Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016) | Hacker News Reader

Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

blog.alexanderdickson.com

105 pointsericdanielski206 comments

Regarding the trains,

>They are usually on time and cover basically everywhere worth visiting in Europe.

He has a very ungerman definition of usually on time :) There's probably not a bigger laughing stock in Germany than our trains (Okay, there is BER). The long-distance ones only arrive within 5 minutes 75% of the time [1]. If you have tight transfers to make, that can get very annoying.

I also thought the ICE and non-ICE dichotomy was funny. I would split them into long-distance (IC, ICE, EC) and regional (RE, RB, S-Bahn).

[1]: https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen... (Db-Fernverkehr tab)

> The long-distance ones only arrive within 5 minutes 75% of the time.

By standards I am familiar with, that's good. Last time I checked, my local train station had trains arriving within 10 minutes only 50% of the time.

"In Germany, there are two kinds of "on time". So far [2017], 94.2% of trains have reached their final destination within six minutes of the scheduled time, and 98.9% within 16 minutes."

The article also goes into detail how every country measures punctuality differently.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42024020

(Yes, Germans love to complain about the train company)

I really wish articles like this put these numbers into a table or graph.

Does anyone know of a table comparing train punctuality?

> 94.2% of trains have reached their final destination within six minutes of the scheduled time

That's a terrible statistic. First off, connections are designed to be just a few minutes, so 5 minutes delay (not included in this stat) makes you miss an average connection.

Secondly, that statistic is about trains, not people: one could manage to have 50% of people be delayed by 30-60 minutes every day and still have 94.2% of trains run on time just by having only the busiest trains between 8-9h and 16-18h delayed enough to miss people's local connection.

Finally, the final destination says nothing about intermediate stops (why not just look at every stop?). Things like switching drivers, refueling, or just introducing some slack in the schedule is most often done at endpoints. Heck, if I know this is the statistic being used, I would be sure to design my schedules to have even more leeway at the endpoints than I otherwise already would.

I'm curious to see how this statistic changes when it includes intermediate stops and counts delayed passengers rather than empty trains running on time. Optionally, counting the full delay (missed connection / actual frustration) instead of the technical train delay would also be interesting.

As one datapoint, my girlfriend takes a train from Cologne in rush hour that is 4-20 minutes late more than half the time, with a connecting bus that goes once an hour that is always on time or even early. She usually misses it.

also this statistic is favored towards the north of the country. because there are way more trains. he lives in the south I guess (near munich) probably which has way less trains for regional traffic

I see Germans taking best lessons from English counterparts... Reached last destination my ass...

75% punctual is good? Because I usually use the long-distance train when I need to go somewhere, not to go for a drink, and having a 1 in 4 chance of being late at a customer's or missing a plane... I dunno, that's not really a chance you want to take, so you end up planning for 1-2 hours of delay every single time, depending on how bad it is if you're late due to no fault of your own (a departing plane won't care but a customer might understand).

>75% punctual is good? Because I usually use the long-distance train when I need to go somewhere, not to go for a drink, and having a 1 in 4 chance of being late at a customer's or missing a plane...

If you're gonna miss a plane because a train is more than 5 minutes late (I'm guessing closer to 10 or so, not 30), then you didn't plan your trip to the airport that well...

Right, so you have to build in slack yourself, i.e. you can't rely on the "high punctuality" of 75%. They might as well be 1% punctual and, unless the amount of delay also increases, it wouldn't change a thing.

While I agree with you on the planning part, it still doesn't chsnge the fact thst a train can't reach all the stations on time, despite having a predefined schedule,almost no traffic and etc.

10 mins delay is often enough to miss a connecting train, forcing you to wait for the next one, which is typically 1h later than the previous one. So planning for a 1-2h delay on a multi-leg train journey is prudent, if you need to be on time.

When I used to take Amtrak in the US routinely for a 6 hour ride I believe it was 0% punctual by a definition much much weaker than that. I don't believe it was literally ever delayed less than 30 minutes.

Also in the US airports you can't always rely on security being less than 30 minutes (barring TSA precheck), so the idea of missing a flight because the train was 10 minutes late is an absurd thought here.

I lived in Europe for the past couple years and as an American it really is shocking how drastic the understanding of public transit fundamentally is in the minds of the public at large.

In Austria this number is 86,6% (long distance, max 5 min late) Austrians also travel the most by train in the EU. (a coinicidence?)

I was in Switzerland recently and they put German trains to shame. I dont think we were ever more than a minute behind schedule. As soon as we crossed into Konstanz the scheduling went to shit

> The long-distance ones only arrive within 5 minutes 75% of the time

The author is an Australian, and is therefore almost certainly most impressed by the fact that long-distance trains exist in any meaningful way at all.

Our long distance trains certainly don't have a reputation for punctuality.

Our short distance ones definitely don't either (in Melbourne, at least)

Here in the US, Amtrak considers within 30 minutes to be "on time"... and struggles a lot even with that.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-amtrak-cant-run-trains-on-t...

> The Coast Starlight, which runs between Seattle and Los Angeles, had an on-time performance of 4 percent in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30. For the California Zephyr, connecting Chicago and San Francisco, the figure was 7 percent. In the current fiscal year, the California Zephyr has not once arrived on time.

ok but the California Zephyr covers 4000 km - that's like going from Madrid to Moscow - I doubt any train or set of trains over that distance ever arrives on time.

Amtrak doesn't fare much better when you evaluate it on smaller sections of the routes. Not owning the rails tends to put them at the mercy of freight trains. I've seen some of the longer routes on https://asm.transitdocs.com/map have 1-2 day delays marked at times. I arrived eight hours late the last time I went from Rochester to NYC (~500 km).

Look at https://asm.transitdocs.com/train/2019/12/13/19 and you'll see it's been losing substantial time at almost every stop along the way.

Ride some Swiss or German trains and then try out Amtrak and the difference will be difficult to deny.

Sure, I got no love for Amtrak. Just pointing out that we should criticize it for short trips not 4000km ones.

Amtrak’s on time performance on the northeast corridor, which it owns, is miserable too.

I live in Switzerland and in my anecdotal experience with only a few samples of each (which is not statistically valid but affects my immediate perception nonetheless), Amtrak has been somewhere around as punctual as Deutsche Bahn including on Amtrak's longer routes. The long-distance Amtrak routes also have far more comfortable rolling stock, but that's only natural for a 10+ hour route.

I once took a Czech train which was perfectly on time to connect with a German train which was delayed enough that I'd miss my next German train, except that delay ended up not mattering because the second German train was also delayed, but then the second train was completely canceled so I ended up waiting in a random city to be rerouted on completely different trains.

I'm sure DB is better than Amtrak in general, but the current state of DB is much more pathetic to me given its better performance in the past (AFAIK, tried to find data on this). The infrastructure and political will seem to exist to do better, which isn't generally the case with Amtrak, so it seems less excusable to me.

For context: the longest German rail line is ICE 27 traveling 1432km in 13 hours (as far as I can tell it's as punctual or unpunctual as any ICE).

The transsibirian railway covering 9288km seems to be famously punctual. On a multi-day journey it's probably easy to add enough slack to achieve that.

>He has a very ungerman definition of usually on time :) There's probably not a bigger laughing stock in Germany than our trains (Okay, there is BER). The long-distance ones only arrive within 5 minutes 75% of the time [1]. If you have tight transfers to make, that can get very annoying.

Then don't arrange for "tight transfers"?

If "within 5 minutes" (or close, I'm guessing the rest of the time would be some "unbearable" late of 10 minutes or so?) messes your schedule you have a messed up schedule.

I don't know about German train schedules specifically, but in life in general while avoiding tight transfers is generally a good idea sometimes you just have no say in the matter.

Their official route planer uses those "tight transfers" by default and calls them "Normal transfer duration".

What happens in Germany if you lose your connection due to the train being late? In Finland the train company is responsible for ensuring you get to your destination (with taxi if needed) if the train rides were bought as a single trip.

Same here if the entire journey is booked on one ticket. I’ve taken a Taxi from Cologne to Aachen (~75km) on Deutsche Bahn’s dime.

Unfortunately Deutsche Bahn is not very up-front about these option (e.g. with vouchers) and you have to expense that taxi ride or hotel after the fact. A lot of people are scared of that as they’re not sure if they’ll get the money back.

They will only refund you for the taxi if the scheduled arrival is after midnight and the expected delay at your destination is >60 minutes OR if it’s the last connection for the day and there is no other means of public transport that will allow you to reach the destination before midnight, and only up to EUR 80,00 [1] which wouldn’t even cover Cologne—Aachen (that is one intercity stop).

For regional tickets, some states or transport systems offer additional voluntary compensations. In NRW, you would be refunded up to EUR 25,00 before 8pm and up to EUR 50,00 after 8pm if your train or bus departs more than 20 minutes behind schedule. [2]

Obviously, there are edge cases like acts of God where voluntary compensations won’t apply (and legally binding compensations won’t apply either in a few years if a pending legislative initiative is successful). Since passenger information is less-than-ideal, it might be hard to tell if you will be compensated even if you know about the basic rules.

[1] https://www.bahn.com/en/view/booking-information/passenger-r...

[2] https://www.mobil.nrw/service/mobigarantie.html – I couldn’t find an official English version on my phone

Well...The local operators,here in London,solved the stats issue this way: if a train is late, it skips many stations and still arrive to the end station on time. Guess what,all the stats are produced on first- last ststion basis...

Eh. Same thing in Belgium. Only time of arrival in the last station is taken into account to classify a journey as being late or on time.

Same idea but slightly different trick was being used when I was at university. Aberystwyth-Birmingham New Street was regularly terminated at Wolverhampton, so that it has gone far enough to count as “not cancelled” and because it didn’t get to BNS late it also “wasn’t late”.

What happens to people who want to onboard on the skipped stations?

I'm not in London but up north, and it's the same here. In my experience you have to wait until the next connecting train, or buy a new ticket and catch a suburban train from a different company that takes 3x as long. This one is sometimes late and will skip your station. I've missed work (seminar teaching, short and time-sensitive, so not just a case of arriving late and staying late) because of cancellations and trains going through my station rather so they can be on time to Leeds or wherever.

I don't know about trains, but where I live in Australia buses can be up to one hour late.

I live in Sydney and my train is literally never late, always to the minute. I'm just slightly out of peak (just after 9am).

This might depend what line you're on. If you were on the massive T1 loop before they split it, a few late trains were almost a certainty during peak hours. If you live at Bondi it's unlikely your trains will be late because the line is so short.

Don't get me wrong, I do think we complain a little too much about public transport in Sydney (when in reality, it's actually fine most of the time). But it definitely does have some pretty serious flaws (too many single points of failure is the most obvious one -- especially the Strathfield-Paramatta stretch of track which is core to the running of 7 [out of 9] different lines without any way to route around it).

Or they just don't show up at all.

Here in Adelaide (South Australia) I've found the buses have improved a lot over the last decade, usually right on time, only with the occasional delay (like 5-10 mins).

There are real time data available for our transport system which I find to be super useful so I can leave to get to a stop at the right time.

And he praises the food in the ICE trains... It shows he's Australian and earned a lot at BMW, the food on ICE trains are severely overpriced.

Could be that he used a czech ICE train operating the Prague-Berlin line over Dresden. This is mostly on time and serves good czech food. I wouldn't recommend eating on German trains as foreigner. Germans have similar food standards as British, the lowest end of the food chain. EDIT: Bavaria is different though. They actually have a different food tradition, more towards the more civilised countries Austria, Czech, Italy.

That is a EC, not an ICE, I think. Often full with drunk tourists sadly.

Well Prague - Berlin is not ICE train but EC train, but yeah the food in there is good and cheap. The best food was always on Berlin - Budapest route with Hungarian restaurant car. Great goulash in there, but this train now terminate in Prague.

We have low standards.

The Victorian “high speed rail project” cost $750M to increase our regional (long distance enough) trains to a whopping 165 km/h.

Here’s the kicker, when it gets hot, they have to slow down. And when I say hot, I mean, 36C (96F). And by slow down I mean 90km/h.

Welcome to Australia, that’s half a month per year. And it’s getting hotter. [bom](http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/cvg/av?p_stn_num=086071&p...)

They can be delayed by such long periods they’re replaced by buses. When you arrive is anyone’s guess.

You linked climate data that included 1981-2010. When you actually search all of the historic data in the drop down, you'll find that there's no significant trend in # of days >35C since 1861. 1981-2010 did show 10.8 for that figure, but the periods 1871-1900, 1881-1910, 1891-1920, and 1901-1930 all showed around the same figure, at 10.8, 11.2, 11.1, and 10.2 respectively.

It looks more like a cyclical trend in Melbourne heat.

“It’s getting hotter” was based on “all data” vs 81-2010. Which shows an increase. (>30, 30 -> 32.1 & >35, 10 -> 10.8)

Additionally based on an abc podcast, the signal, which stated that since 1987 summer temperatures have been above average.

[the signal](https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/the-signal/changing-su...)

Let’s not get into a climate change debate. It’s not going to get significantly colder to the point where these trains are going to run on time more often.

I just quoted four other 30 year periods in the late 1800s and early 1900s that were just as hot or hotter than 81-10. You are just comparing an above average period with an average over 150 years. Ok, that says nothing, if the data set is cyclical and you cherry pick a trough or a peak to make a point, you're being dishonest.

I wouldn't bet that.

You have the same problem as Russia. Only a tiny part of the country/continent is populated, the population is spread along coasts, and even that not continuously. Building advanced trains is not economical, they won't service sufficient population per km traveled.

People often say this, but I'm skeptical the raw distances are the problem at all. I think it's simply a lack of vision.

Melbourne-Sydney is not much longer than Barcelona-Madrid, Which is served by a very successful high speed train route.

Airlines will try block it at every step

Spain has govt debt of 100% of GDP too.

Flying between Melbourne and Sydney is incredibly easy and will only get easier when the western Sydney airport opens. There's nothing and nobody between the two cities worth putting stops at.

How is a government debt that was mainly caused by a residential housing bubble being popped in 2007/2008 relevant here?

Edit: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GGGDTAESA188N

Very successful? AVE routes, including the BCN-MAD one, are not financially sustainable. Spanish and European taxpayer money devoted to the comfort of businessmen and bureaucrats and the profits of contractors while metropolitan lines fall apart and receive little to no investment.

Most infrastructure like this is not "financially sustainable" in a narrow sense because most of the positive externalities aren't capturable. It's nonetheless a good idea (although we certainly need to figure out how to do these things cheaper and less corruptly).

The environmental benefits alone must be considerable as the route has replaced more than half of the air traffic iirc.

The bad trains in Russia are strategic: it’s so that European conquerors can’t use the rails when the Russians get pushed back, but the Russians are used to it so they manage to function just fine

(wwii logistics joke...)

Designing high speed rail for large thermal ranges is non-trivial as the forces can be very large.

Solutions can be very expensive (e.g. slab track), and therefore it may not be appropriate to build this out for 2 weeks of the year.

Heuristics for train delays: Does the train pass Frankfurt? Add 15-30 minutes. Otherwise expect your train within 5 minutes of its scheduled arrival/departure.

Yes unfortunately we made that experience many times.

When you buy tickets from bahn.de, increase the default connection time, theirs is way too low and results in missed connections frequently.

More rules:

- Get as few train changes as possible. (Being a few minutes late is no issue if there are no connections to miss.)

- Any changes should be in big hubs. (You might be offered a route with a change in a smaller station, but if you miss the connection the next train might be hours off. If you change in a hub there will be many others.)

- Don't take the last connection of the day for the last leg of the journey, you might miss the connection and be stranded. Even worse if it's a small station (offices will be closed if there are even any there, there will be services like hotel and taxi somewhere but have fun finding them).

I lived in Frankfurt for a year and now I live in England. I was so frustrated at DB and RMV when my trains were a bit late (3-5 mins for RMV, 15-20 for long DB) once in a while. Now I take a regular train from my town to a city and I've literally only caught it on time TWICE in two years. Usually 20-30 minutes late or suddenly cancelled. Trains here are a whole different level of bad.

Privatisation did "wonders" to British rail transport system...

As an Australian who also moved to Germany and Austria, I can say that the trains are very impressive in this part of the world - until you go to Berlin.

Berlin trains will drive you absolutely mad. I was fine with German trains - impressed, even - until I tried to get around Berlin for a few weeks by way of the local train systems. The only thing I can compare it to, is British trains, which are absolutely terrible .. Berlin is like that.

> Berlin trains will drive you absolutely mad.

Can you expand a bit, punctuality or what? In Berlin trains are sometimes a bit clunky, sometimes a bit late, but I absolutely love the Berlin public transport system.

It might've just been my luck, its not unusual, but there are a few things I've noticed about the time I lived in Germany which might be colouring things.

Every single town will have some road-work happening, somewhere. If there isn't any road-work in your purview, you probably don't know the German town very well, and just haven't seen the current street work yet.

This seems to have been the case with Berlins' rail system while I was there, during a particular summer.

Now, don't get me wrong - I love public transportation, and Europe, Germany in particular, loves it too. Its wonderful, and Berlin by common rail is a delight.

So I often got on the per-the-map "right" train, only to find there was construction work and we had to take the bus around the stations and then .. another train .. to get to destination X. Well, I'm a competent Euro- rail fanatic, should be easy.

Just: nope. Every week I got tripped up by not grok'ing where I was supposed to be to find the bus.

I confess, it might've just been me being dizzied by the delights of the city otherwise, but I did get to walk and catch quite a few Korkmännchen.

Every other German city I've visited (and there are quite a few worth the trip yet), has had absolutely decent, reliable rail. Best is Wuppertal with the Schwebebahn.. but boy, did I ever get lost in Berlin.

Was this ~2.5 years ago or so? I remember having a few instances of that in the kreuzberg area maybe but I don't remember it affecting basically the rest of the city at all. Like the other person in the thread I really loved the public transportation when I lived there, but yeah you have to build in your own buffers a little bit - I don't mind that so much.

Last year, so maybe just a continuation of the maintenance work that has been in progress in Berlin for a few years now .. yeah, generally speaking European public transportation is awesome (especially compared to Australia/California) .. I didn't mind getting lost a few times. Berlin is a nice city for that!

Yeah British trains can be terrible, depends on the area. Saying that I've never noticed they were much worse than any other country I've been too, except maybe Japan.

that reminds of an amusing time i went to buy a train ticket at dresden main railway station, back in 2003:

- i'd like a ticket for the next train to prag

- ok, 17:25 or 19:25?

- but it's 17:30 already?

- so what? the train is still on station

That reminds me of an amusing time I spent overnight at the back of the Munich train station, in the cold Autumn wind, with German homeless people (several spoke English) drinking beer.

The reason? Had to transfer from one train to another in Munich - it was around 7pm, I believe - and had assumed from cultural stereotype that German trains would be precisely on time. First one was 10~15min late, missed my connection, and the next one to my destination was the following morning.

The person at the counter suggested sleeping in the waiting room, which was full of people on the chairs and on the floor. Lesson learned..

Edit: The lesson is, as another commenter stated below, increase the time between transfers from the default in Deutsche Bahn's online reservation system.

Speaking about the punctuality of German trains, there will be a talk at 36C3 from someone who collected all the actual departure and arrival times of all long distance trains in Germany for this year: https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2019/Fahrplan/events...

The talk will be streamed. It is in German, but there will be a simultaneous translation into English and probably some other language.

I moved from Perth to Berlin. The biggest thing that hit me was the alcohol. I can buy a (good!) beer at anytime (even 3am) for about 2 euros from a spati ("late shop"- like a deli but mostly selling beer), and then walk around in the open air drinking it. All the supermarkets sell alcohol all day(and so cheap). People gather by the canals in summer, just drinking and talking. No-one seems to get drunk, there's no violence or shouting. It's such a pleasant change.

Also smoking in bars. I don't smoke, but I don't mind it.Ny gf hates it and prefers to sit outside in the cold rather than inside in the smoke.

The bureaucracy is about the same - Aussie bureaucracy is less finicky but feels more hostile.

People are people. Though Germans seem less angry than Aussies. I always wonder why Australia seems such an angry place after travelling abroad.

The graffiti and street art is also striking. Perth goes in for tagging, but not on the same scale or creativeness as Berlin. I really like it, but I understand why other people don't.

I'm really enjoying my time here. Miss the beach, though.

I'm also from Perth, lived around the world, including some years in Germany .. had the same set of observations. On this:

>I always wonder why Australia seems such an angry place after travelling abroad.

I think Australia has a lot of deep pain in its history, and in its culture, and this manifests in a hostility.

Every time I go back, I wonder why its such an angry shithole. Australians just seem to be getting madder and madder...

EDIT: Germany does have deep pain in its history. Germans are aware of that, and overt about it. Australians not so much.

I've traveled around a bit but haven't noticed Australians are more angry than anyone else. Interested in this comment.

I'm not sure if it is a thing unique to Australia, but there are seem to be a lot of Australian's that have a chip on their shoulder and will tell anyone that will listen to them about how badly Australian's do things/behave. I suspect they have not traveled very much, or just feel better doing something similar to self-flagellation. Like anywhere Australia has it's issues, but in general things are pretty good compared to most countries in the world.

Great Barrier Reef. Concentration camps. Awful pollution stats. Heinous censorship laws. Rotten politics. Racism.

There are many things to change about Australia. Sunny dispositions are one thing; true grit to make the effort to change things, something else ..

This is the first I’m hearing about concentration camps in Australia. Could you elaborate? When I think concentration camps I’m thinking about what’s going on in China - what is going on in Australia?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_immigration_detenti...

Those aren't concentration camps. You might be able to argue on a technical definition that they are, but that's not how the term is used in everyday language.

I'm kind of getting annoyed by everyone throwing around the term concentration camp. It's like when we were calling everyone a Nazi.

Concentration camps are what's going on in China. People in their own country are being rounded up, murdered, raped, harvested, forced to work, and other horrific things because of their religious beliefs, nationality, or political beliefs.

When someone gets on a boat and tries to immigrate to Australia or any other country without the proper paperwork and then they are held in a center until the government figures out what to do with them (i.e. not harvesting their fucking organs) that is absolutely not a concentration camp.

When you try and create this false equivalency between a real concentration camp and a detention center, you devalue what a concentration camp is, and the terrible experiences of the victims of the holocaust. When people think concentration camp, they are horrified. When you call these detention centers concentration camps, they start forgetting what a concentration camp actually is, and start associating it with these detention centers. It actually enables white supremacists; what great gift you're giving them when they can gaslight us into thinking that Jews were just held at these detention centers and not these horrific concentration camps.

That's not ok. These aren't concentration camps. It's not even close to the same thing, and be propagating this idea that they are, you devalue past experiences, lessen the horrors that people are currently experiencing, and generally make the world a worse place to live.

Well, you have a right to disagree, but there is absolutely no reason for these camps to be called anything other than concentration camps, since their purpose is to concentrate refugees off-shore in order to deny legal access to them, and to ensure international laws on the subject of refugees do not apply.

You may not like it, but given Australia's history for inspiring tyranny, these concentration camps are a heinous thing for the Australian people to be supporting - in any way.

I live within spitting distance of your 'real' concentration camps - Mauthausen - and I have worked with refugees from the Wests' illegal wars for over a decade now.

I'm very much afraid that calling the Australian camps 'dention centres' is a propaganda effort by the Australian government to ensure its own people have no responsibility for what happens in them. If these camps were on the mainland, Australian civic society would have oversight - and this is a can of worms for which Australians, particularly its war-monger classes, are ill-prepared.

It's ok to be critical of how Australia is handling people trying to cross into their country without going through the proper process. I don't think it's ok, at all, to call these detention centers "concentration camps" given what's currently going on in the world and what has happened in the past. It's simply not ok. That you live next to Mauthausen and you still think it's ok is baffling to me.

I've gone to places like the Holocaust Museum in the United States and witnessed the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis, people being executed, starved to death, gassed, forced into slavery (many of which currently going on with China's new Holocaust of Muslims) and I simply don't see those same activities being systematically conducted by the Australian (or any western) government. It's just not even remotely the same and I don't know how you can justify coming to that conclusion.

Even if you thought that these governments were doing much worse than what may be in view of the public, I'm bewildered as to why you would think that intentionally equating concentration camps (Nazis and Chinese) with detention centers is in any way helpful. Do you think when the Nazis rounded up Jews they gave them medical care and food and water?

Maybe you should revisit Mauthausen and get a more proper perspective. To me it seems that your work has clouded your judgement.

Read this then:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/worl...

Sorry about the amp link. NYT paywall bypass.

Thanks for the link. A tragic situation, of course.

But I'm confused as to how this situation is remotely comparable to a concentration camp? Do the Chinese let Uighur Muslims apply for asylum in other countries? Are kids at these camps being forced into slave labor? Are they being murdered?

These are refugees who, frankly, are getting a shit deal in life. That has nothing to do with actual concentration camps. The Australians are not rounding up people and gassing them, harvesting their organs, or forcing them to be re-educated.

These aren't comparable situations!

Indeed, the Australian experiment showed most of these folk weren’t even refugees fleeing for their lives.

They were normal folk from poor countries who wanted the Western lifestyle and knew their best chance was to fake it in Australia and exhaust the courts.

Proof: when the boat route to Australia closed, very, very few are asking for asylum in Indonesia.

It just hurts some snowflakes SRC sensibilities to admit this.

PS. I really think Western democracies should hold a binding referendum on whether billions of poor people have a right to migrate to their countries, or not. You are tearing yourselves apart over it.

Australia's Mauthausen: Rottnest Island. A place of vomiting teenagers and little else.

Austrias Mauthausen: a real memorial to the victims, out in the open. (Occasional vomiting teenager notwithstanding.)

Australians hide their crimes against humanity in places nobody reasonable will ever visit, because they don't want to know about Australias crimes against humanity.

The Austrian people maintain Mauthausen, because they never want to forget the atrocities.

The history of The Australian State is rife with injustices and crimes against humanity. The Australian Genocide is a real thing.

Ah yes, the Australian Genocide. Classic. Very comparable to other genocides, like the Uighur Muslim genocide, the genocide of the Jews, or the Armenian genocide.

It's very clear to me you just want to grandstand. And in doing so you're creating even more problems. If you want to criticize Australian treatment of refugees, go for it. Don't call these detention centers concentration camps though, because that's not what they are. There is simply no comparison and I am still bewildered that you would think so.

A couple of million people lost their lives, and a civilisation that had been around for tens of thousands of years was wiped out in a hundred.

Australia got away with its genocide while the worlds attention was elsewhere. Don't even try to defend this.

If you want to talk about Australia's treatment of Aboriginals, then that's fine. But that's not what we started discussing. So don't try and say that I'm defending something we haven't even discussed. If there is something I've missed, please tell me, but my understanding is we're talking about the original articles and Australian detention centers for intercepted unauthorized migrants.

To re-center the discussion I think it's bad in just about every conceivable way to refer to the facilities we first discussed as concentration camps. While they could potentially fit a technical definition of "concentration camp", they are a far, far cry from what we mean when we say concentration camps.

In colloquial use, concentration camp refers to what the Nazis did to Jews and others in the 1940s, and now also refers to the current genocide that is occurring against Muslims in China (which I also find disturbing that Muslim majority countries are largely silent on the issue). It does not refer to a country intercepting potential unauthorized migrants and then giving them food, water, shelter, safety, and giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum in the intercepting country or in others. To equate these two, totally different things (for lack of a better word) is irresponsible and unhelpful. If these were concentration camps, the Australians would just sink the boats and kill them before rounding them up, wouldn't provide food and medicine, or allow people to apply for asylum - they would just force them into forced labor, or murder them (like the Chinese and Nazis).

This self-hatred that people in Western countries have is bewildering, and I don't understand why people lie to themselves. Maybe people have a pathological need to be outraged? Maybe we're bored?

-edit-

I'd also like to add, while the treatment of Aboriginals is certainly regretful (to understate the hell out of it) - let's not try and put the Australians in a unique category. There is not a single country or people that doesn't have blood on its hands. Ideally in the West, we now know better, but that doesn't make us perfect, and that doesn't mean we don't also criticize and condemn other countries or peoples for their mistreatment of others. Throughout most of history, most of the time there was no afterthought once you wiped out a people.

-edit2-

Since I can't reply to your last comment - why did you change the subject?

Just because someone did something, worse than you have done it, doesn't mean you get away with doing it also.

If your family was First Nation, probably you'd not have as hard a time seeing the similarity that some make in comparing Australia's genocide with those that occurred elsewhere in the world. In fact, systematic eradication of what was considered a 'lesser people' did happen in Australia's past - it was an official government policy for far too long, and in many places in Australia, is still happening. Children are still being taken from their families, never to return.

Its not just the offshore concentration camps.

Your idea that crimes against humanity are only done by those who manifest their violence in an overt manner, is precisely the issue with Australia today. It is getting away with its crimes against humanity, precisely because peoples expectations, as you demonstrate, require a much more violent, overt act before they will respond.

Australia is getting away with it. It has systematised oppression at scale, behind the scenes, with industrial efficiency.

In the meantime, the ADF's support of Saudi Arabia's forces in the campaign in Yemen, against innocent people, remains unreported and out of our focus.

They're not in Australia but offshore in Nauru and other islands.

https://g.co/kgs/Ju5EzM

I’m from Australia, lived a decent portion of my life overseas in various countries, and traveled extensively (never lived anywhere more than a year in my life).

I’ve always noticed Australians in general are very easy to get mad, take things the wrong way, etc. I’m constantly surprised by how many of my friends have so much loud hatred for things that seem so.. trivial? I’m constantly made fun of for being a “hippy” and “not caring about anything” because I prefer to always try stay positive and as stress-free as possible.

Of course this is a vast generalisation, but it’s purely my experience and something I’ve distinctly noticed too, and I agree it seems to be getting worse.

I don’t think the nations history has anything to do with it though. I don’t know where it started but I think it’s just a cultural thing that spreads like most cultural things.

People raised in Australia are just used to things being easy and when they're not they get grumpy. Which is happening more as the population grows and the big cities become proper cities and not giant suburbs. It's even happening to me as a migrant after becoming too comfortable. Also read comments pages on press sites and blogs etc. They have no sense of perspective for their complaints as they've spent no time living anywhere else.

Another issue is cultural cringe.

> Every time I go back, I wonder why its such an angry shithole. Australians just seem to be getting madder and madder...

Anectdata, but the last German I talked to said "When i first arrived in Australia I was really confused by strangers smiling at me in the street and supermarket. My family doesn't understand it, but I want them to visit so that they could experience a different, more relaxed way of life."

Also anecdata, Germans don't smile at you on the street often but imo they're generally not very angsty. Australians smile often but have higher road rage and that kind of thing. British people neither smile at your nor do they have patience on the road etc. Worst lot.

> No-one seems to get drunk, there's no violence or shouting

That’s ... not my experience. I felt really safe in Berlin, even outside during the night in the middle of the city, but people definitely get drunk in bars and in public, really a lot by my standards. And with that you have the unavoidable shouting, random acts of violence, property damage. I enjoy Berlin but the place really has an alcohol issue IMHO.

I've never seen a random act of violence, or even shouting yet (except for the obviously mentally disturbed characters in the U-Bahn station).

In Perth, it's not at all uncommon for Northbridge on a Friday night to see half a dozen people passed out, another dozen vomiting, a few fistfights, and a thousand drunken shouting matches.

Honestly, it's a different level.

I think a lot of responses in this thread are taking the author’s words literally. In my experience, it’s not about being more or less angry. Germans are more restrained with regards to showing strangers their true feelings, while Australians are more comfortable sharing their emotions. It goes both ways: if an Australian is feeling happy, he/she will smile at you but if he/she is feeling frustrated, it’ll also show.

Hello, author here. Thanks a lot for reading my post!

A few things to clarify:

- indeed I am now in London, but have very fond memories of life in Germany and still enjoy practicing my German

- I took a US keyboard layout to work, which made things fine except for when I was on the laptop only (some keys are different shapes as well)

- I found it amusing the comments about the German trains. I will confirm that the standard was pretty low in Australia :P (hopefully that's going to get better)

- the impracticality of 4 seats and 2 doors in the car was meant to imply that it means it's more difficult to put people in the rear seats in this configuration

- thanks for the corrections on train speeds and naming of the ground floor, I'll fix that

Let me know if there's any other corrections I should make, anything I missed or should expand on.

> [My car is] impractical with only two doors and four seats

I like four doors, but only two isn't too bad (drove one of those for five years). Seats though, is it normal to own a bus in Australia? The people I would expect to own a car with more than two rows of seats are families with 4+ kids, which is nobody here.

I've recently been thinking about a 2-seater to save on gas/CO2 since I have no kids anyway and you can always rent or borrow a car for that one time a year that you need it (since friends and family have 4-seaters, when we want to go somewhere, we can go with their car and pay for drinks or whatever). Of course, I'm in an exceptional situation with only a girlfriend and no plans for kids. I just can't help but wonder if this "4 seats is impractical" statement comes from being scared of "but what if I need it one day and then I don't have the option?" when logically, it is really much cheaper to rent a van once every four years than permanently own a huge car.

> The trains are so awesome in Germany

hah, try the Netherlands. Living in Germany for more than a year now, I think the trains here are quite crappy. Not unusable or filthy, but also not like the Netherlands. And the ICEs go 300km/h, not 250, and are very unreliable punctuality-wise.

Related: "You also won’t find automated checkouts [in Germany]." again, try the Netherlands :)

> it’s normal for all shops to be closed except for servos (there’s a confusing word for Germans)

Eh, I'll say. Servo(s) only exists in merriam-webster as well as the community-based dict.cc as I know it: a motor. Is this from a Brisbane dialect or something?

For cars that exist in both three and five door versions the three door version is usually worse for tight spaces, because the doors are bigger and the front seats more forward relative to the back of the door. Three doors / four seats seem to be less common these days, though.

> is it normal to own a bus in Australia?

No. The market for three row vehicles exists but is small, served mostly by a few mid-sized* SUVs with a third row only suitable for small children. Most people I know with families of 5 make do with two row vehicles.

The modal private car in Australia is a five door hatchback (Mazda 3, Toyota Corolla) closely followed by the compact* crossover (Mazda CX-5, Toyota RAV4, Subaru Forester). Work vehicles are dominated by "utes", which are small or medium* pickup trucks (Toyota HiLux, Ford Ranger).

Three door/two row cars used to be common as the base ("poverty") specification of some small economy hatchbacks—but it appears this trend has completely died away. Toyota's cheapest new vehicle is a five door, for example. Three door/two row hatchbacks are horrid things: worse for the customer in every respect and any cost savings probably offset by increased chassis development costs and SKU counts.

* Per the North American lexicon. Australia and the rest of the world sizes cars a bit differently.

all the cars you listed have 5 seats. M235i has four. Also every car you listed has way more cargo room. So saying the m235i is less practical than the norm is, I think, accurate.

I was actually almost happy when the other day, my train in the Netherlands got cancelled and I had to wait a full hour for another connection. Good to know you're human as well.

Self checkouts are definitely a thing here, although typically not in small grocery stores. Larger stores like Edeka, Real, Ikea, Hornbach have them where I live. I'm aware that even the small stores like AH in city centers have them in NL though, which is nice.

Which city do you live in, if I may ask? I don't think I've seen a self checkout anywhere* though I haven't been to most supermarkets in any given city (of course) so I might totally have missed them by chance.

* I've been to supermarkets in Aachen, Bonn, Cologne, Darmstadt, Hamburg, Leipzig, and Stuttgart (and many smaller cities/towns/villages of course, but I guess there it would be less likely).

> Good to know you're human as well.

:-) You should ask a random Dutch(wo)man for their opinion of the trains' punctuality though. We totally envy Japan.

The statistics are alright though and it has improved quite a bit in the last decade (much like how O2 is seen as having a terribly mobile net by literally every German person, but after the fusion with E+ a few years ago it is statistically fine, and indeed, I often have full bandwidth when my colleagues on Telekom are complaining). Public perception is a fine art!

I live in the Ruhr area. They're definitely still relatively rare (I haven't seen them in the most common stores like Aldi, Rewe), so it's not too surprising you've missed them. I guess that will change within the next couple of years.

I have a pretty good experiencce with O2 also, but I'm aware that it can be completely unusable in rural areas. Luckily, I don't really leave the city boundaries much.

EDIT: I just remembered, I used to live in Karlsruhe, and the Real there also had a self-checkout. I haven't lived there since 2016, for what it's worth. Yeah, not sure why it's confined to larger stores. Perhaps not popular enough to warrant sacrificing cash register real estate in smaller stores for it. Germans don't like new things after all.

Ruhr area is not very far from here. I will be on the lookout for self-registers next time I'm in Essen!

As for mobile networks, I think all of them are frequently unusable in rural areas. Between Aachen and Cologne (I most frequently travel there), which is not a quiet route, I think at least half the time there is 2G or nothing at all. I should measure that some time. My work phone (Telekom) doesn't have better reception than mine (Dutch network using O2). Without measuring, I would actually estimate that O2 is the better deal around here.

actually every ikea in germany has self-checkouts.

Servo: a petrol station, service station

"In Australian English, diminutives are usually formed by taking the first part of a word, and adding an a, o, ie, or y. Alternatively in some cases no ending may be added. While the form of a diminutive is arbitrary, their use follows strict rules. Diminutives are not used creatively.

For example, an ambulance paramedic is called an ambo, and is never pronounced ambie or amba. The use of the -ie ending, for example in bikie (a motorcycle club member), does not carry a connotation of smallness or cuteness as it does in other English dialects."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutives_in_Australian_Engl...

> Is this from a Brisbane dialect or something?

It's just a general Australian thing of abbreviating anything with too many syllables by chopping as much as possible off the end and adding an "o"

Smoke break => smoko, Bottle shop => Bottle-o, garbage man => garbo

It's even more popular to do it with a "y" (football =>footy, present => prezzie, tantrum => tanty)

In this case it gets confusing because we call a gas/petrol station a "service station" which of course inevitably became the servo, I guess because servy sounded a bit too weird, even for us.

The online version of the most popular Australian dictionary, the Macquarie, is behind a login but my hardcopy version doesn't list servo anyway (although it does list other Oz colloquialisms like bludger). You can find references to it in the Collins[1] and also slang sites like KoalaNet[2]

[1] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/servo [2] http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html

Maybe reconsider the no kids thing. Then you'll have the best reasons in the world for a larger car!

Mess up the planet two ways (introducing more humans + a car), great idea :-)

Of course, environmental reasons aren't my only reasons to not have kids but it is a nice way to stop doubting about it since I'm sure it's the right choice for the planet and everyone on it, even when I'm only leaning towards no personally.

> Seats though, is it normal to own a bus in Australia?

Two of our last cars have been 7 seaters. Neither have been "buses", just a fold up seat in the boot section. Quite comfortable, even for an adult.

> The people I would expect to own a car with more than two rows of seats are families with 4+ kids, which is nobody here.

We're a family of 5, and whilst we can fit it a standard five-seater, as soon as we have a +1 which is fairly common with friends of our kids you either need two cars, or a 7 seater.

If you want to move to Germany don't underestimate how hard it is to have a social life around here, especially if moving alone. It is the one thing that seems a constant, whenever I talk with other foreigners. Even Germans seem to find it hard to have friends when they relocate away from their previous social lives.

Same goes for the Netherlands, it's the number one complaint I hear from expats in Amsterdam.

As someone who moved to Switzerland from America, Germans and Germany seems easier to integrate with than integrating in Switzerland.

To be fair, I'm learning High German and not my local Schwiizertüütsch.

German-speaking Swiss is like Germany on hard mode

I think the issue is that here in Germany there is a lot of unspoken peer pressure in regards to where you should be in life at your age. That pressure makes it hard to keep things in a flow and basically people (German and expats) tend to put a structure around everything. Social interactions? Needs to happen at the appropriate time and scheduled at least 2 weeks in advance. Fancy restaurant dinner with girlfriend? Needs to be scheduled weeks before. Work life balance? You must have work life balance and you must go out on sunny days, which is great until it feels again like pressure to be something you don't want to be. Hiking? You will find another zillion people on that mountain because again you are supposed to go out on sunny days.

It can feel very "robotic" and I think people just end up detaching themselves from what they truly want or truly need from their social interactions.

As an Aussie who's lived around the world with stints in California and Germany, I really miss my American friends' ability to just show up when they figured I'd be around, unannounced, and hang out for an afternoon - or not, no worries, nobody home - compared to my German friends who literally needed a weeks notice to come over and have a couple of beers, even in this mobile-phone era. Or, my Australian pals who would come over, let themselves in, do the dishes, have a beer, and wait until I got home.

Then again, there are the Austrians. Never, ever be even a minute late to an event involving Austrian friends.

Strange how things are more and more rigid, the further from the frontier one gets ..

> You must have work life balance and you must go out on sunny days, which is great until it feels again like pressure to be something you don't want to be. Hiking? You will find another zillion people on that mountain because again you are supposed to go out on sunny days.

Eh, that's mostly because wandern/hiking is basically a national past time. There is no pressure though. You'll find lots of people doing other things outside too. The only pressure is to be respectful of "Ruhetag" (often Sundays) and avoid work, especially loud work outside. In the US, this isn't respected and can be quite jarring.

> It’s also more difficult for me as a I have a US layout keyboard at home and a German layout at work.

I'd hate tp be forced to use a specific layout governed by my employer and I'm glad it's not been a problem so far to get a replacement keyboard with US layout.

It's pretty common nowadays for developers to simply prefer the US layout if their country's is not great, like the German one that makes typing braces etc. a pain in the ass.

At any rate, learn to to touch type blind, and then switch to your preferred keyboard layout in software (and ignore what’s printed on the keys). My mom can do it; I’d expect any programmer to be able to do it.

> and then switch to your preferred keyboard layout in software

If only. They have a different shape shift and enter key. It's not impossible to type on different keyboards at home and at work without mixing it up too much, but it is annoying, and not just a software configuration. (Source: am Dutch, live in Germany, have different keyboards at home and at work because I don't want to throw one away when it still works fine even if it's a little annoying.)

being able to program does not necessarily mean you can touch type blind

You can connect the two and infer interesting facts, but programming ability has nothing to do with blind touch typing. You can have zero skill in one and be great in the other. Yes I've met programmers who can't touch type. Their "hunt and peck" is faster than a lot of other people's touch typing.

Programmers tend to have better typing skills in general than other people. But speed wise, real[1] touch typists leave general programmers[2] in the dust. This should not be a surprise.

[1] Touch typists who are specialized for typing speed as first priority. This doesn't generally include programmers because they are specialized for programming and typing is really just a secondary skill in being able to use "a tool of trade".

[2] Someone will now suggest that they happen to have practiced for a week and can beat everyone they know. Well done. Now you're still not a specialized touch typist... A real touch typist just needs to practice more and will still likely beat you. Or it could be argued they type faster due to characters/week.

Is it not possible to BYO keyboard? This must be a productivity drag on a lot of people in similar situations

Geez, does he not know about software keyboard layouts? The hardware keyboard in front of me has German labels on most of the symbol keys, but I mostly set Windows to use the US keyboard layout and use my memory. Curly braces are a pain in the ass (and fingers) in the German layout, because one would have to press AltGr (the right Alt button) and 7 or 0 to get { or }. You end up holding right Alt with your thumb and needing to stretch to reach for 7. [ and ] is AltGr+8 and 9, and they're also both ergonomic disasters, because you have to tuck your thumb underneath your palm.

Lastly, as he wrote, y and z are switched around on the German layout. An interesting quirk is that amayon.com and amayon.de redirect to Amazon, someone thought about all the suffering QWERTY expats.

Keyboards, if you don't have special requirements, are cheap and easy to get. I prefer using US layout keyboards everywhere, so I don't have to remember to ignore labels (such as the braces which are shifted by one place). Then using the layout US-international no dead keys.

> It's pretty common nowadays for developers to simply prefer the US layout if their country's is not great

For a long time, I've been using a modifcation of the US layout with an additional modifier giving me äöüÄÜÖß in the places where they would be on a German keyboard.

Works very well, as I need []{}\| much more frequently than the umlauts.

And as it's a OS layout change, it works no matter if the physical keyboard has German or US layout.

I use an adapted US-Intl layout that removes the deadkeys and Ctrl+Alt+o becomes ö (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+O Ö) and the same for the other Umlauts. Took some getting used to not doing "o for ö anymore, but it’s great for programming.

A good company will honour your request for a specific keyboard layout. I've spent the majority of my working life in Europe and have always requested (and fortunately received) a US-layout keyboard at work.

Given the price of a basic keyboard, it's not really a problem. Worst case you get your own.

On the other hand, I can only work with the German layout after living in Germany too long

I bought a refurbished, mechanical keyboard that was supposed to have the German layout, but it actually has the US layout, so I cannot use it. I have been planing to sell it. Anyone interested?

As a hungarian, I use a US keyboard with hungarian layout for months. It's not a problem, just don't look at the keyboard.

But the shift and enter keys have the wrong size

If I do not look at the keyboard, I get shift when I want <

Hello, author here.

I actually brought a US keyboard which made life much easier. It was only ever a pain to type on the laptop's keyboard, which luckily was quite rare.

I know a few german programmers that switch to uk/us layout specifically for access to braces + brackets.

I actually use a german keyboard with UK layout myself, flipping between keyboard locales has become almost second nature and the physical letters upon the keys is more of a suggestion now

If that's an issue you can even get your own programmable keyboard, so you configure the layout you want on it and don't have to change the computer's layout.

Interesting! And I think it's a good alternative to the typical 'work in the valley for a few years' that many Oz devs do. He seems to be working for Facebook in London now.

Worth noting that the chap is now in London.

I would have thought as an Austrian you would find it quite easy

I hate that I laughed.

Honestly it's getting to the point in North America that I'm seriously considering uprooting the family and transferring to my company's Munich office. My father is from Germany and I have cousins and aunts there. If I could dig up the proper birth certificates and paperwork I could probably get a passport. Quality of life seems like it would just be better.

Unfortunately we have chickens, and a border collie ... so...

I don't know what to do with the chickens. But the dog is easy to bring.

My dog has 6 acres to run right now... I can't imagine keeping this tasmanian devil in an apartment...

Check with the Munich colleagues, but some of them will live in houses. They're unlikely to have 2½ hectares though.

As well as all apartment-vs-house compromises you'd have anywhere in the US (cost, noise, travel time to work etc), moving to a new country and living at the edge of a town or in a small village can feel more isolated, if you don't speak the language.

Funny, if it wasn't for my family and my friends, I'd consider moving to the US.

What is “getting to the point in North America”??

I would be interested in the other direction.

Would anyone from the EU who moved to Australia care to tell us about their experiences?

Trains are meh. The average train speed is 50km/h, so living out in the suburbs is a long slow commute. What should be a 20-30 min journey can be 1hr plus. Forget interstate travel as each state has different line standards.

"She'll be right mate" the stereotypical image of Aussies, not so true at least these days. Highly litigious, lots of red tape, and following strict rules, love their fines, if they can fine it they'll be a fine for it! You often find police officers in Sydney CBD fining pedestrians for crossing the road or police sniffer dogs around the train stations randomly plucking commuters for strip searches. Australia often gets a bad write up from the UN on social justice, take the encryption laws rushed in as an example.

The car is king. In the EU if you cross the road in a safe manner, cars will back off the accelerator. In Australia, it's a case you shouldn't be on the road, so they speed up intentionally to hit you. Similarly, if you want to cycle, you better be brave. Driving standards seem far worse. On the topic of cars they have high import duties so your average European car becomes very expensive. Instead, there's tons of Toyota Hillux's and Corollas, Landcruiser, etc and the odd Holden but they've stopped being produced in the AU so don't seem as popular as they once were.

It's impossible or near impossible to eat out after 8 pm.

Shops close at 6 pm so no after work shopping.

Sydney has zero nightlife for an international city, it's like a ghost town now after dark. They introduced "lock out laws" essentially killing the nightlife as bars close early, prevent you from getting into bars after a specific time, and limiting drinks that can be purchased over a specific time. They have recently backed down from this and reducing the restrictions in the new year. The damage has been done, bars have shut and turned in to apartments.

A high cost of living. You have two grocery stores, Coles and Woolworths, so far less variety. There is a third chain called IGA that tries to carry a little higher quality produce, you see them more in smaller towns.

Being so far from anywhere, it's a long journey to travel outside of Australia. Perth to Sydney is a 5hr flight, a 5hr flight you've crossed Europe.

Australia is on fire, the prime minister denies climate change and walks into parliament with cole saying don't be afraid it's only cole, kind of sets the standard.

Tech jobs, you get your usual low barrier agency knocking out website jobs writing javascript. Then the other popular work is big data doing questionable stuff with user data or cryptocurrencies. When you search on Linkedin, for example, for EU jobs or US jobs compared to Australia, Australia's availability of meaningful, interesting, well-paying tech jobs is lacking/behind other parts of the world. Some do exist but few and far between. The computer science degrees here must be good though worked with some very smart Aussie's. The US companies tend to cherry-pick the graduates due to the special AU-US visa agreements.

The housing they've yet to discover double glazing/insulation. A lot of the properties look like they haven't been renovated since the 70's. Slight ignorance that insulation works to keep the heat inside during the winter and heat out during the summer when the aircon is on. Also the mean Sydney house price is $1million +, although that $1 million won't buy you what you'd expect for a $1 million house. Instead, you'd get some shitbox that needs renovating or what is popular knocking down and turning in to apartments.

On the plus side, if you like an active outdoor lifestyle, it's fantastic. If you like the beach it has them, bushwalking, lots of that, outdoor sports lots of that.

Great coffee that's down to the high multiculturalism, although there's is a lot of quiet racism the more regional you go.

Also in the cities etc food is really good. I eat out a lot more in the AU for brunch and dinner. Lots of variety from AU / EU style food to Asian etc.

Work-life balance is generally ok. It's certainly a comfortable lifestyle. There's also less crime. I've never walked down a street or through a suburb that's felt unsafe.

Life is good in the AU if you get a tech salary, it's a bit of a bubble, though compared to the rest of the world due to the isolation. I don't love it, I don't hate it, it's comfortable, for now. My partner is Australian, so I'll be sticking around as she wants to be here when we start a family. We did plan to go overseas to Europe for a little while to live and work, but due to the mess of the UK and brexit that might not be as easy as we thought. I'm currently waiting on my permanent visa to come through so we can make our next plans until then it's hard for us to plan ahead.

Australia, the lucky country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_Country

Maybe this is how lame Sydney has become, but from a Melbourne perspective there are a few points here that don't really ring true - in fact it kind of sounds like you're describing the Australia that my parents grew up in...

> Forget interstate travel as each state has different line standards

While there are remnants of narrow and broad gauge tracks around, all the mainland capital cities have been connected by standard gauge tracks since 1995.

> It's impossible or near impossible to eat out after 8 pm.

This is true way out in the suburbs, or in regional areas but the closer you get to downtown the more places there are serving until 10pm (particularly Asian food) and a plethora of 24 hour places.

> Shops close at 6 pm so no after work shopping.

The two major supermarkets open until midnight. Shopping centres (malls) open until 9pm Thu-Sun. K-Mart is generally open until 10 or midnight, sometimes 24 hours. The rest I don't know - I don't really shop recreationally.

> You have two grocery stores, Coles and Woolworths

... and Aldi, plus the IGA's as you say.

> it's a long journey to travel outside of Australia

Not if you're going to New Zealand from Melbourne, or Asia from Darwin :)

> The prime minister denies climate change and walks into parliament with cole saying don't be afraid it's only cole

Agreed, that was a shameful moment - the only mitigating factor is that he wasn't Prime Minister at the time.

> They've yet to discover double glazing/insulation

Um, no. We have the internet and we can read, too. Possibly you missed the scandal a few years ago when the govt was subsidising insulation. Another shameful moment.

> I've never walked down a street or through a suburb that's felt unsafe

Generally agreed, but if you want the counterpoint I'll take you on a walking tour sometime. Just don't bring your good sunglasses ;)

This rings true to me. Some other thoughts:

Online-banking is great. Commonwealth Bank for example has a great app and website experience. It is very much living in the future compared to Germany for example.

Dealing with the city council is mostly great with lots of transactions being possible online. Drivers license, parking permits and things like this. Also, paying the numerous fines is very straightforward.

Winters feel freezing cold inside due to lack of insulation. At the same time winter feels super pleasant outside with mid twenty degrees centigrade and lots of sun.

You'll bring a woollen jumper to work in scorching summer due to blasting aircon.

Lots of interactions are on a first name basis where it would be strictly Mr/Ms LastName in Germany.

There are lots of mosquitoes but they are huge and mostly silent. Compared to the ones in Germany that are practically invisible and noisy and keep you up at night. Australians ones will bite you plenty at night without waking you up.

>In the EU if you cross the road in a safe manner, cars will back off the accelerator. In Australia, it's a case you shouldn't be on the road, so they speed up intentionally to hit you.

Which is a questionable behaviour because the car driver is usually found to be at fault in most cases whenever a pedestrian is struck. The law favours the pedestrians over the car.

> Which is a questionable behaviour...

It's a questionable statement. I haven't ever had this happen to me in Australia.

No. As well as insulation we have vehicular manslaughter.

Edit: removed. (My post was too negative and was just me venting.)

It's a shame. If a country can't show you its culinary best at a university cafeteria, where else can you go?

There it is: Don't eat at cheap places.

I really wouldn't bash a country's food based on bottom tier experience. I have to agree though that it's easy to end up in a bad place and in Germany there's no limit to how disgusting it can get. Germans do seem to have a higher tolerance for this. Of course nothing beats the university cafeteria but I don't know anyone who likes that food, it's just that the typical student cannot afford to avoid it.

On the other hand there are not that many countries I can think of with high standard of living and minimum wage where food is consistently great even when comparatively cheap.

You can eat very cheaply in Germany, but if you do that, you probably can't complain about the quality.

Food prices are very low in Germany. They are extremely low, if you cook yourself and even restaurants are not that expensive in international comparison.

But indeed, if you go to extremely cheap places, you can have really bad food too - but that is independant of the food style. They make bad Italian food too :).

The low-cost food in Japan is still quite tasty and of good quality.

Edit: I’d probably add Poland to the same camp. Basic food is still quite good.

Copenhagen University canteen at its best: https://imgur.com/a/bg5XzLd

They only achieve this level of taste every couple of weeks or so (and this presentation a couple of times a year) but that's a huge improvement on the British universities I am familiar with.

I've visited one university in France, and it was a normal presentation but excellent quality, and a fairly normal day according to the locals.

> I get slightly sick every single time I eat at my university's cafeteria.

A different idea regarding this: are you maybe eating a different cuisine normally? A change in cuisine can lead to digestive problems because your gut bacteria will be adapted to one but not the other and that needs time to change.

Another possibly related factor in univerity cafeterias: The kitchen personell are public employees, underpaid but unfireable. As our cafeterias head chef told me, this causes them to not caring one tiny shred about anything. The chef can't discipline or fire them, first because of the protections as public employees and second because he can't find replacements. Therefore, even simple stuff like properly cooking noodles, checking if the chicken is done or basic hygiene is a challenge...

With the obvious consequences. My suggestion for cafeteria food is: Avoid anything that could be harmful if prepared improperly, because it will be.

Don't you have food hygiene requirements?

In Denmark the university cafeterias are outsourced to private companies, and subject to the same quality standards as any restaurant or other place that prepares food.

We do. But the bureacracy responsible for enforcement is toothless, understaffed, intransparent and sometimes maybe even corrupt: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayern-Ei-Skandal

https://m.faz.net/aktuell/rhein-main/wursthersteller-wilke-h...

I dunno, everyday German food in the South is not that bad. Not bad "because German food" for sure. German food is not that boring or dull. It really depends on the restaurant/cook, though, and yeah, the quality of those is pretty much hit and miss. Still, with some research you can find good ones.

Cafeteria food, esp. at universities, forget it. I could never stomach it and rather cooked for myself (lunchbox or just go hungry and eat at night) when I couldn't afford to eat at proper places.

Yes, cafeteria food can be increadibly bad to the point where I wonder whether the cooks are especially trained to achieve this. With the same costs as in ingredients, one should be able to make much better food. Also, they often overuse cheap oil, so that can be difficult to stomach.

If you get well cooked German food, a lot is outright excellent, with the style strongly varying across Germany. Northern and southern German cuisine is very different. I personally prefer the southern style. Also, there is quite a bit variation between south-east (Bavarian) and south-west German cooking. In a sense there is a food continuum between France and Austria, with different parts of southern Germany on different points of that continuum.

Likewise, if you go to eastern France, like the Alsace, the French food blends with German cuisine.

I also LOL-ed when I read "german food" being an attraction. Like bratwurst and spatzle?

> Everyday German food is absolutely horrendous. […] It is the worst of the seven countries I've lived in, by far.

Lucky you, sounds like you haven’t lived in countries with bad food.

First, everyday food in Germany is also Italian, Turkish, Croatian, Lebanese, etc. - delicious cuisines. Second, there is plenty of good traditional German food (Käsespätzle, Leberkäse, Currywurst, Rouladen, Bratkartoffeln, Erbsensuppe, Schnitzel, not to mention the huge variety of bread, cold cuts, and cheese). It’s not haute cuisine, but tasty. Third, even the run-of-the-mill everyday German (Schnitzel, Pommes, Salat) is not as bad as you make it out to be. Lastly, any larger city will have somewhat decent instantiations of other cuisines available, too.

What (kind(s) of) countries would you say have bad food?

My point was more that if German food was the worst among the seven, then they must have all been reasonably decent, at least.

The problem is often cultural food (ie non German) quickly changes to the German palate. There was an incredible Indian restaurant opening here recently. We visited a few months later and it was half as good. Asked the owner: “yeah well, Germans like it not hot, salty, and fatty”. Same with Italian: it’s quantity over quality.

And the supermarkets are woeful. It’s hard even to get an “exotic” herb like cilantro often.

After living years in Germany I’d say, the Germans don’t love food for foods sake, unlike say the French, where it’s a passion.

My girlfriend's family lives in Baden-Württemberg, and I can't really recognize your impressions of woeful supermarkets nor of Germans not appreciating good food.

Go to any Edeka, and you'll be spoiled for choice, including fresh herbs. And while German traditional food may not be as high concept or artistic as other cuisines, there is a definite pride in using good quality ingredients and making deeply satisfying meals. It's a more down-to-earth way of appreciating good food.

A simple platter of good sausage, local cheese, fresh butter and crusty bread is nothing fancy to look at, but it is deeply satisfying.

Regarding the restaurants from other cultures adapting to local tastes, that happens everywhere, and is a real shame for those of us with adventurous taste buds.

Food lovers in Germany don't buy at supermarkets, they go to proper bakeries, butchers, shops for vegetables (many of which are owned by Germans of Turkish descendant) and fish, or specialty shops (Asian, Oriental, bio, etc.), or to the "market" - a place where regional and quality food sellers come once or twice a week with trailers. Discounters are only visited for buying really cheap stuff (Aldi, Lidl, Netto), or for time-saving one-stop shopping (Rewe and others) or close-by shopping (Edeka). It's true, though, that German food doesn't quite live up to French and Italian food traditions - because nothing does.

Sorry but just compare to an Auchan in France, or a normal Waitrose in the UK. Edeka is the closest but e.g. my Rewe doesn’t do Cilantro but Edeka does. Rewe does fresh chilled soup, Edeka doesn’t.

And market food is ridiculously over priced. A zucchini flower costs 2 EUR. anything rare or slightly pimp costs a fortune in Germany. And normally isn’t fresh.

And yes, sausages and cheese are great and the best in Germany. But not every night. And I don’t want to “from scratch” cook everything.

Oh and if I forgot some tomatoes and realized on a Sunday? Tough. Nothing is open.

A friend of mine worked in retail and said of Germany...they tried to introduce “exotic” potato types rather than just “for mash”, “for fries”. No one would pay 1 EUR more for a nuttier tasting potato. That’s the German market. Gut und Günstig.

Sucks.

> the bottom floor is 0, not the ground floor

In the elevator sure, though just as often it's abbreviated EG for Erdgeschoss, which does mean ground floor. We call the floor above that "erstes Geschoss" or "erstes Obergeschoss", whereas that would be the second floor in English, but we never say "nulltes Geschoss", always Erdgeschoss.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Erdgeschoss

Calling the ground floor “first floor” is a North American thing, and everyone else (including UK) agrees with German numbering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storey

I moved to Berlin from Melbourne about four years ago. It's been a great move for my swdev career. There is really interesting and diverse projects and an abundance of work. It's a developers market. European infrastructure is amazing in general. It's also nice to be able to ride 20 minutes with a bicycle to work and feel like your not going to get hit by some moronic bogan.

I think that Berlin could be the most liberal and free city in the world at the moment, I love it.

I realised how culturally isolated Australia is and how English centric we are. Speaking any other language is kind of frowned upon in Australia . There really is this elitism attitude globally relating to english and it's a double edged sword, it makes us uncultured and insensitive. In Europe and Berlin specifically it's a melting pot of languages, cultures and ideas and I absolutely love that. What Australia lacks in culture it compensates with Sports. For better or worse.

I think violence is pretty common in Melbourne at least. I don't feel safe drinking in stkilda, Prahran or in the city. Everyone gets so drunk and if it's not racism it's petty masculinity that causes a brawl. The culture definently values "sport" over nearly everything else. Therefore it's a breeding ground for this kind of behaviour. I really dislike this about my fellow Australians. Conversely, I feel incredibly safe in Berlin.

Quality of food is arguably better in Australia overall, but great produce can be found here also.

Obviously Australian nature is incredible and offers a lot, it's also a very geographically isolated place, so it's hard to feel connected with the rest of the world. No quickly jumping over to Africa or the middle east!

Anyway, I love Europe and germany, they are doing some really forward thinking things and align with my beliefs. There is still a long way to go, but at least they are trying to steer their economies in a progressive direction.

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