General advice on moving to Cologne

Hey all! I managed to stumble across this excellent forum and looks like a great resource! Well done!

I am Irish and currently preparing to move to Cologne as an Au Pair!

Is there any advice people cound give me on Germany and especially Cologne?

Thanks!

Steve

Hello and welcome to TT and to Germany! Your question is awfully vague. I'd suggest having a good read of the forum (especially the Cologne/NRW subforum) and using the search function to find answers to specific questions. I know you're just looking for general info, but without some idea about what you want to know it's really difficult to tell you anything helpful.

Edit: and you may also experience some rather cheeky but not altogether unfair changes to your topic title.

Hey georgiagirl thanks for the reply!

At the moment Im not looking for specific information. Im okay for that until I get to Germany I hope! I was just looking for words of wisdom or things to look out for!

Thanks

Aqua di Gio is a pretty good cologne...

Trust a fellow Corkman to come up with that one!

Words of wisdom - Never eat yellow snow.

Things to look out for - Unidentified Flying Objects.

Things to look out for II (as an au pair) - receiving swollen goods...

Note to self in future ask specfic question like georgiagirl said...

LOL

Well Cologne has one big mofo river going through it.

You will probably be irritated somewhat by changing schedules at work, this seems to be common au pair situation.

The beer is better than whatever you are used to in Eire.

The supermarkets are disgusting to put it mildly.

People will be nicer to you cos your an English speaker, but not English.

They wont be able to point out your home country on a map.

Cologne is cheaper than south Germany.

Thats pretty much a summary of recent threads here.

All the best big cheese.

Thank you Schotte! Though I do prefer German beer cause here i end up drinking American or Belgian beer!

Coming to the right place then, cheap as chips too. 75cents a bottle or something.

Oh and hopefully you like pork cos everything is made out of pork.

döner kebaps are amazing and come in at about 3euros. in south at least. and are amazing. unlike your british or irish ones.

burger king is cheaper, about 5euros a menu meal.

im actually running through a typical day here to think what might be useful to know

Im Irish Schotte, I'll eat anything put in front of me!

Wooo! Cheap beer! Just like I remember!

Wow! Thanks Schotte!

You'll find plenty of fellow Corkmen in Cologne, the cities are twinned, there's even a pub called the Corkonian and the 4 Irish pubs in the Altstadt are owned by Corkmen.

yes I know that mandrax thanks!

A friend told me about the Corkonian! Im looking forward to it!

The trains have a real tendency to break down, leaving you to get off yours and hike a couple stations past the problem...
Four times in two months; I really hope it's just bad luck.

Breaking down is ok. It's the odd suicide or two every few weeks holding the trains up that's a real bugger.

Suicide? On the train? Like people jumping on the tracks?

There are often people even considering suicide on the tracks who need persuading that life isn`t so bad after all.
It is a pain in the neck though to all those in the train waiting for it to move on