Ein neues Abenteuer

A week ago I left Auckland and I restart this blog to document my new adventure in Germany. As those who I personally know are aware, this has been a long time coming so I am glad to have finally made it.

I will stay here for a year to work - I've moved with my company back in Auckland for a sort of 'work exchange' program as part of my training. I will be based in Fulda, which is a small city (though apparently, not 'small' by German standards) in the Hessen region, and the factory where I will work is about a 10 minute drive from the city centre. Not bad considering the awful traffic I am glad to leave behind in Auckland.

I've started this blog late and haven't even put pictures up on Facebook etc. just because this week has been so busy, and jetlag plus the 32 deg+ heat hasn't helped. But as today is Sunday and pretty much all the shops close, there isn't so much to do and after having walked around a little bit (more on this later), I am now writing this sitting in the grounds of the Schlossgarten - a public park in the city center.

So let's start from the start shall we?

I left Auckland last week on Sunday night, having done all my packing in the three days before I left. I'm normally a late packer (it's the worst), but I had planned on doing it the weekend before - but I then ended up getting sick and spending almost 4 days in bed with some sort of stomach infection. Anyway, packing was finally done and I had managed to fit my stuff in two suitcases, so I decided to bring my snowboard as my third bag. I am so looking forward to winter!

This was a special experience for me as my company covered business class tickets for me - what a treat. I got to check in at the Premium counters and that went quite smoothly. Felt like I was boarding a domestic flight with the self-service kiosks.

I spent some final minutes with my family and then I went through to the other side.

Of course my first destination had to be the Koru lounge. Yeah, we're high rolling it. This was quite cool with a buffet and free drinks everywhere. I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself but helped myself to some of the offerings and relaxed in a chair.

My first flight would be to LAX, riding a B777 with Air New Zealand. The seat was comfy and you had everything you needed. The movie selection wasn't that great though and my IFE crashed a few times towards the end of the flight (apparently they'd never had problems with it until I came along). The food was okay - not as special as I had anticipated. It sounds like I am complaining, but I did enjoy the overall experience. I just don't know if I'd ever pay for it myself.

Transit in LA was the worst. This I will complain about.

Because the Americans are such a special bunch, they insist that you clear immigration and collect your bags, to then have to re-check your baggage in, and then re-enter the terminal, having to clear security all over again.

When I heard about this at Auckland airport, I thought I could deal with it as a minor inconvenience. But then I completely rescinded my feeling on this when I arrived at immigration. As this was the first time I had travelled to the US on my new passport (I'd been there before on my previous one - curse NZ's 5-year passport validity), I had to queue in the main immigration line which was ridiculously long. I'd have taken a picture but feared I would be tackled by an immigration officer, sent to a detention centre and then deported. But anyway, this queue just went on forever. They didn't have all the customs booths open and processing people didn't seem to be high on their priority list. I ended up waiting an hour and a half before being seen.

I thought it was all over until I arrived at the baggage collection hall. Because immigration processing had taken so long, all the bags had been taken off the carousel and put on the ground in a big pile. But a few flights had arrived so there were lots of big piles of luggage. On top of this the carousel number from which it was announced our flight's bags were had changed and I was stupidly looking in the wrong place for a good 15 minutes.

I finally found my bags and went to re-check them in. What is the point.

After re-checking in my bags I exited and found myself outside the airport terminal. For all this trouble I should have just done a proper stopover and I could have visited some friends.

I headed straight for the departures terminal (because my flight was going to board in half an hour by then), and thank goodness for my business class ticket, I could skip the main queue for security processing. This only took a few minutes, and then as it had basically been paid for, I decided to quickly run up to the Star Alliance Lounge to check it out.

It was a pretty cool place - but instead of having an hour or two to chill out, I ran around for 10 minutes and had to go straight to the gate.

The view from the outdoor balcony in the Star Alliance lounge. Not many people out here as it was blazingly hot.

The Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt was on an A380, and I got to go up to the second floor. I didn't get a window seat this time, and the layout in the centre aisle is a bit awkward especially if you are next to a stranger - you are practically playing footsies with your neighbour.

My neighbour, by the way, was an American lady who was travelling to Azerbaijan as part of the Special Olympics team (at least I think that's what she said). She was friendly enough, but kept talking about the new house she was building in LA. After a while I felt like saying, "okay, I get it, you have enough money to build a nice house. I don't really want to see pictures of what you want to build".

Ascending to the second floor

The in-flight experience was similar to the Air NZ one, but the biggest difference was the service - and it was a major step up from the previous flight. The air-hostess addressed me by name and was so attentive throughout the flight, occasionally checking up on me asking if I needed anything, and then asking at the end of the flight if everything was okay. I know they're paid to be sincere, but it did seem sincere and it left me with a nicer feeling than flying with Air NZ.

I finally arrived in Frankfurt and this was a much nicer experience compared to LA. Despite arriving close to lunchtime, baggage collection was easy and there was basically no queue at immigration. By the way, the lack of bio-security screening is still something I'm not so used to. I can't believe how easy it is to arrive compared to NZ/Aus, fearing that I accidentally forgot about an apple in my bag. (Jokes, I don't eat apples.)

Navigating Frankfurt airport was a bit tricky as it is a big place. I would have gone straight to the train terminal, but as I had way too many bags (I wouldn't have been able to carry them myself on the train), I had to find a baggage delivery service. I finally found the place but there was a long queue, and by the time I had got there I had missed the train I had been booked for. I had to pay for another ticket but finally made it to the train station.

The ride on the ICE train (part of the high speed network of Deutsche Bahn) was comfortable. I didn't know how the seat reservation system worked so just sat down somewhere, but was asked to move later on when another person who had reserved the seat arrived. I'll figure it out eventually.

After about an hour I arrived in Fulda and took a taxi to the hotel where I had been booked. I've stayed at the hotel for a week and will be here for one more week while my company finds an apartment/flat for me.

The city is quaint and much of the architecture in the old city has been maintained.

The day I arrived I said I would try and make it to the factory for the onboarding program they were running. I arrived by taxi and was impressed with the size of the facility. It's much bigger than the factory in Auckland.

I didn't know what to expect people to be wearing at work and was very surprised to see people in t-shirts and many in shorts. I know it's summer, but this was way more casual than I had anticipated. I'm not unhappy about this though, it's nice to wear t-shirts to work.

I met the HR lady who was super friendly, and spoke great English and went to one of the presentation rooms to catch the end of the onboarding program for the day. I met one of my new colleagues - he was in charge of safety for the project I am to work on. He was really nice too and drove me back to town after work.

I crashed at the hotel and pretty much fell asleep without having dinner. It was only 5pm, but my body clock was saying it was 3am!

I can't believe how much I have written, but will post another blog soon on my first exploits around town and curiosities of the German culture. There are many to speak of!