One of the reasons we were drawn to Munich was because of how amazingly close it is to the Alps. You can hop on a train and within a little over an hour, be in the foothills. For our first adventure we traveled to the village of Bayrischzell, the last stop on the local train line. Any further and we'd be in Austria! While the temperature was superb, the sky was hazy. By the time we made it to the top, the view was quite limited. Still, a beautiful day trip!
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The weather has been beautiful! I took advantage of Matt's first day of work by going for a long walk along the river. There were porta potties everywhere, which was a delightful discovery considering one usually has to pay a small fee to use public toilets here. I was walking along with hundreds of other people, enjoying the sunshine and the fall views, when all of a sudden, I realized there were dozens of nude people on the river banks! Oh my gosh; put the camera away!
Now, I have been to a nude beach before (in Italy, where I was the creeper who broke the rules by keeping her swimsuit on). But getting to that beach involved a long walk through a dark tunnel and a treacherous descent down steep terrain to get to a SECLUDED nude beach. This beach was far from isolated; on the contrary, it was quite public. Nude sunbathers, clothed sunbathers, joggers, families out for a stroll... everybody was doing their thing alongside one another. It amazed me how comfortable people felt in their bodies and how other people didn't appear to be bothered by nudity at all. This scene I had suddenly found myself in was perfectly normal. Munich has six areas where nude sunbathing is legal. All of these "urban naked zones" are not surrounded by walls and they offer little to no privacy. I'm not quite sure if I'll be "living like the locals" do when it comes to this practice... Time will tell. I've wondered how and why nudism thrives in Germany, so I did some reading. These articles provide some interesting context if you, too, are curious: Within two days of arriving, the airline got back to us to report that they'd found the missing luggage! The boxes were shipped to Matt's future office (our only reliable address). Matt had planned on meeting his colleagues looking quite spiffy on Thursday. But instead, he had to show up a day early to collect his underwear and other belongings. Besides being worried about the state of his computers and monitors, he was concerned that the boxes had already arrived with his personal effects falling out. HAH! I could not stop laughing at this image because it was so horribly hilarious! This was the kind of situation that would have left me petrified! We arrived at his office and were introduced to several people. They pointed to the "luggage", which was somewhat soggy and no longer box-like. Despite the intense saran wrap job from the airlines, the boxes were still spewing their contents. They needed to be contained, asap. So yes, that meant we sat down next to Matt's future colleagues while they continued working, pulled out all of his items in front of them, and quickly stowed them in some duffel bags that we'd luckily had the foresight to bring. Because clearly, those disintegrating boxes were going nowhere, especially not on the subway. The poor guy! If I'd been in his shoes I'm pretty sure I would have just melted into the seat from embarrassment. Talk about first impressions!! It was at this point that I started to think that maybe Germany didn't want us...
Oh, and the luggage was mostly fine. We knew Germany had a reputation for bureaucracy and we got our initial taste of this before arriving in the country. I foolishly thought we would be fine because Matt's company had hired a relocation agency to assist us in navigating the hoop jumping. Little did I know... Within days of moving, the agency mentioned that upon arrival, we needed an official form signed by a landlord to verify where we were living in Munich. But how can this be? We couldn't get an apartment until we were in Munich and we were staying at an airbnb in the beginning. It turned out that the majority of airbnb hosts we contacted did not feel comfortable signing this form (I don't blame them; most hosts were renters, not landlords) and this put us in a stress-inducing pickle. Two days from take off and we knew that hostels would also not sign the form and long term business hotels would, but that they were completely booked. Finally, one courageous soul said that that yes, we could stay with her and she would sign the form verifying that we were "living" there. I'm still praying there's no negative repercussions for her taking this risk on our behalf. Armed with our paperwork, our first morning in Munich we set off to the The Department of Public Order, where we would jump through the next two hoops: registering our short term address and getting our work visas. This was of paramount importance because Matt was starting work in two days. You can't get paid until you have a German bank account and you can't have a bank account until you have registered your Munich address. The Plan We were told to meet the member of the relocation agency - we’ll call her Ms. Z - at a coffee shop adjacent The Department of Public Order. Unfortunately, I was harboring some bitter thoughts towards Ms. Z at this point (clearly there had been some lack of basic communication) but I was still thankful for her impending assistance. Upon ascending out of the subway, we immediately noticed about a hundred people lined up, waiting outside a building. "Poor souls," I thought, "Having to wait in that atrocious line instead of having booked an appointment ahead of time." Ms. Z quickly got down to business, explaining that at 8:30, the registration doors would be unlocked, at which point we would take off running through the coffee shop and through an inside entrance to the registration building. We were to stick with her, no matter what. Meanwhile, her colleague would be racing to another part of the building where he would join the visa queue and hold a spot for us until we could join him upon successfully registering our address downstairs.
My jaw internally hit the floor as I stared at the professionally dressed people in front of me. “What?” I thought to myself. “How do we not have an appointment? They've known our timeline for months. Sneaking in through some side door and cutting in line in front of all of the folks who have been waiting outside all morning? Who are these people?” It sounded fishy to me. No, not just fishy, immoral. Definitely immoral. Not at all the professionalism and efficiency I had envisioned for a developed country notorious for their bureaucratic processes. Suddenly, Ms. Z took off, racing out of the coffee shop. Caught off guard, we quickly took off after her. We began to sprint across an open hall but immediately found ourselves immersed in a throng of hundreds of people jostling against one another and chaotically racing in all directions. I somehow managed to keep my eye on Matt and held my own as we were funneled through a doorway. Suddenly there was a couple pushing a baby. A baby! So vulnerable in this sea of chaos! In a flash of better judgement, I held myself back and let the family go through first. This was my downfall. One minute in and we had already lost sight of Ms. Z. We continued to frantically run around the building, which was organized in some confusing pattern; it made about as much sense as a corn maze. Throughout the building there were various desks where people were lining up and we realized they were based on letters associated with one’s last name. We desperately started looking for J only to discover that the J sign had a piece of masking tape covering it; the J line was closed today! How is that even possible? Where do J people go?! By a stroke of luck, we crossed paths with Ms. Z, whose impressive sprinting skills (and let's be honest - head start) had secured her the sixth spot in the queue we needed. Well done, Ms. Z! “Oh my gosh, Ms. Z is so scrappy! So strategic!" (How quickly the morals get thrown out). Clearly this was every individual for oneself, some sort of running of the bulls or messed up episode of The Amazing Race. After spending about 20 minutes registering, we joined Ms. Z’s colleague upstairs where he had made it to the front of the visa queue. Matt presented his passport, work contract, college diploma, college transcript, and our marriage license. After four hours in all, he had his work visa. Conquering both tasks most likely would not have been possible within one day without the help of two assistants. Sadly, countless people were turned away that day after spending hours waiting. We heard that the office is regularly understaffed and that people will return multiple times in order to secure their necessary paperwork. But people have jobs to go to and kids to watch; this is a horrendous inconvenience. One wonders how people can be mandated to do so many things within a tight time frame (for example, when you move to Germany, you have two weeks to register your address) when - at least in this situation - the government lacks the capacity to keep up with the work they've created for themselves. While it feels like we survived a right of passage and I feel a strange bond with those who have done likewise, this was a really ridiculous experience. I will get to return here on my own at least two more times - to re-register once we have an apartment and to get my work visa. With our complete lack of German, not to mention German laws and processes, I was ever so grateful to Ms. Z for her assistance. I couldn’t help but wonder how people navigate these processes back home, especially when they don’t know English. Without the internet, I wouldn't even know where to begin on my own. How intimidating. When we backpacked the world for a year, everything we needed fit into two large backpacks and two small backpacks. Packing to live and work abroad involved much more luggage. The goal was to find a furnished apartment, so then we just needed to pack the essentials. We may have had different ideas on what qualified as "essentials."
This is how the luggage journey went.
Instead of having a mostly direct flight to Munich via Iceland, our trip got broken into three flights. When we arrived at the luggage carousel in Munich, the boxes were inevitably missing. Unfortunately, they contained Matt’s work computers and wardrobe. Essential items, especially considering he was starting work in two more days. Having anticipated so much luggage, Matt had had the foresight to reserve a taxi van service to take us to our airbnb. Public transportation was out of the question and there was no way we would fit into a regular-sized taxi. Naturally, this was under the presumption that we would be arriving with all of our luggage. Whoops! To add some comic relief to the glum situation, of course, this was not just a regular van. It was a 7-passenger van. Expecting seven people, the van driver failed to notice us and it took a few phone calls and much waiting before we finally connected. One did not need to speak a mutual language to recognize his confusion at why two people required such an enormous van. Laughingly, we piled into the oh so spacious and luxurious van and rode in style for an hour to the airbnb. “Why hello airbnb host! Yes, we typically prefer to ride in colossal vans with a personal chauffeur. Totally indicative of the kind of people we are. In fact, would you mind carrying all of this luggage up to your flat? Fabulous." * Stay tuned for part two of Luggage Woes! Ever since Matt and I spent a year traveling, we knew that one day, we would do more than just pass through a country as tourists. We wanted to move somewhere, get to know it more intimately, and attempt to live as the locals did. It was never a matter of if we would make this happen, but when. After spending the past five years learning how to teach and working on a centurion house on the side, the wanderlust became all consuming. Now was the time. Where to go? Here were our main factors when deciding where to move:
Before leaving, we gave ourselves some time to finish the countless house projects that we'd been living in the midst of the past four years. We almost made it through the to-do list, with some final caulk going down in the kitchen hours before leaving for the airport. In the end, it was bittersweet to say "See you later!" to the house that had become a home after so much time, blood, sweat, swear words (oops, that was just me), and yes, love, had been poured into it (especially now that it was FINALLY looking like a finished place!). We are thankful that a wonderful friend will be living there and loving on it while we are gone. In the meantime, I will be missing that view! There are things you do because they feel right and they may make no sense and they may make no money and it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other and to eat each other's cooking and say it was good. - Brian Andreas, StoryPeople But even more important than the physical house, we said "goodbye" to family, friends, and the house community that we have been living and growing with for the past four years. Leaving this supportive group inevitably feels lonely, like there's a hole that cannot be filled. However, this experience has taught us the importance of belonging and connection, that seeking out and creating community - no matter where we are - is paramount in life. May we find the courage to pursue this reality. |