More Cycling Home After Work

Some more impressions of my trips to and from work

My Bike - The Dahon Glide, Slow But Sturdy And Versatile

This is the bike I am using for my daily commute (a little bit more than 10 kilometers each way): a very comfortable, but not really fast bike.

 

But apart from being a somewhat slow bike, the Glide has a few great functions:

It can be used as a transporter - i had to paint our new apartment, and I used about 60 liters of paint. I have no car so I had to carry each bucket of paint (10 liters), fortunately I had the Glide.

It can be used for Pizza Delivery - here are tons of little pizza/döner/kebab (I will explain about Döner, Gyros, etc. in another entry) places where you can get something for +/- EUR5. And the pizza box fits perfectly on my Glide's rack (which actually comes equipped with a rack)

And to dry my cycling gear while I am at work

Mail Box is Flooded With Ads

When I opened my mail box on Saturday this is what I found in it – ads/brochures of about 20 different stores. 

Cycling Home After Work

As I mentioned I have been cycling again, so here some more pictures from one of my recent rides back home from work. 

This region is a wine region, so there are a lot of vinyards

 Here a small winery - wine bottles in front of the entrance

 This is in the city we will live in - Waiblingen. A short cycling path passes through this park.

You Need to Put Your Name On Your Mailbox - Or You Can't Receive Mail

I finally found an apartment (will add some pictures later), and started to move in (which turns out to be a real hassle and a money burning activity). The funny thing - it is VERY important to put your name on the mailbox and the bell, "otherwise people cannot find you, and you cannot receive any mail". The landlord (which is actually an organisation) even called me and sent me an email to remind me. 

In theory there are apartment numbers, but it seems like no one uses them. 

I ended up spending almost 15 minutes trying to open the casing of my door bell to put in my name tag before some other tenant came and told me that it is almost impossible to open it. I better call someone like the janitor (who doesn't live in the same building), because if he breaks it it is OK. So I ended up just using tape to stick my name tag to the bell. The mail box was done in five minutes though.

I'm Back - On The Bike

I' back - on the bike. I finally got a bike (a bicycle) - my mother's old Dahon Glide P7. Though I am working for a bike company the company couldn't provide me with a bike (unless I buy one of course). The Glide is a nice bike if you want comfort and speed is of no concern. So I have been using this Glide for the last couple of weeks to get to work or get around Stuttgart. If you know the very hilly area around Stuttgart and if you know the Glide, you can imagine that doesn't go together too well. But anyways, it is still nice to be able to cycle again for a couple of reasons.

Get some excercise before work (it is a 20 km ride from where I live at the moment to the office)

Safe some money (using the public transportation is absurdly expensive - I will write about it later)

I don't have to spend half an hour in the crazy traffic (everybody thinks he is Michael Schumacher, while everyone else is stupid).

But when I thought, the conditions for cycling would be great, I was proven wrong. There are some really nice cycling areas or cycling paths in Germany, and the last few times i was cycling in Germany was during the Eurobike in Friedrichshafen (Lake Constance). That was really beautiful with a real cycling path for most of the time.

But Stuttgart is a "Car City" as people say here (after all it is the home of Benz and Porche), so it looks like there is not much focus on improving the cycling conditions here. Often you actually have to share the road with the cars. Sometimes they just paint some lines on the street, paint a bike on the road and that is your cycling path - like this:

Sometimes the road is not even wide enough for two cars and a bike passing each other, so the cars actually have to use the "painted on" cycling path. You perhaps remember the failed cycling path on DunHua North Road (敦化北路) in Taipei.
But there are real cycling paths which are not too bad. But then there are crossroads like this in the middle of nowhere and no signs - three paths going in three different directions, and no sign where to go:

 

But there are nice sceneries too, here a couple of pictures to give an idea about this somewhat hilly area. Actually the last couple of days has been warm and sunny and suddenly all the trees are in full bloom. I will add more pictures of this finally spring like secenery.

This area is famous for its wine:

Missing My Family

It has been more than a months since I have moved to Germany. And slowly things are coming together. My wife's visa is almost processed, my son's passport is ready, and i just found an apartment (which still needs furniture, paint, etc. - there goes a lot more money).

But it also means that, with the exception of a week in between when i was in Taiwan for a bike show, I have been seperated from my wife and my son for all that time. And I have to admit that has been the hardest part so far. When I left for Germany I thought I will just work hard, start arranging things, and the other free time I will work out or explore the area. So I will be busy and fine, and it will be fun. That was my plan, but ...

After about the first week already I started to really miss my family. I still have been trying to do everything I had planned to do, but it is not as much fun, because I am missing my family. And the weather doesn't help. It has been freezing ever since I arrived here.

Now I can somewhat imagine how many of the migrant workers feel who left their families behind to work in other countries. And they are often separated for years. And in earlier times these people often didn't know when of even if they would see their families again. At least I will see my wife and my son again in a little bit more than three weeks.

Germans NOT So Environmentally Friendly

When Taiwanese talk about Germany they often think of "clean country" and "environmentally friendly". (Other adjectives are serious, well organized, little/no humor). That was also what I thought I remembered about Germany, and I thought it was even getting better and better. And now I have been walking and cycling through Stuttgart and I saw this (not just in one place/not just in a isolated incident):

I guess I have to appologize to my wife, after complaining so often about environmentally unfriendly Taiwanese. And I definitely will get something to hear when she sees this.

Coming Home After Work - And It Is Still Bright Outside

From Taiwan I am used to coming home after work in the dark. One reason of course are the long working hours, but another is the fact that even in the Summer it gets dark already around 7PM. Now here in Germany I actually can enjoy a couple more hours of daylight after work. Of course we get off work earlier, but also it gets dark later than in Taiwan. Especially in the Summer, when it gets dark only between 9 PM and 10 PM. And even now we have bright sunlight until almost 8 PM. The difference is of course not due to magic, but due to the different position of the countries in relation to the equator, but it is still something I am very pleased about. And it makes up somewhat for the crappy, cold weather.

This picture was taken yesterday at 7:35 PM

Spring Has Arrived - At Least In Some Parts of The Country

I hope these will be the last snow pictures of this year (April 1):

This morning in Lower Saxony, Northern Germany (not an April Fool's Joke):

This afternoon in Stuttgart, Southern Germany

Some Pointers For Moving to Another Country

Moving to another country is a big step and it takes a lot of preparations. In case someone is thinking about moving to another country, I have some suggestions based on my own experiences. These are suggestions for a family though. If you are young and single this doesn't apply as much because if you are young and single the experience of working in another country alone is worth the move, and you don't have to worry (too much) about financial issues, how to move a family, or how to provide a comfortable home.
But moving to another country while being "Married with Children ..." is different.

First have some money ready which you can burn without having to think about it. I would say 3000 - 5000 Euro.
Second - find a job with a company which understands what it means to move a family to another country. Better even if this company gives you a good package that includes some support for a move.

The money aspect - You need plane tickets, you might have to send some stuff from the place you live to the country you want to move too, you need money for the apartment, you need to buy furniture, etc.
The money for the apartment not only includes the rent, but usually a deposit of two or three months rent and if you cannot find anything else you have to pay a commission of roughly 2.5 months rent to a real estate agent. So you might have to put down 3000 to 4000 Euro first, before you even pay rent and can move in.

I was talking about the money you need for the apartment, but before you can spend this money, you have to find an apartment. And that is only one issue you have to deal with and spend time for. You have to get health insurance, an account, discuss with the tax office in which taxation category you are ("so you are married, so you should be in category 3, hm, but your wife and son are not in Germany yet, so they don't count, so we will tax you as a single) discuss visa issues with the related government agencies, etc.

And to do all these things, you have to get around, and unless you don't have another roughly 5000 for a new (or used) car, you have to take public transportation which means spending another 3 or 4 Euro for each trip.

So you not only have to spend a lot of money in the  beginning, but also a lot of time. So it would be a big help if the company you just began working for supported you. There are many things a company could do to help - helping to look for an apartment, some subsidy for public transportation (I don't even ask for a vehicle, though my company couldn't even get me a bike though we are a bike company - unless i borrow a bike from a coworker), and a lot of other little things.

My wife said "no company or boss is willing to care like this for their employees" which might be true (though I know that many Taiwanese companies actually help their foreign employees to find a place to live, especially if they promised it - and i am not talking about the "dorms" for migrant workers from South East Asia).
But - in the end, a company that doesn't supports its employees will suffer too, though it looks like that most bosses don't really understand that or don't think it matters.

If i don't think I get enough money I will leave as soon as I find something else. Or I will see, if I can make something else on the side.

If I have to spend a lot of time to look for an apartment, and do other things, I will not be able to dedicate my full attention to my job.

Anyways, if you move a family try to find a supporting company - and not just with words.