Why Munich is so great - and I'm staying put!

After my trip back to the UK for Christmas, I came to realise that I hate the place(Maybe its just me). Although I cannot speak the lingo over here yet, which I hope to change this year, I absolutely love living in Munich and plan never to return to England.

Now a few of the people I know on here have unfortunately lost their jobs due to redundancies or other reasons, and a couple of people forced to return home (Wexford/Snow White) spring to mind.

Now should I ever find myself in that situation, I really wouldnt care what type of job I did over here, just as long as it meant I could stay.

So for those people who would never go back:-

If you were forced to do a job here that meant you could stay, What would you do?

For me bin man, work at Mac D's/Burger King!?!?

You wouldn't get a job at Burger King or McD's -- you need to speak German to work there

As for me, if I hadn't found a new job after being laid off last year I'd just have stayed here and claimed as much unemployment benefit as possible...

All I need to learn is 'Would you like fries with that' or 'For 50 cents more you can go large'

Babel Fish Translation -

'wurde Sie mögen Fischrogen mit dem'

'für 50 Cents mehr können Sie groß gehen'

Go to another country, and work there !

3 Lions, you're right.
I had the same experience you had over Christmas. Maybe a little less extreme (I don't really hate it), but I have no intentions to leaving this place. And this "should I ever find myself in that situation" will occur in a few months, so I might have to start looking for something else already...

Hmm 3Lions - maybe Babel is just a little too fish oriented - according to my dictionary Fischrogen is Fish Roe ( like caviar !! ) - better off just sticking with the good ole "pommes"

yip, i have a bit of a sour taste in my mouth after spending the 17 most expensive days of my life in ireland over the holidays...

it is unbelievably expensive there... really dirty, fights everywhere and the service is (generally) crap...

i hate to say it, but it ain't a very nice place to live at the mo...

however, there is also the argument to be made that having lived iin munich, everywhere else is gonna look crap in comparison...

I feel that way too 3 lions. Each year Ive been home Ive been dying to get back to munich after just 2 days and that feeling gets stronger and stronger everytime.

Glad to know Im not the only one!

@mdfbayern

You've gotta love babelfish, I knew that Pommes was the right word, but it would confuse the hell out of the Customers

Another one from Bfish - Married came out as Verbunden - Which my German teacher said that it describes 'Ball & Chain'

HAHAHAHA!!!

Look out, soon you will all be like ME! Came originally for a year and in September 2004, I will have spent a THIRD of my life living in Munich.

"Es ist so" will become part of your vocabulary.

A 30 second delay in your bus is enough to ruin your day.

You won't say sorry as you elbow someone out of your way in the ped zone on a Saturday.

Well, no, none of those are quite true, but they are closer to the truth than not. I could spend an hour discussing the subject, but I'll leave it for now.

I'm over here for two years and I'm gonna milk this job for all it's worth- then hightail it back to the states. I guess my biggest pet-peeve is customer service. I mean, since when doesn't the customer come first?
Life is an adventure. I couldn't think of working in one place for the rest of my life. Or even for the next third.

For me, the big thing is this - i can have fun here until october, and then clear off back to Blighty, where quite a good job with quite a good future will await me...or I can just say, bugger that, and open a burger van on Marienplatz with 3 Lions. Depends on a lot of things though - money, jobs and girlfriends to name but three.

Well my ideal job apart from burger Van with Jimbo, would be to open a proper English Pub, you could argue that Murphys is practically English as it is mostly frequented by English people.

But I think a 'Rose & Crown' or 'The Three Lions' wouldnt do too bad in Munich.

why dya have to get a job?

cant you live off handsome benefits like 5million others recommend?

arbeit doesnt make frei.

So far all is here...might as well make the best of it.

Don't really get the attraction, but on my way back from Copenhagen, I really wanted to come "home"(?) to Munich.

Personally, I don't like it here, but it seems to be the place for me for now...

I'm a saddo that likes to work

Otherwise I would get bored and end up posting on Toytown all day when I should be working

can i be a bouncer in ur pub? need to release this agression...

your name's not on the list.

My sentiments exactly - but for me it would be emigrating to the US - I still have hopes that I'll manage that through my company - they moved me out here three and a half years ago - and I'm hoping I can swing a promotion to the States !!!

OK, that's it, 3 Lions - you and I need to speak to a bank manager or something and get ourselves a boozer. i would LOVE and i do mean LOVE to run a bar over here. Late nights, cigarettes, beer, pool tables...perfect.

And the name? Simple - Toytown. Have a lego theme throughout. Then you can break furniture over a punter's head, and then in the morning just rebuild it (as long as none of the bricks got lost).

Exactly my thoughts too...when there are so many people unemployed, why not starting our own business??

I've long had fantasies about creating a complete leisure complex, nevermind just a pub. It'd be like 4004 and include a Moroccan style chill zone with huge cushions and water pipes, a swimming pool with slides, jacuzzis, and steam cabins, and an English style pub with fish and chips and monster TV screens everywhere showing Formula 1 with English comentary.

Anyone like to put up the capital?

Totally off-topic but that reminds me of Tequila: Used to live in Salamanca/Spain. Went to that Bar. Got drunk. Woke up totallly wasted 14 hours later realizing that I've taken home most of their decorations with me. Since than I own a candelabrum as well as a fruit bowl.

The thought of 3Lions, Jimbo and Sparty running a pub.. the place will never have any beer, as it will be drunk dry every night by the owners !

OK, so I go back to London until I'm 30 (which is 5 and a half years from now) save like mad, and I would have some capital - enough for a bar, though arguably not enough for a kind of 'Editor Bob Land' in the mould of Disney only slightly more drink and F1 oriented...

Well done on the F1 point - didn't know you were a fan@? We'll have to catch a race when the season starts again.

Sounds like Dubalin.

I for one was not so keen to come back: spent a couple of days in Connemara: Germany is positively clausrophobic in comparison. Driving through the mountains, not a house in sight, irish music on the car stereo, friendly folks in the pubs...

After my Nachtrodeln experience, I am a bit keener again.

would never go back to the uk, stanadard of life
is so superior here...dont miss anything...???

Ahh.. standard of life ! That will change in Germany. There is no way the Goverment can keep this, as it costs too much. Whereas I think this will improve in the UK. But maybe I am wrong !

I've only been in Germany nine months but started doing this a loooong time ago.

It's a nice place and improved my life in so many ways. Happy to not be in a Bush-led America, have received the best healthcare ever, enjoying a lot of things that don't exist or would cost an arm and a leg back home. I think it's good to experience culture other than that one's born into.

But I'm dying to be in New York City again. Besides that, I'm not sure how long I'd survive in a land where women are expected to be nothing but god-fearing wife and mother at my age (not that there's anything wrong with that, I just worked hard on my education and career and want my options back).

Oh, and I'm with whomever mentioned the service here! I'm so f*cking SICK of paying people to treat me with thinly-veiled contempt.

not just material things, I mean also people live
life here and are not so miserable oder?

Yep I would say you are.

Public Transport - Shite!! (Will never get better)
Immigration - Illegal and legal will get worse.
Beer - Has always been crap, again will never change.
Taxes - Are getting worse all the time(A bit like here).

Anyone care to add anymore.

Just one last bit to add, I do Love Britain(The 3 Lions isnt just there for the football reason), but I just hate what is happening there, that people feel they need to leave their home country to get a better standard of life.

Yob culture - not going to change in a long time.
Pub opening hours - getting better but still a lot worse than here.
Prices - everything getting more & more expensive. 5 quid for a packet of 16 cigarettes? I don't even smoke and I think that's fucking outrageous. 20 quid for a DVD?

yes, in part, but also in cork... and worse still in west cork...

bring back maggie thatcher she'd sort it out.

I'll get yer coat for ya

€35 in Ireland

BTW, Karstadt has Brazil (the Terry Gilliam movie) for €10. Great movie.

Müller (in Tal between Marienplatz and Isartor) had DVDs on sale for 4.99 when I was in last week. Dunno how many of them will be left by now though...

Best bits about Britain:

The humour - Not a lot of it here in Germany. Perhaps thats why I spend lots of time laffing at Toytown posts!
The music - nothing like a bunch of pissed Welsh people singing old rugby songs after closing time. Not often but it happens!
The taxes! 3 Lions is wrong about that. German taxes are a joke. Thanks to Maggie she did cut them and Tony has kept them to my knowledge still lower than here, or I may be open to correction here.

Worst bits about Germany...don't get me started on that one. There isn't space but The Rules and Old People are a start.

Best bits about Germany.

The Beer, the Beer, the Beer.
The weird but wonderful experience of being a Brit lying on a summers day among lots of naked gorgeous German women pretending its no big deal.
The skiing. Actually ski touring cos I am fed up with piste skiing (I am not that good I just do easy ski tours)
The Bavarian countryside which I spend lots of time in.
The bread - Hopfisterei is brill.
The babes - well...only one really...my wife.
The Beer once more.

Jeremy

True, true definitely not as bad as here, but taxes are creeping up all the time. Plus Labour keep trying to get in stealth taxes that we dont see until its done. Take beer & Fags for example no other country has as high a tax on these as the UK - Though I do believe that France & Germany do want to hammer a load of tax on to cigs this year, which doesnt bother me as I dont smoke.

Taxes on cigarettes are no problem by me. Passive smoking pisses me off.

I am a consummate drinker but apart from breathing beery fumes over someone else I can't kill them with that.

Less smoke equals better.

I believe gasoline is higher price in the UK than here too, hard as that is to believe.

As Beer drinking is the national passtime here I think there would be riots if the Government tried to throw tax on top.

There was a riot when they tried to make beergardens close at 9pm. Well, a very civilised but many-participant revolution actually.

higher than NYC for cigarettes? (raised last year from 8 cents to 1.50/pack, bringing the cost of most brands to $7.60/pack)

Everything that is bad for you in the UK has a tax, and some might rightly say good. Smoking is bad for you, high tax, etc.

The problem in Germany, is that the Krankenversicherung is only high, as smoking is cheap, almost everyone does it, and uses the funds up of the non-smokers. I say, raise the taxes on smoking, and lower the Krankenversicherung. Same with alcohol, although this one will affect me !

Hmm, I feel the opposite about returning back to Munich from the holidays. Feels like coming back to the town of Stepford or something. Not that I don't like this place, it has quite a bit going for it; but frankly I miss the seedier side of life.

Meeting a hot girl whose brother's in the mexican mafia; or the vietnamese pimp running his business in the kareoke bar in the strip mall; the nasty porn producer who's only flinched once, and that at the split penis held together with steel rings; the lsd-trippin' white-trash 20-something just released from jail that afternoon; the hot black girl with a killer ass and a taste for single-malt; or the alcoholic middle-aged depressive who enjoys trash bands - all of them I've met, and none of them in Toytown. It's the spice of life I get nostalgic about :\

You should try Kilians Randy!

I like many of you am glad to be back. Munich is clean, safe and people have a sense of pride in themselves and their achievements.
As usual, I found my homeland to be dirtier (in certain towns) and a general feeling of apathy among locals prevail. Why? because the weather is sh... and unless you have an abundance of money, there is nothing to do.
Where I grew up, there was 90% decent folk but now the roles have reversed. A sad reflection of the times.

However, I was treated with a very warm welcome in every house and home, the kettle was constantly on the boil and my glass was never empty.
In the street, total strangers wish you well and not because it is a new year, simply because people in general are more sociable. These are the things I miss.

The sales are good and I found clothes and houshold wares to be much cheaper in Scotland than Germany. Even the Whisky could be found at a decent price with the special offers that were on and usually alcohol is less expensive here. I was very surprised by the prices, although I do respect the fact that others who smoke and were drinking in pubs will have felt the pinch.

Showem, we filled our tank in Belgium and the cost was 49 euro, the next time we filled the tank, was at the petrol station as you enter England from the tunnel. The cost? 49 GBP!! This was my fault as I drove from Brussels to the Tunnel and didn't think to top up before leaving. This would never have happened if Opa had been awake as he's so organised!

Mystery man, the "The Quiet Man" was filmed there, was it not? Such a beautiful part of Ireland, I wish to return some day and show Opa. What do you call that bit with the windy road that leads up the cliffs, very precarious but a joy to behold?

I've ranted on now for ages and I see that Bob hasn't given me a spell check for Xmas, therefore, you'll just have to tolerate the mistakes as I'm not going back through it.

So, Happy New Year to one and all!!

Granny

Why munich is great ?

Err. theres a lot been posted in here (and is very good for a friday thread...)

Munich for me is a clean safe place, and I think once you work your way past the Müncheners and find some Bavarians you find the town to be a far more social place. (thats assuming you dont want to stay in expat land the rest of your life)

I never really twigged about this whole Bavarian thing until I got to know a few other friends and got invited to their table for Oktoberfest - they book this table every day for the 2 weeks - people drop in and drop out, and normally there is always someone there - or if not ask the waitress where Helmut is, and she knows

I went into a shop the other day and got a very american service, before I could close the door the imortal words "Good morning How can we help" were uttered. Me personally, I like to wander around have a look and see what I want to see for myself. So then I turned around and walked out. Likewise, when you have German service levels, that aint good either.

One last thing, as I learn more and more german, I appreciate this place. Yesterday I spent 8 hours in a car travelling to Zurich and back with someone who was less confident of his english than I am of my german. So 8 hours, speaking german with the occasional lapse into english. (btw - anyone instrested in trying an german speaking night some time?? PM ME...) Now my local bakery know my german is getting better and have stoped replying to the englander in english - I'm making progress

Ok, thats the end of my long thoughts this morning...

P

Flipping heck, how could I forget...

The beer is great here too

P

Petrol prices in Germany and UK are almost identical:

http://www.see-search.com/business/fueland...riceseurope.htm

Looks like filling up in Switzerland or Austria is worthwhile if you are there!

The Germans smoke too much but bearing in mind how price aware they all are I think it would be good news for everyone if they hiked up the prices for health reasons (same as the French did). Fags are too cheap here.

On the tax discussion Blair has indeed added LOADS of extra taxation aside from the obvious straight tax rate. They reckon once the German government get their latest reforms through we will end up with same effective NETT income in the UK and Germany. (might even be cheaper here)

You can see from this report on the BBC website that at present there is only a 1% difference in nett incomes between UK and Germany:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1921062.stm

Thanks for the stats but what does this all mean to me?

Well as I see it (and I've not been here long but hoping to stay), there are no purely "financial" reasons for choosing the UK. It really comes down to where you feel happiest, and of course depends if you can get on with the people.

Things I like so far:

1. Pubs don't shut at 11
2. Autobahns mean you can have a blast occasionally.
3. Clothes are cheaper. Food is cheaper.
4. Skiing is very close.
5. No channel tunnel ripoff. I can drive to Italy/France/Austria in hours.
6. Weather is better I reckon - not just grey all the time.
7. Healthcare is expensive but at least it is good.

Must admit I don't get so excited about the beer - stuff all tastes OK to me nearly everywhere in the world! (except Canada where its is fizzy and foul). Maybe I need to drink more!!!

On a purely personal level they also have lots of Motocross tracks round here, which is much better than when I lived in London.

Everyone has the odd "bad day" wherever they live I reckon, but so far I seem to have less "bad days" over here!

I actually managed to convince James to run a German-speaking Munich Dining Club meal once, but it didn't work out that well (I got stuck on a table with only one person who could do more than speak a few words/phrases). However at my (now ex-) company we have a monthly "German speaking evening" and that works out pretty well - might even be worth organising a TT equivilent if there is enough interest. Perhaps a poll might be in order?

Went for breakfast with AquaticMerinquette in London over Christmas, and paid 19 quid for a bagel, a baguette, two soft drinks and a coffee. Later we went back to a pub beside our hotel, arriving at 10:25pm with barely enough time to order a drink before last orders. I felt pretty homesick (for Munich) by the time I came home - 2 and a half weeks was definitely too long away.