Posted on

Human Rights

I didn’t realize that the human rights in Germany is so high because after leaving 7 years in China it is very normal to not get a holiday within your first year of work, you will get your holiday on your second year and usually it was between 5-20 days per year, 20 is if you are super lucky and 5 is the common days if you are working for a Chinese company. Now I got 30 days of holiday and it is really standard in Germany, the things that come to a realization that human rights does exist is when my team leader told me that I need to put my holidays plan into the system. I asked her “what holiday?” She said my 30 days of holiday but because you came in to the office on 1st of September then you only have 10 days of holiday until 31 Dec 2020. What?!?! Mind blowing enough for me!

I texted my sister if she can come to Germany since she’s holding an Australian passport anyway so no visa needed unfortunately she can’t, not because she cannot get in here rather she cannot go back there. Then I texted Thorben if he knew when will he come back but it is also unsure with Covid if he allows to come back to China again after that. Me, I prefer to travel within Germany, at first my plan was to take every Friday holiday for 1.5 months but Julia said it’s such a bad idea just take the whole week and visit Berlin or Munich. I remember Claudia and Giovanni already went back to Germany since 2019 and I texted where they are? and they are in Munich, perfect! sooooo Munich it is!

I left Dortmund with a very happy feeling because I’ll see my friends again and Dortmund left me with a beautiful double rainbow 🙂

See you next week Dortmund!

I arrived 1 hour early than the boarding time because A. I can’t wait to meet both of them, B. I prefer to come early because I took a bus-train-bus. I sent a picture to Claudia when I already inside the plane and she sent me picture of dinner that she prepared or me! and yes I was hungry!

They picked me up in the airport, Claudia is so pretty as always then we stopped by in the Munich style of “arc de Triomphe” mwahaha just to take a quick pics 😉

We went straight to their home and Claudia continue cooking for our dinner, I had my second portion for dinner because it was so good! and… for the first time in my life I ate cactus! and I like it!

Just like life cannot be all perfect, within the next 24 hours the God’s weather is against us, they gave us 6 degree Celcius and rainy and windy but did it stop us from going to the city center? no way! haha mask on! it’s now mandatory to wear mask on public place especially in the famous tourist spots. Look at Claudia, she is still very fashionable and very WOW in every possible way!

On this kind of weather we did mostly inside the building either churches, shops or cafe.

The weather will never be able to make Munich any less beautiful, I really like this city and thanks God I still have few more days in here so I am not in a hurry 🙂

The exploration of Munich has just begun 😉

Posted on

Saving for The Bigger Future

Julia needed to take me back to Sparkasse for opening another account and after that we wanted to have dinner somewhere since she drives a car anyway so I got to choose the place of where to eat. I was in doubt between Indian or Greek food but the winner was…. Mongos!!! haha

They have the famous all you can eat deal for 2 hours for 26 Euro excluding drinks. They have many many meat options, vegetables…but when there’s meat… why should I choose veggies 😉 Because I knew about bigger future is coming soon therefore I saved some spaces on my stomach and what exactly did I do? I only had a high protein chocolate pudding!

However when we back to work again after lunch, my stomach is not in line with my plan…I was craving for something and the only snacks available in the office was chocolate, at first I only ate one, then go another, then go for candy and if it’s still not enough, go to Daniel, he must have something and he gave me the ice cream bon bon from other colleague’s table and it is not an ice cream or anything close to ice cream, in fact it’s another candy! oh my this is so not proper lunch…

The appointment with the bank guy took longer than I expected so as you may guess, my stomach is getting bigger and bigger! I was so happy when we finally arrived Mongos!

There are 2 types of deals in Mongos, first is the one that they weight the food you are taking and the second is the one with appetizer and dessert…. and I went for the…. second one! The appetizer was soup and snacks platter. The full snack platter was 5 dishes but I only like two of them which was tandori and spring rools so I only had that two types for my second appetizer round.

Then we went to the main dish! look at these options! we need to choose what sauce we wanted and the cook will cook it accordingly. I had the classic beef with BBQ sauce.

Of course the first round wasn’t enough so we went for the second round but the food waiting for the second one was so long! oh no… I had zebra meat together with Malay satay sauce.

I wanted to go to the third round but the zebra meat was quiet tough so I went straight for dessert 😉

Savings for a bigger and brighter future indeed a good things but it does not apply in all you can eat food haha! The craving in the afternoon is def not healthy at all, I should’ve eat my lunch, lesson learned 😉

Posted on

The Pink Competition

Who cares about black pink when you have MarPink?! haha For one weekend, out of nowhere I got a vibe of wearing pink, it’s not that I don’t like pink colors before, I like it on a shirt or in some accessories such as bags but I never really wear a pink pants…hmmm… but ever since I arrived Germany, my pink hormones increases, I brought with me a pale pink hand bag and a backpack that I bought from Amazon.de, yes it’s .de instead of .com bitchesssss! 😉 and it was a gray-black with a soft touch of pink, so let’s do some pink colors!

First day of my pink pants, I wore it when I went to Phoenix-See, it is not a sea but it’s more like a lake and just a relax place to go. I went to Dortmund Hoerde and found the place is so beautiful, the buildings are colorful and surprise surprise it matched with my color 😉

Julia told me that behind the Phoenix-See there are a very expensive houses where famous Dortmund football player lives…well well well, now that I knew, I will come back to behind of the Phoenix-See to find out if I ever met a famous football player there!

On the weekend, I decided to go to Hohensyburg because that popped out on my google maps, the place is rather far from where I live like one hour away by bus but I have nothing to do anyway so why don’t I just explore.

On the way there, it was only 3 people left on the bus, we passed a field with horses and so on, all the bus stop before Syburg were located out of nowhere just on the side of the street, I was so sure that my bus was correct and mentioned Syburg as the end station but still a bit nervous especially when the people are getting less and less. But, I arrived anyway at Syburg and I saw a bit of a life such as many restaurants, hotels and people, then I was relief…. fiuh…

I kept walking for 450 meters up to the hill, basically where everyone was going and I found this hidden gems on top of the hill 😉

The view, the park and the weather was amazing, but my stomach were calling and there were only 2 stalls, one for sweets and the other for drinks so I ordered myself a waffle and an Apfelschorle 😉

It made me have enough energy to do one more round of this before I went to Kaisar statue which only 200 meters away haha

In between my 200 meters distance, there are a park where you can play something such as badminton, frisbee, chess whatever, I remember when I was a child me and sister went to a hotel and there was a big big chess statue, and now many years later I see it again! only this time it was smaller but still it brings back the memory 🙂

Then I arrived to the statue of the Kaisar and the view from there is amazing with the lake and stuff, good choice Kaisar!

However, I still wonder about the house of famous Dortmund player so I went there once again 🙂 it felt so good yet so weird that such a famous person will have a house that is not guarded by the police or anything like in the Beverly hills or 90210, it feels as if both me and him could walk on the same “garden” or “path” this is actually a very interesting concept.

The houses indeed are super big and beautiful…. unfortunately, I don’t meet any of them due to some reason such as exhibit a, I didn’t know any Dortmund football player and exhibit b, if they appear the crowd would go mad but they were chill so…. no famous people around 😉 but it was still a chill and relaxing weekend after all.

I wonder what my next color will be, #i’m thinking….

Posted on

Statement

What is my statement?

I’m not a tourist here! BAM!

See that round green? that’s my work starter kit 😉 Feels so good to finally came to this office as their employee!

Who said Germans are not fun? specifically on Friday…

only to find out that by Monday they are back to serious and those post-it was not only taken away but the whole statement was changed haha

Back to work everyone! 😉

Posted on

One Step Closer

One step closer to where? to my own apartment in Dortmund! Yeay! I was well informed that it is very common to get an empty apartment in Germany, as empty as no chair, no table, no bed etc (this is very opposite of Asian’s apartment) so I wasn’t surprise to find out that I need to buy all the stuffs in IKEA but in other way this will be my style! yuhuuuu let’s the decoration begin!

Luckily, Julia was with me the whole time we furnished this apartment and she did it the Germans way! We came to the apartment together to do some measurement, which it never exist in my mind because I’ll just do the Asian way, meaning arrived at the apartment and do some observation in my mind and good to go! while she really took out measurement tape, and measure every possible side you can found and wrote it on a piece of paper so when we go to IKEA we will be able to know what size fits and what doesn’t.

We spent 3.5 hours there! all with mask on, perhaps it was adrenaline rush so at that moment I don’t feel suffocate but the time when I should pay I started to fill the suffocation mwahaha maybe it’s because I need to release some money 😉 we didn’t even have time to had dinner there! we were tired and hungry for real!

Not every stuff can get into Julia’s car obviously so we needed the 师傅 haha-I started to miss typing in Chinese 😉 I mean the IKEA guy to come and delivered it to us. And we do need this service! because my apartment is located in 3rd floor without elevator and the stairs are quiet steep so there is no way in heaven I’m gonna carry it all there.

Due to Corona the IKEA guy was only able to put it in front of my door but they are not allowed to come inside the apartment, on top of that in order to have the 师傅 assemble it for us, we need to pay additional fee which me and Julia think it’s not necessary, all the stuff wasn’t so complicated and we only need screwdrivers and…. maybe hexkey and…. I think that was it! we are in the professional tool industry and we do have Promat tools! besides, we also want to prove to our guys a.k.a Stefan and Christian who quote “This is not a problem of the tools” helloooooo we can do it!

But first, we need to drink! there is a kind of store in the ground floor but its rather weird one, there was no bottle of water, orange juice or even a diet coke! they only have wine and other alcoholic drinks, so these are the healthier drinks I could find 😉

Let the works begin!

Getting ready of our Promat tools and…. we roll!

I forgot how long did it takes us but with (almost) all furniture arrived and we placed is where it should be, it started to feel cozy. There will still be a shelf that I still need to wait until October because it was out of stock but at least we managed to get the ground of it 😉

Posted on

Are We There Yet?

Am I on the way to Dortmund? Yes

Do I have a pitstop? also Yes!

After I tested negative, I can have a go to my next step which is…not yet Dortmund…wait for it… Schwelm! and why Schwelm? because it’s Julia’s home 🙂 Since the contract of my apartment is not yet ready and staying in hotel is expensive, Julia was so kind to offer me to stay in her guest bedroom with one condition only which is the German testing center has to confirm that I am negative to Covid-19 and I got my greenlight on 31st of Aug.

She picked me up from the hotel in Burscheid, all luggages are inside and off we went to Schwelm!

We had the famous ice cream and it taste so good! I had 3 scoops hihii rafaello, and two other things that I forgot something with berry either strawberry or whatever and perhaps chocolate, they have sooo many different flavors, unbelievable!

They also have a very “weird” vegetables, I’m sure I have never seen it my whole life mwahaha this vegetable is definitely too big! and what breaks my heart is you don’t even use the greenpart, you only use the stem T.T poor big veggies gone to a dustbin

Okay, enough with the food, time to switch the focus to other stuff. The city center is divided into old and new but they are so close to each other, they have some funny buildings 😉 and on the first weekend of Sept usually they have Heimatfest for the whole weekend and on Tuesday 6th of Sept they closed the festival with a firework which unfortunately due to Corona it got cancelled. But, Moritz told me that in the old city center they still hang some clothes as part of the tradition and Julia showed me about that part of Schwelm.

So what did the Schwelmer do when they don’t have Heimatfest? They have their own Heimatfest! haha Julia brought me to her crazy Wilde 14! and why 14? because there are 13 neighborhood in Schwelm and they are the 14th 🙂 it was such a bright day in day time but when evening comes OMG people, layer please! I kept putting layer after layer brrrrr

There were 2 parties one after the other that Julia invited me to, first is the party in Mara and Bjoern (it’s impossible to pronounce haha) and second is the birthday of Katrin (sorry if I typed your name wrongly I only know how to spell my own sister’s name mwahaha) even though my Germans are really really low but they all so nice to me. Thank you Julia for introducing me to your crazy Wilde 14!

After the first party we really have to fight with our own innerer schweinehund to get ready for the second one 😉

ready not ready…

After the second party, we were looking forward for Sunday!! to just do nothing other than having a big breakfast….

Julia and Moritz went out in the afternoon while I lost against my innerer schweinehund but I joined them later in kind of late afternoon because my stomach is calling and I joined them to have early dinner 🙂

I stayed at their place for 10 days! and I get too comfortable because they always have food such as ice cream and chips!!! Thank you Julia and Moritz for being such a great friend and a perfect host!

Yes, that is rice 😉
Posted on

Supporting Theory of Sleeping Beauty

Why would a disney movie ever filmed a princess that her job was only sleeping? Because according to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy needs, sleeping is one of our physiological needs, one of the essentials one. Who would have thought that this disney princess have a strong support from the famous psychologist and philosopher??? and I couldn’t agree more! When I landed Germany around 2 weeks ago-wohooo! can’t believe 2 weeks went just like that, I had a massive jetlag, I tried to stay up but in the end I just gave up…. and for how long I was asleep? surpriseee!

I think my whole jetlag sleeping history I never reached 12 hours 05 minutes, most of them either 10 or 10 and a half hours of sleeping but this time was an exception that really took me by surprise, including the hours of deep sleep, it’s amazing!! Usually in a normal time I only have like 40 mins of deep sleep, and that heart rate of 46BPM? That’s the lowest heart rate I’ve ever have! am I right Thorben? haha so if I maintain to have around that rate I will not have a heart attack when I turn 30 yo right? 🙂 usually my normal heart rate was at least 90, even when I just sitting, crazy but when I do my sport, it won’t go up thaaatt much maybe around 100-110 so those 46 bpm in other way scares me too haha

From the day I landed Germany until I got my negative corona test result which took me 4 days after my arrival, I stayed in one hotel in Burscheid-I always stayed there everytime I went to Germany, my lovely Schuetzenburg 🙂 the hotel is so cute! the staff-Marco is so nice and Penny is just directly in front of the hotel so it’s very convenient!

Since I didn’t make an announcement about me leaving to Germany prior my arrival in Germany, then…this is the time. The second day after my arrival was full of texting and sending pictures to my big family and what I meant by big family is really big family! you would never imagine how big Asian family is 😉 I told my sister that she need to help me with replying all the messages because I really can’t handle them, besides… I want to have a walk to the city center of Burscheid which is…. only 10 minutes away from my hotel haha

The population of Burscheid is only 18K haha! it is a massive cultural shock for me to be in a such not crowded place 🙂 I felt the air was much cleaner and fresher, the town is very neat and just very cute 😉 and literally no people around mwahaha! I was told a theory about finding where is the city center, try to see if there is a church, then you arrived at the city center.

It was such a cold Saturday so I can’t really stay outside for so long then I thought that on Sunday it will be more hype just because it’s Sunday! but I was dead wrong! On Sunday the city center is dead dead dead!

Stefan worried if I ever be bored during my stay in Burscheid but to my surprise I didn’t feel bored at all! I need some days to recover from jetlag and adjust myself physically and mentally to bring some awareness that I’m not in Asia anymore! To this day, I still find it very surprising 😉

One city is down, more to go! 😀

Posted on

Documentation, documentation, documentation!

Why documentation is really important? one of the most reasonable reason is if something won’t happen in the near future 😉 and what is that? at this moment the answer is FLYING!! and more specific is flying on a BUSINESS CLASS! wohooooo

My parents bought me a business class from Garuda Indonesia for me to fly to Germany, hmmm wait let me rewind…. this is not my parents bought me but more I asked for it mwahaha! but but but! I asked for it for a reason! that is the luggage, economy class only allowed to bring 30kg while business is 40kg and if I sit on economy and pay for additional luggage then it won’t be that much difference from paying business in the beginning 😉 so I can officially said at that moment, it has more advantages to sit on business class *thumbs up!

Since this is technically my first time on business class, I took every benefits possible mwahaha, first they helped me to check it, so I didn’t put my luggages on the check-in counter, biatch please 😉 I just sit down on the couch #like a boss!

Then I got to their lounge, their lounge is a bit disappointment because the food wasn’t that much…. but the shower room helped to balance it, yes people! I took shower before my flight! so I came to the plane clean and fresh 🙂

Boarding! I was so happy to find where my seat was oooooohhh my the chair is so big and definitely have enough space for everything! “Do you want to drink?” yaisss, bring me fresh orange juice! they claimed its fresh instead of coming from the boxes of juice.

Ofc it wouldn’t be enough without selfie on it, you can see the chair is different right? haha!

  • Mask-on
  • Mask-off

Then the stewardess came and ask “do you want to have a dinner?” ofc! why does she need to ask? gimme gimme gimme! I chose salmon salad, salmon with quinoa and a surprise dessert 😉

My oh my I had a really nice evening 🙂 next, I lay down 180 degree and slept zzzz but I woke up at some point just to find #twinkle twinkle little stars

Then the sun come out, I had another juice and a breakfast-a nice one too 🙂

What a nice experience! and somehow the selfie doesn’t seem enough hihihi so here is another one, yesterday was selfie in the evening and now is in the morning 🙂

After that, I arrived Schipol airport and waited for 3 hours before my next flight by KLM, since the flight from Schipol to Duesseldorf only about 40 minutes, they don’t have TV 🙁 but they gave me cinnamon roll, just one whoaaaa! but the flight is too short to do or eat proper meal 🙂

Thanks Mom and Dad, I’m sure the moment Corona is over and you are allow to fly to Germany, you will buy the first ticket there, so… see you!

Posted on

Tribute To The Beatles

You say, “Goodbye”, and I say, “Hello, hello, hello” (hello, goodbye, hello, goodbye) That’s just a bit of lyrics from “Hello Goodbye” by The Beatles and this is exactly how I feel right now, every story has two sides, one side is a “Hello” and the other is a “Goodbye”.

On 28th of August I landed Germany, I was so nervous but not afraid-nervous, I was hyper-nervous, too happy to be here. When I accepted their offer back in May, I only informed sooooo few people, as few as my sister, my parents, Markus, Thorben and Marina. Because I don’t want to be too excited as the situation with Corona was still very absurd, the German Embassy closed until further notice, Germany still closed their border for international flight but I don’t lose hope, I put one foot in front the other and keep going. And fast forward to 27th of August as my last day in mother land and going to Vaterland haha!

Once I landed at Duesseldorf Airport, I’ve done my corona test there for frei! yuhuuuu! in love with this country already 😉 after that “Hello” to my two helpers that put a significant contribution on my relocation journey to Germany!

Little did I knew, they even prepared me welcome gift… I would like to say box but it is not a box so a welcome gift paperbag-sounds more environmental friendly too 😉

Then they put me in a hotel to wait until my corona test result came out which should be beginning of next week, after that I told Thorben and he said “it’s time to announce the Disturbed Family!” haha yes Thorben thank you for keeping the secrets away from them for so long 🙂 Haissshhh this is the hardest moment, the “Goodbye” part, they are more than just friends, they’re my family and even better they all are distrubed and (such an) ass-ociates 😀

It took me some time to write them and even some time to look my phone back after I pressed that send button. Thank you for all the messages, such a heartwarming one and I knew I will never have the balls to say goodbye to all of you.

However, since my goodbye is through text, I don’t think it is a proper goodbye and mostly you guys are European anyway 😉 I’ll come to your home invited or uninvited mwhaha to have my “Hello” moment with your parents, Hello Sir / Ma’am, I’m a friend of your son / daughter 🙂

Germany, you are such a whole new world, a hundred thousand things to see and I can’t wait to reveal it one by one 🙂

Posted on

Daddy-Daughter’s Moment Gone Right

Hungry…. I am so hungry…. I have no foods for my own…. Oh I’m so hungry…. that song from Akon with a little bit of switching some words was exactly how I felt last Sunday. It was already passed dinner time but I have no appetite but hungry yeah how to explain. I was hungry but I had no clue of what to eat and what do I want to eat, not that I didn’t have food on the table but I was not willing to eat it.

I kept opening the fridge to see something that I can grab a bite, I did had some snacks but not a proper meal. I was kept asking “whats to eat?” and my father also gave me some suggestion: McD in front of our home? pasta? this? that? but I still don’t want it and he said “my fried rice?” and my eyes were wide open YESSS!!! he said “but we need the seasoning from Indomie noodles” so I checked whether we have it and yes we do!

My mom was in her room at this time watching a live streaming video so she didn’t know what me and my father doing. He said “okay, seasoning is here, we need egg, ketchup and tomato sauce” and it’s everything that it takes haha in less than 5 mins my dinner is ready 😉

He said these are the emergency ingredients that I should have no matter what, where and when.

For my whole life, I probably only seen him in the kitchen cooking like less than 10 times. That’s why it’s worth to take pictures of him doing the cooking! Without a doubt I know that he can cook, he just lazy of doing the dishes because we don’t have a dishwasher! and nope every other household also don’t have it, it’s not common here in Indonesia.

Thanks Daddy for saving me from “starvation” 😉