Today marks one whole year since Franzie, the kids and I left Australia and flew to Berlin for a planned 7 year stint. It’s probably been the craziest year of our lives, so I hope the next 6 years here in Germany will be much more settled! In overview:
Three weeks after we landed we moved out of our temporary holiday unit and into our rented 2nd-floor apartment in Gesundbrunnen, Berlin. It’s a lovely bright unit that gets lots of sun, with excellent train connections and lovely people (if you look close enough, you can see me with M on the balcony - sorry, picture to come). We had to wait another month-and-a-half before our belongings arrived from Australia (and even then, we only just managed to get them off the truck which initially refused to stop to unload).
I’ve worked for two companies here in Berlin (The Otherland Group and then Metaversum - makers of Twinity) doing lots of interesting stuff with Django, Rails and virtual worlds, before finding my dream job: helping to make Ubuntu Linux the number one operating system (working for Canonical on Launchpad.net). So job-wise, it’s involved lots of changes throughout the year, but the changes have also enabled me to meet lots of people.
We’ve had lots of friends and family visit throughout the year, which has been excellent, obviously to stay in touch with people from back home, but it’s also helped me to learn Berlin like the back of my hand (I’ll do a personal 3hr bike tour of Berlin for 20 Euros). Some of my bests memories of the past year have been taking family and friends around Berlin on my bike.
To say that it’s been a very full year would be an understatement - it’s been a year of transitions in terms of homes, jobs, kindergartens and even friendships, which will soon settle down when we move outside of Berlin later this year to Luckenwalde (F’s hometown) where we hope to settle for our time here in Germany.
We’re all missing our friends and family in Australia - as great as it is to be able to talk with video calls, I miss *being* with friends back home. My German has been coming along slowly, not quite quick enough to build real friendships in German (but then most of the friends I’ve made here speak near-perfect English).
So, lots of learning through a crazy year, with hopefully a more settled year to come!
Ubuntu Linux! that’s great. That is really great. Someday soon I really hope Sunshine and I will be on bikes getting a tour of Berlin. I have always wanted to visit, and we should before we do something crazy like start a family.
Your family must be nearly old enough to travel too hey? Anytime you feel like a trip to NZ, our place is your place.
hi michael,
glad that it’s worked out for you. we’re planning a trip to oz sometime in the near future. i’ll probably hit you up for some tips.
all the best from singapore,
jeremy
Leigh! Sorry - had forgotten to hook up my comment alerts…
If you and sunshine can get over here, we’d love to take you both on bike tours of Berlin! And yep, we’ve got a spare bedroom ready and waiting if you can make it soon ;), otherwise, we’ll be moving outside of Berlin in May, but it’s only a short trip in.
Travelling with the kids is a bit easier now, but we’ll work our way up slowly to the 20hrs to NZ!
Hi Jeremy! Thanks - yeah, so far things are working out well. Did you guys find it easy to settle in in Singapore?
Sure, just let me know what kind of trip to Aus you’re planning, and I’ll give you some tips from my perspective :)
Gday Big Man.
I was going through old emails looking for my skype address and found you there… found the website and bam!
Didn’t know that you had moved to Berlin. Good to hear we have somewhere to visit when we come over with our 5 kids sometime ;)
I am STILL studying, but will be finished this year. Have had a couple of hurdles but have cleared them now and hope to be done soon. Michelle had started a grad dip in psychology but we decided it was best to wait until I finished before she started again.
I am glad to see that things are looking up for you, having seen no posts here over the year I was wondering what was going on. It sounds like you have learnt a lot, and I would be very interested to read your comparisons of rails and django; my first impression being django may be easier to work with, but harder to find hosting.
Love to all the family,
sue