the living room dimensions with the couch’s and make sure it fits. Reasonable, right?) He, of course, again said no to that also. But he insisted it would be fine and that we should buy the couch. (Imagine an American car salesman trying to meet his numbers and get the commission). After few minutes of discussing (in our language), we decided to decline the offer. And that’s when the man got really angry, really fast. He threw his hands up and said in English “I don’t understand you. You want this couch and I put in all the information in the computer and now you don’t want it.” We tried to explain to him, calmly, we needed time to think about it. And he repeated 3-4 times, very heatedly, “I don’t understand you!” Then he got up, pointed to the door and told us he wasn’t helping us. As he is walking away from the desk, he nodded his head and continued to repeat “I don’t understand this!”

We left, shocked and confused. We couldn’t understand why he was so angry but we conclude that because he looked up the discount rate and delivery information he may have expected us to buy the couch. And of course the language barrier had something to do with it but we can’t confirm anything.

Regardless, we didn’t get that couch. We went to XXX and bought one that we’re thoroughly happy with.

We’ve been back to the store to look for other things since then and anytime we see him, we say “there’s the Mömax guy.”

Let's eat Potatoes and Meat

Last night's dinner was Shrimp Curry that’s really Shrimp Masala. We had an attempt at shrimp curry few weeks ago and that wasn’t successful, actually let’s just call it a failure. So I had to try it again and this time around, it was a huge hit.

But this post isn’t about my cooking. It’s about the German food/cooking.

What we notice regularly is the obsession with potatoes. We know Germans enjoy pork and sauerkraut but they also relish their potatoes. There are potato salads, potato dumplings (Knödel), pancakes and fries. Oh the Germans love fries. When we go to a German restaurant often we see neighboring tables eating French Fries with their meals. Grown adults ordering French Fries. Hopefully after this I won’t be on the French Fry Federation’s hit list because I love French Fries too, not with bratwursts and sauerbraten.

And then the love of potatoes goes beyond that. We’ve had meals come with Knödel and roasted potatoes. So it’s a main meal with a side of potatoes and another side of potatoes.

This isn’t reflective of the German eating habits, it’s mostly how our food consumption has evolved after moving here. Prior to the move we consumed meat 4 times a week, sometimes more and sometimes less. Here we’re finding ourselves eating meat twice a week or less. Although Germans love their pork and eat it very regularly; we, on the other hand, now have a bigger preference for vegetarian meals. The meat we buy is from poultry farmers that have a chicken(Hähnchen), turkey(Pute or Putenfleisch), goose(Gans) and duck(Ente) farm. And our butcher (Metzgerei) has fresh pork, beef and some lamb products. The meat is more expensive here than in the US. I believe the higher costs are reflective of the land that the animals graze on and their feed. (And of course the dollar to euro conversion also makes a difference.) So we’ve accepted our meat comes from a good place and consume less of it.