A couple of emotions

This week, I had to visit the UK on very short notice. The reasons for the travel is not important to this story except that it put me in a couple of situations that evoked some strong emotions.

I was at Dusseldorf Airport, and was in the queue at the checkin desk. In front of me was a group of elderly Germans. They must be visiting the UK as a group. They were look quite happy and genuinely please to see each other. It looks they have seen each other for quite a long time. As I waited, another elderly couple joined them. They greeted with open arms and hugs, and immediately started to talk. I thought this is OK as they seem to be travelling in a group. However, when the last of the group has finished with the airline officer, the newly arrived couple walked the counter and proceed with the check in procedure. That action caused me to feel angry as I felt the order of things being upset. The fellow that is waiting behind me also voiced his opinion about the situation, which the elderly couple ignored. I can feel my emotion rising, and even proceed to give the elderly couple a nasty stare. None of their friends mentioned anything. These group of elderly Germans seem to have an air of superiority about them, a kind of "we have lived this life, and it is our turn to be respected and be privileged".  

After a few minutes, I calmed down after realising that there is nothing I can do to change the situation. In reality, the short delay will not make any difference in terms of the overall process of checking in and walking onto the airplane. In fact, they were held up in security check as I walked past them, and onto the nearest coffee house for some breakfast. Maybe karma got its back, in a small way.

The other emotion was when I returned from the UK. As I was waiting inline at the customs, waiting to be questioned by the customs officer. I noticed a couple on the booth on the right. They were going through their papers and pleading with the custom officer that they need a visa for 8 months for medical therapy. The customs officer said that with the evidence provided so far, they are only allow 3 months in Germany. For 8 months, the couple will need to provide further documentation. I didn't think too much about it, until the customs officer told them to proceed to an area where they can continue searching for the necessary documentation. As they turn around, I saw the lady carrying a child in her hands. The child looks to be sleeping, but I am unsure. It sounds like that the therapy could be for the child. The customs officer was kind enough to allow the couple as much time as they need to find the necessary paperwork. At this point, I feel quite upset. This family is so desperate to get help for their child that they are willing to come as far as the border of Germany without ensuring that the proper papers are at hand. They have travelled from Montenegro. I immediately thought about the boat people and asylum seekers that are such big news in Australia. It is so blatantly clear such enforcement at country's borders is so wrong. This situation could be decided if the child receive life saving medical care or be damaged for the rest of his life. For the sake of this family, lets just hope that my speculation is just that, speculation. 

Children at the Kindertroedlemarkt

The weekend just past, we had the Stadtfest in the town my family and I lived in. It is an annual event that occurs in the September and it is a big event for the town. It is an event that brings out the locals, a chance for local town folks to catch up and say hello when they run into each other at the festival.

The other part of the Stadtfest is the Kindertroedelmarkt. This is a fantastic idea that I have not seen in Australia or anywhere else in the world. In Australia, a troedelmarkt would be known as a trash n treasure market. In the US, it might be called a flea market.

Anyhow in Germany, a kindertroedelmarkt is a special troedelmarkt for children only. I don't exactly know the reason for running such a market but there are many positives to it.

A stall at the kindertroedelmarket is for the child to have a stall for selling their items. It may be their toys from years past, their clothes that don't fit them anymore, or books that they have out grown. It can be seen as a personal milestone for the child as he cleans his personal space out and make room for the new items that will be in his life in the next few years.

During the running of the stall, the children will get an experience of commerce. They have to come up with a price for their items, handle the negotiations when someone asks how much it is, and close the sale. At least that would be how it should be. Typically, the buyer just pays for the items and takes it away.

The children visiting the kindertroedelmarkt also gets a lesson in life the value of money. When we visited the market every year, the children would get some money to spent. This year, they got 10EUR each, which would buy quite a few items. As we enter the market, they immediately saw something that they want but we advised them that they should hold off and go deeper into the market. This is basically to avoid being impulsive and to size up all your opportunities before making a decision.

Towards the end of the market, the kids were down to their last few Euros. They bought some great items along the way. One of them got a magician kit. They also purchased a wooden set of Ludo, or in German "Mensch ärgere dich nicht " which literal translates to "Man, don't get irritated." 

As we walked out, one of my sons wanted to buy an Ambulance toy van. He asked for its price, "3 Euros" was the answer, but he only have 1.50 Euro. He told them that he only had 1.50 Euro, but the seller did not accept his offer. My son left the stall a little disappointed, but he realised that is the way life is. You can't always get what you want, nor it is possible to always to "just buy it". There also many take aways from that experience.

The day ended and the kids got many great items from the market, we also met a few friends and asked how they are going. Looking for the next year's market. 

Finally, we did the German thing at the market and purchased a Bratwurst mit Brotchen for an afternoon snack!

What city do you live in?

In last few weeks, there have been one of the Facebook fads where everyone tries out a quiz or a survey. When they get the answer, it is posted onto Facebook for all to see.

I have noticed that the majority of results are saying that they should live in Paris. The website is at http://www.quizony.com.

I tried it and it say I should be living in London. (Been there a couple of times, nice city).

I had a thought to see how many other websites are there that do the same thing. Running through Google, I got 3930 hits!

The website at http://games.usvsth3m.com/which-city/ as no matter which answers I give it, I always end up at Brussels. (also been there a couple of times, and also a nice city). 

To give it a little bit of run, it would have been a good idea to correlate the answers with the other folks that took the tests. It could have turn out like this.

1. The results came back that I should be living in Barcelona.
2. The website could recommend that I contact a few of my Facebook connections as he should also be living in Barcelona.
3. The website could also recommend that I send a postcard to my other Facebook connections who should not be living in Barcelona.
4. Perhaps other fun connections based upon the answers you gave. 

At the end of the day, it is just a little bit of fun.

So we had a car accident...

One of my biggest fear while living in Germany is having a car accident. Apart from the risk of physical injury to the drivers and passengers, there is also the hassel of dealing with the bureaucracy that is the German car insurance system.

I won't go into the details of the actual accident as it is not relevant to what I want to write about.

Coming from Australia, I am accustomed to the way it worked there. When an accident occurs, the drivers would exchange their details (including the details of insurance providers), and then we proceed to the mechanics to get the quotes for the repair work. After submitting the quotes to the insurance company, they would sort the details between themselves. If it is your fault, you pay the access and the insurance company pay the rest.

In Germany, things are a little bit different. It all comes down to the person who is at fault. When the police attended our accident, they advise us that all we have to do for repairing our car is to take our car the mechanic and tell the mechanic the insurance company of the at fault driver, that is it.

Having said that, there are a few things that we did that made it a little easier to deal with.

• Always call the police and get a police report. For an accident with no injury, the police will tell you that they don't need to be present. However, having a police report provides concrete proof who is the at fault driver and a clear description of what happened during the accident.
• Exchange the details with the other driver. Make sure that you get as much verifiable details as you can, including their driver's license details, their phone number and their address.
• Go to see a mechanic as soon as you can to start the paper work.
• Take photos of the accident scene. Use the camera on your mobile phone.

However, drive safely and avoid accident as best as you can. The disruption to your daily life is just not worth it.

Back on the wagon

Wow, it has been almost 12 months since my last entry into this blog. I must say that I miss the art of writing something. It has been a really long 12 months, with other items with higher priorities taking my attention.

Well, I will try to keep a schedule of one post per week, to be published each Sunday. I think have theme worked out for each week, that would help me focus on what to write.

In a rotating basis, I will write on four themes

1. Family living in Germany
2. Side income
3. Children and kinder
4. Living under the influence of Asperger's syndrome

The first article will be family living in Germany.

Our trip to Berlin and its technical musuem

It has become a bit of an Easter tradition for our family. It started during our first Easter in Germany at 2010 when we visited the Schwarzwald in the south. This year, we visited Berlin. 

As usual, we have left the hotel booking rather late, we booked it about 4 days in advance. (A mental note to myself, book it further in advance!) At one point, it was not looking very good that we may not be able get some hotel room. As mentioned during the "hop-on, hop off" bus tour, some 1 million tourist visits Berlin the Easter period. If that is to be believe, then I had some competition for those last remaining beds.

My family and I had an amazing time in Berlin. The late wintery conditions also provide some chilly mornings. It snowed quite heavily on the second day we arrived. 

While in Berlin, we visited a number of the attractions. For the children, we visited the German Technical Museum and the Natural Museum. The German Technical Museum is is a hit for the children. It had a big selection of trains engines and carriages on show. 

We took the train to the Technical Museum. Upon approaching the museum, we saw an amazing site of a plane on top of it.

This is a little bit like the Speyer Technical museum. However, this technical museum is full of everything technical. 

There were several items in the technical museum that was directly related to the world wars. The first one was an enigma machine, and the other was a carriage used in the holocaust.

The enigma machine is the real deal. The holocaust carriage, I am not so sure about. Let me know if you know one otherwise. As  step into the carriage and looked around, I can sense the sadness and futility of it all during the war years.  The holocaust carriage gave me plenty of things in life to appreciate. 

There were many trains in the museum. The children were able to climb into most of the cabin. They were having a really excited time.

It took us about 2 hours to go through the whole museum, however most of that 2 hours were visiting the train section.

One of the best part of the visiting Berlin was a chance to soak into its dramatic history in the last 20 years. I shall do a post about this.

All in all, it was a great trip, and we want to visit it again in the next few years.

Another observation about my lack of German language

When I shifted to Germany in the middle of 2009, one of the fears was how my lack of German was going to shape my life. During my research of the German cultural, the lack of folks speaking English was a surprise as I understood that English was taught to the majority of students, and that was from the start of their schooling.


As I approach my fourth anniversary of shifting to Germany, I have just one of the most disappointing experience that is a result of my lack of German. My son's started his primary schooling this year. Every four to five months, the parents of students of the class and the teachers have a get-together to discuss the situation class in the class, major activities coming up and discussion of other potential activities.

Firstly, I was really surprise that this meeting was mostly attended by mums. My son's class has 26 students in it, and only two dads attended the meeting. There was me and another dad. The rest were mums.

Secondly, I was also amazed on the topics being discussed. It ranged from the classroom events, topics being taught, new topics being introduced, sports etc. It was almost setting the curriculum via the parenting community.

Back to my lack of German. The moment that really emphasis that I am lacking is when the group of parents and the teachers laugh together about some discussion point, whereas we just sat there without any laughing expression on our faces. I guess that the only expression was bewilderment and, perhaps, a little bit of confusion.

The other moment was I had difficulty is articulating any questions that I had in such a way that would make sense in German, and also to understand the answer. I just was not able to do it.

I starting to get an insight to how my parents (especially my mum) felt when my family moved to Australia with little command of the English language.

Hacking the Tchibo coffee capsule

Many months ago, we bought a Tchibo coffee machine. It uses a similar exactly the same concept as the Nespresso coffee machine. You pop a capsule that contains the grounded coffee into the machine, put a cup under the nozzle, press the button and voila, a steaming cup of coffee is there for you in about 1-2 minutes.

We have been using ours for about 12 months, trying out the various coffee that Tchibo sells. Occasionally, Tchibo would sell a new selection of coffees for a limited period of time. These new selection of coffee is also sold a slightly more price. Regular coffee capsule cost 2.99EUR, but a new selection is priced around 3.50EUR.

One of the catch is that the capsule is not interchangable with capsules from other coffee machines, such as Delonghi or Nestles.

The hacker sense kicked in and had to try to get something going. After a couple of false starts, I got something that is workable and produce reasonable coffee.

The following some simple steps that I have used to reused the capsules again.

The first thing you need to do is to get a capsule that you already have used and open it up with a sharp knife. I used a pairing knife with a sharp point. Carefully, I pierced at an area just inside the lips of the capsule and work the knife around the edge. I used a gentle sawing motion as I move around. The plastic top came away quite easily.

Once the top is removed, the capsule needs to be dissembled and cleaned. Be careful to do the dissembling over a sink as the used coffee could spilled out. It could get quite messy. With in the capsule, there are two plastic filters. The top plastic filter can be lifted out to exposed the used coffee grounds. The used coffee grounds need to be removed. At the bottom of the capsule, there is a filter there. This also needs to be taken out for cleaning.

When the two filters and the capsule itself is cleaned, it can be assembled. Began by inserting the bottom filter back into the capsule. Now the usage of the coffee is next. Besure to fill as much coffee as you can fit in. I have used a small tool to jam the coffee grounds into the capsule. I have found that the flavour and the aroma is better as well when grounds is tightly packed. The top filter can also be placed on top.

Prepare a piece of aluminium foil that is big enough to cover the top of the capsule. The piece of foil need to be folded over the edge of the capsule to form a tight seal. Depending upon the strength of your foil, care need to be taken not to tear any part of the foil. Doing so may caused some of the coffee grounds to escape from the capsule and it end up in your drink.

Placed the completed capsule that has covered by the aluminium foil into your Tchibo and press the button. It will take some effort to get the combination right, but the flexibility it gives you will be fantastic.

Enjoy!

  

Scratching our itch

We started our project a few weeks ago that we hope will have some success. The project is really to scratch our own itch, and since we felt that it could be a useful service, others may want to use it as well.

The itch is the language barrier that we face when starting out in Germany. I think that it would be the same if the country was in France or Sweden. We just haven't got a good enough grasp of the language, and at my age, picking up the language is going to be difficult.

The further itch is to not just speak it, but also to read it. In particular, a document of some sort. The Germans love their document and everything have to be in order.

My initial scratcher began with my colleagues, then our neighbours when we were more familiar with them, but mostly it fell into Google Translate. As bad as it is, it did provide me with some information that act upon. Sometimes, getting Google Translate to make sense is a real battle. It is also tiresome having to type the document into it.

So my idea is to provide a service for a quick, off the cuff translation to be given. It will need to be returned within 48 hours, and it needs to be cheap. 

The technicality of it is for the document to photographed with the camera of a smart phone. The photo is then emailed to a specific address. Within 48hours, the translated document is returned.

I have just launched the beta program. check it out at launch.48translate.com and sign up to get a life time discount. 

Schuletüte and all that kind of great stuff, part 1

23rd of August is a special in our family. Our eldest son Albert begins the next phase of his life. Today is the first day for his primary school. Well, it is officially the first day, but his first full day is tomorrow. However, lets see about today.

Albert was extremely excited to start his next phase. I think he is also very nervous and eager to venture out into the unknown.

The day started at 6am. That is the usual time for the family, but the kids just sprang out of bed. Usually, we had to coax them out of bed and to start getting ready for the day. Today, we did not have to do much coaxing.

Today, Albert received a schuletüte, or a school bag. This contain special treats for him so that he remembers the day.

After breakfast, we visited the town where the school is located, Witzhelden. It is a nice quaint town about 9 km from our town. We were in a bit of rush as we had to drop Albert's younger brother to Kindergarten. 

The day starts at 8.10am at the local Church. As we arrived at about 8am, any car parks close to church were taken. So we parked close to the school and walk back to the church. Our first thought was that we are going to be late as everything is punctual in Germany. There were about three other families walking towards the church as well, so we just followed them to church and hope that know the time better than us.

The church service was fantastic. Although, it was conducted in German, I was able to get the gist of the service. Basically, the father blessed the children for their schooling career.

After the service, everyone walked back to the school for an assembly in the school hall. The second year students also arrived to do some performances to celebrate this special event. This is nice as it sets the scene for the interaction between the various years of the school.

The principal also made some announcements about the upcoming school year and help explained the performances. All the parents, including us, were very proud of their children starting their schooling as their names were announced.

Albert got a taste of class later in the morning. He had a one hour class session with his teacher. 

While Albert was in the class, the school served out a selection of pretzels, champagne and juice, brotchen and ham and salami. It gave a chance for the parents to mingle. Unfortunately, we kept to ourselves. Our dreaded language and the German social barrier popped up.

This morning, Albert and his classmates were made to feel very special. It is surely a day for him and his classmates to remember.

Being receptive for an Asperger's husband

Since I last asked myself if I have Asperger's Syndrome, I starting to ponder how my life fits into my relationship with members of family, especially my wife.


Being a woman, their emotional needs are typically a lot stronger than that of a man. The needs to be loved and to be attended to are all part of being what I need to provide for their emotional needs. 


The other aspects of their emotional need comes from being receptive to their body language and their emotional signals. The emotional signal is something they project to give me a sense of how they are, emotionally. For example, she could give a particular look to say that I have problems and need someone to listen to when I talk about my problems. Being someone who has some Asperger's Syndrome, I would not necessary pick up to signals. Very often I would misinterpret those signals and arrive at a totally different conclusion.  


Imagine the scenario, I misinterpret the signals, and as a result of the misinterpretation, I apply an incorrect action to it. I know that what I providing could be right, but from my wife's perspective, I am totally wrong. Sometimes, I come across as an uncaring person. This is far from the case. This is totally my problem, and I need to way to overcome this problem.


I have not got a clue on how to overcome this problem. Anyone?

I think I may have Asperger's Syndrome

With all this investigation in Asperger's syndrome, it looks like that I have got a lot of similarities as an person with Asperger's syndrome. I have though my history of when I can remember, and the following signs are definitely Asperger's Syndrome behaviour. 


Typically, I don't really care for much emotional empathy for folks that I don't know. For folks that I know well, that emotional empathy is quite normal. This kinda shows that I have some emotional disconnect with the general population.


I am an engineer, a software engineer at that. Although I don't have an obsession with it, my interest is quite healthy.


I prefer to converse to other folks about objective topics than about subjective topics.

When I talk to other folks, I rarely look at them directly in the eyes. I would start to quite a little bit uncomfortable. I would usually talk to them with my eyes staring into the distance, and glanced at them on occasions. 


The question is whether I should go for an official assessment. I don't really know. What would I achieve. I am just making some sense on this. I shall let you know how I go.

Heart felt

In my small village of Leichlingen, a walk around town  brings us in contact with many interesting people. These are folks with an interesting background and history. My German is not good, and I am disappointed that I won't be able to talk with them,  and to enjoy hearing their stories.

My wife had a serendipitous encounter today. He is a gentleman, always well dressed with a tie and cap. To our children, he is known as "the funny man."  He laughs loudly and waves to all the children as he sees them. Other children are a little bit afraid of him as his laughs are quite loud and he seems to talk in a non-engaging manner. Some would even describe his condition as a little bit insane.

My wife regularly sees him catch the same bus as she does to Leverkusen. He is always by himself. One of our neighbours told us that he was quite normal, but it all changed after his wife passed away about two years ago. When I heard the story, it was just  story and did not make too much of it.

In today's serendipitous encounter, it goes something like this.

my wife: "are you catching to bus today?"

the funny man: "yes, I am."

my wife: "Great, are you going to Leverkusen today?"

the funny man: "yes."

and he starts to walk towards to the bus stop. He stops, turn around and looks at my wife and said "but not with my wife, cause she is away." The look on his face is a "I wish my wife here to take this bus trip with me." He continues his way to the bus stop.

Upon hearing this encounter from my wife, I felt this strong sensation in my body. I felt for him that he is missing life partner. My heart just felt for him.

Chris Himmelfahrt or Vatertag?

For the religious among us, the 17 May 2012 is a celebrated day when Christ ascended to Heaven. For the others who are not, there is vatertag to celebrate.


Our neighbour celebrated this tradition last year and he kindly invited me to join them this year. The participant only needs to be a dad (in loose terms) to join in, or have the potential to be a dad. This event is also popular with young men (in their twenties) as well.


For the trip itself, it need to meet some criteria for it  be traditional. Firstly, we need a group of men (see above). In our group, there were seven of us, all men and from the local neighbourhood.


Secondly, access to some beer is critical. The local brew is preferred. For us, that would the Kolsch, or Köln water. As there are seven of us, the organiser made an executive decision as got 4 kegs or 20 litres of beer. I also think that beer help to social aspects of the group of men.


Thirdly, we need a wagon that can be pulled along. The wagon needs to big enough to carry all the beer, and food. Well, the food only consists of some cans of Pringles and the traditional Salt sticks.


An lastly, we need a route through the forest. The whole idea is the walk through the woods with beer in a wagon and have a good afternoon talk men stuff. Our organiser chose to start from the nearby town of Burscheid and walk downhill to our home town of Leichlingen. The trip is about 14km long, along a re-purposed railway track, and through some beautiful forests.


The trip started at 10am and we reached home by 6.30pm. We stopped at a local pub for a meal by 3pm. They were also plenty of chances to grab a wurst along the way as well.


My neighbour told me that this tradition is an important part of a man's life in Germany. I guess that it is a way for men to talk, share and do men stuff. When I heard about this last year, I was rather skeptical as to the value of it. Other than a sorry excuse to get drunk, I fail to see how it would add value. Well, I was totally wrong on many levels. After the walk and talk with the other dads, even with my limit German, I was able to get a sense of how the men of Germany live their lives. They are proud people and have many traditions to uphold. This walk is one of many. Personally, my participation allows me to form a bond and break the social barrier that an expat feels when living in a non-native speaking country. 


Contrasting this to the culture of men in Australia, I find it difficult why more of these type of events does happen back in Australia. Are the Europeans more cultured? Who really knows, but I do think that this type of events does give the men a more healthy lifestyle.

WEBMU 2012, Berlin bound

The votes have been tallied, and the host city for WEBMU 2012 is....BERLIN!!. The Berlin delegation jumps for joy and roar with excitement, throwing their hats in the air and giving each other high fives and hugs. 

Well almost...The host city for WEBMU 2012 has been announced. Now it is time to vote for a time to hold it. There are plenty of considerations. Should it be held at the same time as another cultural event? What will the weather be? Where will be the TQEQE be going this year? So many questions.

If you have some of the answers, why not get over to the WEBMU discussion forum and put your two EURO cents in. You have to be blogger and an expat living in Germany.

Talk soon...

Brussel's street art.

One of the surprising thing about our recent trip to Brussels is the amount of street art in the city. Every corner of the city appears to have a small (and sometimes big) art display of some sort. So here is a quick collection of some of the artwork that we came across.


It is hardly surprising to see so much art around Brussels as it is an important hub for comics. Tin Tin was created here, and it is certainly the highest profile among the many others, Asterisk and Obelisk is also one of my childhood favourite.


I didn't make it to the Belgische Comic-Zentrum this time, but it is definitely on my list for the next visit.

Brussels over Easter.

This Easter saw us kept to a newly developed tradition of not spending it at home. Last year, we ventured to the south of Germany for a trip down the Romantic Road. The year before, we visited the Black Forest, also down south.

This year, we ventured out of the country and visited Brussels in Belgium. 

Before embarking on our trip, I am not really sure what to expect from this visit. I always had this impression that Brussels as a very clean, very international city and highly politicized city. I mean, it has many offices that deals with European financial and European Union items. For the touristy stuff, most people would head towards Brugges or Genk.

My wife was quite excited as she has visited Brussels before, but was before a family was attached to her. She told me she remembered the chocolate, waffles and the beers. I think that was quite a trip, back then.

We traveled to Brussels on the Thalys train. The train was actually on route to Paris, and Brussels was just a stop for it. The trip was about 1hr 45mins. That was just long enough for the kids, as they were getting restless. We went with Comfort-1 Class, this translates to first class. It promised free Wifi connection, and free meal. The Wifi were pretty slow, it was good for checking email, and browsing the Facebook but streaming youtube is out of the question. The free meal was just some cut sandwiches and a drink. On the up side, the seats were like our arm chairs at home, super comfortable and spacious!

While in Brussels, we were caught up in the public transport strike. At first, we were quite annoyed and were cursing at the transport workers for disrupting our holiday. As it was Easter, we thought that the strike was part of their cunning plan to get more pay from the government. I really felt like an ass when I read the news later that day. The strike was triggered when one of their colleagues were killed on the job. He died as a result of an road rage incident. Check out this news item from the BBC.


The strike did allows to visit some of the sites that we were not even considering. As we were walking back to the city centre, we walk across the Belgium Military Museum. We had a look, and surprise to find its entry fee is zero! We entered to see a huge display of military equipment, plenty of airplanes and tanks. The kids had a great time exploring the planes and the tanks.

The most striking place out of our visit to Brussels are the residential areas. I was quite amaze to see the residents living in such poor quarters. Living in Germany where the social system is pretty good, it is difficult for me to comprehend how a neighbouring country like Belgium have such a large population that seems to be living poorly.

For the touristy attractions, the Grote Markt is quite impressive for its size and stature. To think that the square was over 500 years old is quite astounding. The biggest disappointment is the Maneken Pis. Not much to say about it.

The waffles were great! We really enjoyed it, certainly more than the chocolates.

Berlin or Münster for WEBMU 2012

OK Folks, the discussions for the 2012 edition of WEBMU has started in earnest. The candidate cities have been nominated, and there are Berlin and Münster.


So if you are an expat and want to be part of the fun. Jump onto the expat bloggers in Germany website, sign up and get involve in the discussions. The voting for choosing the city finishes at 1st April 2012, 8pm. Time is running out if you want to put your vote in.


Personally, I would voted to visit Berlin. It is one of the cities in Germany I would like to visit. Although Münster is a much nicer town, German wise, Berlin has more recent history than Münster. 


It is also the biggest city in Germany. Large city in Germany is quite rare. Most of them do not get much larger than 1million people.

German hospital

In the last few days, I had some personal reasons to get intimate with a German hospital. I won't go into the details, but I have some respect the German health system.

Coming from Australia, the health system there can be best described as broken. Not slightly dented, or even worn out. It is simply broken.

I believe that health care for the people should be one of those things that needs to be free and be accessible for everyone. Australia is a developed country, and can provide plenty of advance health care, but unless you are able to afford private health insurance, that level care is usually not quite good enough. It usually takes too long to get something happening.

In Germany, My family and I have only the statutory health insurance. This is equivalent to Medicare in Australia. Even at this level of care, our entitlements are quite high. The care that they give to children is tremendous. All their prescribed medication are available without any further expenses, their visit to the doctors are also without any further expenses. The adult consultation is only charged at 10€ per quarter, but the medication incurs some expenses.

The hospital have a social worker that helps you with your home care, if required. This home care is part of your entitlement from the health insurance. Not only is home care available, assistance with the children are also possible. We are currently in the middle these discussions with our health insurance. I shall do another post when the details have finalised.

The German system is funded by the tax payers, very similar to the Medicare system. A percentage is calculated on your salary. I think that the Medicare system calculates the payment on the taxable income. The German system, calculates the gross income and the payable amount is capped. 

Speyer Technik Museum

It was a quick, "Let's head down to Speyer this weekend?" and just like that, we packed some bags into the car and headed south towards Speyer. I just returned from a business trip to Gothenburg, Sweden yesterday, and now I am heading to Speyer.


Apart from the nice historical centre of Speyer, there is another reason for heading to Speyer. Planes, trains and automobils. The Speyer Technik Museum was mentioned to us by a friend about 9 months ago, and after reading about it on the internet, it was one of the place for us to go.

The drive from Cologne was about 3 hours, with some stops here and there. When we arrived, we were a bit taken back by a full size Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet that is up in the sky. It was literally put on some pylons and is about 15meters up in the air.

Our two kids eyes became bigger and bigger as we got close to the museum. We found a car park and entered the museum. Once we are in, the whole place is packed with old cars, planes, old steam locomotives, planes, old motor bikes, and oh, did I mentioned planes. 

Many of the planes on display were either suspended over our heads by steel cables (inside display) or placed upon pylons (outside display). The planes that were displayed outside are usually the larger planes. A stair well usually is available for the inside of the planes to be entered. However, most of the interiors of the planes were gutted, and only the shell remain. The cockpit is also locked behind the original door, or a fenced off via a large piece of perspex.

The planes were from various dates, most of them were post second world war. There were also several replicas of flight instruments from the Leonardo da Vinci days.

The other main attraction at this museum is the real space shuttle on display. Well, it is the Russian version, the Buran. I am not sure if it actually made it into space, Wikipedia mentioned that Buran was only in space for 3 hours.

Did I mentioned that this museum also has a maritime section? Well, there is a great collection of boats, rescue boats, tugs, hydrofoils and an old soviet submarine. Yep, an old submarine from the Soviets. It was quite eerie to climb down the hatch for a look inside the submarine. It was my first time inside a submarine. I was not claustrophobic, but I could imagine some submariners going insane being cramped up for weeks upon weeks. Life can't be easy for those folks.

The kids also climbed into the submarine. This is the only item on display where the insides did not suffer much renovations. There were buttons, switches, taps, dials, lights, doors and gizmos for the kids (and me) to push, turn, shout into and to stomp on. It was quite an amazing experience.

The museum also has a IMAX 3D theatre. We did not go for this as our children were a little too young for it.

If you are planning to go there as well, one word of warning. We did not see many little girls around the museum compound as we walked around. It was mostly boys and their parents, running around, looking at all the different planes, trains and automobils. It is very much a place for boys to get amount the machinery. Definitely, toys for the boys (big and small).


This the updated museum. The original Technik Museum is in Sinsheim, which is still exhibiting. This Sinsheim museum have the two versions on the Concorde (the Aeroflot version and the British Airways/Air France version), a large display of F1 cars and planes.


We will have to get the original museum one day.