On your bike #MicroblogMonday

If you live in Germany, you really have to get yourself a bike. I bought one in Penny, a discount supermarket, shortly after arriving here. It was a city bike and lasted for about five years until it started causing problems - gears not working properly and then the pedals looking like they might fall off!

When I brought it to the bike shop to fix, they said it would cost about 150€ to fix all the various things wrong with it and it just wasn't worth repairing since second hand it would probably only cost 50€ to buy.

So I decided it was time for a new bike. That decision was more complicated than I realised. Do I want a rally, mountain or city bike? How many gears? What size frame? And then whether I should buy it from a discount supermarket again or go to a fancy bike shop this time and spend more money on it. The general consensus among my German friends is that you should spend at least 800€ to get a decent bike. However then you also have to worry that it might get stolen so you also need to fork out for an expensive lock or two and probably invest in bike insurance as well.

In the end I decided to go for another discount bike from a department store and found a nice one for under 300€. The deciding factor? I loved the colour, as you can see it's bright orange. At least if it does get stolen, it will be easy to spot!

Irish blog Awards - the voting begins

This year I've made the shortlist in the Irish blog awards in the Irish disapora category. That's the only category that's open to me actually as for everything else you have to be resident in Ireland. I was excited when I found out that I've made it one step further than last year!

I'm delighted to have just gotten this far but if you have a moment and would like to vote for me, click here. The vote is open until September the 21st.

If you've just come to my blog for the first time from the Irish Blog Awards website, then welcome! Relax, pour yourself a cuppa and stay for awhile.

Where the bleep is my stork?!

Every so often facebook shows you memories from that particular day in the past. Recently it showed me a picture of the GerMann and me on our honeymoon. It made me feel sad to think that two years later we are gearing up to start IVF treatment and I don't know if it will even work and whether we will ever be able have kids...Though I'm really trying to stay positive and am hoping that this time next year we might have our miracle baby.

I've been wondering about whether to talk about this topic or not but in the end I decided that having a blog is a way to share thoughts and make sense of things and it might be helpful to have an outlet while I'm going through all this. So I'm going to create a series of rather personal posts about what's been going on the past few months to fill you in.

Girl meets boy. They date, fall in love, get married and then start a family. Right? Unfortunately I'm learning the hard way, it's not so easy for everyone. One in eight couples these days experience infertility, which is defined as not getting pregnant after one year of trying. That's a lot of couples dealing with something that people don't really talk openly about so you can end up feeling quite lonely when going through it and it can feel hard to find people who relate. You also experience such a rollercoaster of emotions; hope, guilt, depression, anger, sadness - it's a lot of ups and downs.

When we started trying for a baby I was worried at the back of my mind we might have difficulty as my doctor here had warned me as due to my having had surgery when I was younger I probably have scarring around my fallopian tubes. But still I was hopeful. The first six months I wasn't overly worried or thinking about it that much as I'd read it could take some time (up to a year is still normal) but I did start to try other things at that stage such as improving my diet, trying acupuncture, using ovulation sticks, the list goes on. During a HSG test where they put dye through your tubes to see if it can flow freely I found out that one side was blocked but the other side looked fine. And I'd read a lot of women also fall pregnant shortly after that test- maybe the dye helps clear our any old cobwebs, haha!

Unfortunately though, after several more months of nothing happening once we reached the one year mark it was time to make an appointment with the doctor...to be continued..

The Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award

It's always nice to get recognition from other blogs. Meredith from Kaffee und Kuchen recently nominated me for a Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award. It's similar to the Liebster Award in that people thank the blogger, answer a set of questions and then nominate other bloggers with new questions.

Thanks so much for the nomination! Here goes...

1. What do you mostly blog about?
   I mainly blog about what it's like being an Irish expat living in Germany - learning the language, fitting in, experiencing German culture, dealing with homesickness. However I also write about my life in general with my German husband, nicknamed the GerMann. And I love to travel so I like to blog about some of the trips we've taken.
2. What is the best city you have travelled to and what are your recommended ‘must sees’ in that city?
   We recently spent a few days in Dresden and I definitely found it worth a visit. We drove to Sächsische Schweiz and went on a fun hike there. The sights from the top were breath taking and the area itself was very pretty. And in the center of Dresden the Neustadt and Altstadt are separated by the river and both completely different and worth seeing in their own right. The old town was beautiful and the new town was cool with lots of quirky bars.
3. What 3 items do you always pack on a trip?
   Let's see... my smart phone, usually with the local map downloaded, some comfortable walking shoes as I enjoy exploring new places by foot to get a sense of them, and one fancy outfit in case we go out to a nice place some evening!
4. What is the best meal you’ve ever had and where did you have it?
   That's really hard to answer! I've had lots of great meals but difficult to pick one in particular. Italian cuisine is my favourite and when I travelled to Rome with my family a few years ago I remember eating some really delicious food there - pizza and pasta! 
5. Which destination is on your ‘must see’ list? Why?
   Barcelona, as I've heard from lots of people it's really worth a visit and that it has beautiful architecture and design. And I love visiting Spain. It strikes me as a place that has the best of both worlds- lovely beaches for relaxing in the sun, but also lots of culture. 
6. What’s your favourite way to spend a free weekend afternoon?
   Meeting up with some good friends for a chat over tea and cakes, going for a stroll around the town and then afterwards having a date night with the GerMann, maybe dinner and a movie
7. Who would you pick to go on a cross-country road trip with you? Why?
   My sister! I don't get to see her often enough since moving to Germany and it would be nice to spend some quality time together. She's good fun to travel with and we could share the driving.
8. What are your blogging goals for the coming year?
   To make more time for blogging and to take part in the monthly #ExpatLifeLinky.
9. What’s your favourite blog post that you’ve written? Please share the link!
   After about a year living in Germany I wrote a post called What sort of expat are you when I was coming to terms with integrating into my new life in Germany. 
10. What’s a new blogging skill that you’ve learned recently?
    To focus on one main topic or theme per blog post and organize my thoughts better.

My nominations are:

1. Around the wherever
2. Nearly Irish
3. Starting over in Stuttgart
4. katekatharina.com
5. California Globetrotter
6. Diary of sugar and spice
7. Three sons later
8. Everyone else but me
9. Allie and the German
10. Expat eye on Germany

And now the questions;

1. Which celebrity would you like to invite to tea?
2. What do you normally blog about (link to some posts)?
3. Any good movies you watched recently you could recommend?
4. Likewise, any good book recommendation?
5. What meals can you cook well?
6. What is you favourite dessert?
7. If you could have a fictional character as a best friend, who would you choose?
8. If you won the lotto, what's the first thing you would spend the money on?
9. Who would play you in a movie?
10. What makes you laugh?

Surviving culture shock - what you can expect

When you live abroad (for longer than a few months) you will inevitably face some form of culture shock, which has also been described as feeling like a fish out of water. I've mentioned the term briefly before on this blog and I just thought I'd explain it a bit better and write about the different stages. I haven't met a single expat who hasn't gone through a rough patch after moving countries. It can be a real rollercoaster of emotions that first year!

• The Honeymoon Phase
This first stage when you just arrive in a new country is overwhelmingly positive. You're seeing everything with rose-tinted spectacles and it's exciting and fun. Everything about my new country is wonderful! What a great adventure! I love it here.
My first week living in Germany


• The Rejection Stage
After awhile though you start to see another side to the place and begin to feel somewhat disoriented and frustrated. Why is it so difficult to fit in? I don't understand the language. No one gets me.
When I was experiencing this, I started going back to Ireland as often as possible, which needless to say didn't really help me adjust to my new life here.





• Depression Stage
This is the hardest. You will feel depressed, lonely and homesick. You start to idealize life "back home" and compare your current culture to what is familiar. I'm stuck here. Is this my life now? Did I make the right decision moving here? Some people give up when this happens and return home.

I mention the rough patch in my second blog post (long commute, feeling homesick, not many friends here, finding the German language difficult.)


• The Acceptance Stage
This is where you start to appreciate the new country and feel like you fit in and belong. Yes, I can do this! It's not so bad. I'm happy here. You are now able to compare and appreciate aspects of both countries. You start to feel at home in your new home. For me what helped a lot was when I started to really make more of an effort to integrate myself here, for instance taking German lessons, going to lots of meetups to make friends, getting to know the area.
When I started to really settle in and look on the positives.

Some useful tips for fitting in as an expat here.

If you are living abroad, did you experience culture shock? How did you cope?

Surviving a heatwave German style #MicroblogMonday

We are currently in the middle of an extreme heatwave in Germany. Even Ireland is experiencing one at the moment, though a heatwave there is just like a lovely summer with weather around 26 degrees Celsius, and a nice breeze whereas here it is more like 35-40 degrees and unbearable!

Thankfully my office has air conditioning! It's interesting seeing how the Germans dress in this extreme weather. One guy at work wears socks with his sandals - keeping that particular stereotype alive and well! Others wear shorts and even flip flops. The girls at work mainly don summer dresses. Pretty much anything goes I've noticed!

In general German women don't tend to dress up much or wear feminine outfits. For instance, when they attend birthday parties or events they normally go casual in trousers and a nice top so it's been unusual seeing them all wearing pretty dresses now! It's a good way to keep cool in this weather.

At weekends the best option is to go to the local pool or lake for a swim, or hang out in one of the many beer gardens. We also recently bought a new fan for our apartment, which helps.

I'm hoping this Summer I might manage to get a nice tan. Right now I'm as pale as ever. That's the problem with having Irish skin! We go from white to pink. I have to always make sure to apply lots of sun cream and then maybe I'll get a light tan after a few weeks.

How do you manage to keep cool in a heatwave?

Other expats come and go but I'm still here

One of the problems with making friends with other expats is that a lot of them are only living in Germany temporarily and eventually move back to their home countries (or some place else). In the almost five years I've lived here I've had to say goodbye countless times and it doesn't get any easier.

Finding people you really click with and building up the friendship takes time and when they leave, you naturally lament their absence. It's great that I now have lots of connections around the world, and these days with skype you can still keep in touch pretty well, but day to day I miss hanging out with the person.

Of course you're probably thinking I could make more of an effort to make German friends. And I do and I have some great ones now but in general I still find I have more in common with other expats and tend to connect with them faster.

I guess it's just a downside to living abroad, that you get to meet some great people and have them your life for awhile but then they move away. In another year or two everyone from my initial friend group here will most likely not live here anymore. Sometimes I feel like the last guest left at a party! At least I still have the GerMann to hang out with. And I can plan some more trips back to Dublin when I start feeling homesick.

House hunting in Germany #microblogMonday

Last week we almost bought our dream house. We've been looking on and off for over two years at this stage and rarely has something come up that's right for us as normally anything we like is either well outside our price range or in a location we're not so mad about. However this time we saw a great house for sale in an area we love and we both knew we had to go view it. Unfortunately loads of other people also saw the ad and the realtor was inundated with calls and visits.

The viewing went great so we arranged a meeting with the bank to get mortgage pre-approval (the low interest rates at the moment means the timing is really good) and then we made an offer! After that all we could do was to wait and cross our fingers (or press our thumbs as the Germans would say- Daumen Drücken!). Sadly we heard back a few days later that we didn't get it.

It was so disappointing. We had both gotten really excited about the house and I had decorated all of the rooms in my head already! So that's where we're at now, back to square one with the house hunting again.