Wally Nes’ Blog

Hello everyone.

So I’ve been busy n’ stuff. Not much interesting blogposts result from being busy n’ stuff.

I came here in the heart of winter and one of the first things I got to experience was a once in a 15 year occurrence. Ausenalstereisvergnugen. It doesn’t often get cold enough here for the ausenalster to freeze enough to carry the entire population of Hamburg, but 2012 was one such a year. It was kind of cool although I didn’t have my skates there to scare the bejezus out of innocent people.

Since then I’ve kept myself busy looking for a place to live and I may just have found one. I’m living there now, of course, but it remains to be seen if we’ll stay here for any length of time. The place does come with internet though (well, I had to have it installed of course) which is a vast improvement on my previous lodgings.

The thing about not having a home or internet is that I spent a lot of my weekends searching for one on the other. The other being provided free at Starbucks or a (very) select few cafés. And the thing about spending your weekends in a café with a laptop on your lap is that you don’t end up doing as many exciting things as one might.

There were a few things I noticed while I’ve been here:

• God, people are pale here. And blonde, my bog people are white and blond here.
• Germans drink beer. A lot of beer. And everywhere. Been on public transport is very normal, in weekends almost the norm. And this isn’t even Bavaria, where I’ve been told it is worse. With Airbus being a company located in a country where drinking beer (Germany) or wine (France) at lunch  (Not to sure about Spanish lunch customs) is customary and Airbus being a company where operating heavy machinery after lunch is also sometimes a thing this creates a nice situation. It’s banned btw, none of your aerial transports have been put together while drunk.
• Fried potatoes come with bacon. Always.
• It’s so nice living in a country with decent bread and beer readily available.
• Punk is not dead, though it is getting very hard to take it seriously.
• People are still short. Taller than Koreans, but still short.

Now there’s another thing that’s been keeping me from experiencing exciting things I could write down and claim as my own interesting story.
People keep getting married.
Takes up a lot of time, you know. Visiting those weddings. Very nice though, both of them and I look forward to the 3rd one in two weeks. But those are not my stories to tell.

And now, it is spring in Hamburg. So in one blogpost ice and flowers.

The problem with the Germans is that they’re just not different enough compared to my arbitrarily chosen version of normal. So not much they do strike me as weird and as a result this blog suffers.
I’ll be sure to head to South America soon.

Wally

Greetings all,

It has been a while since I last wrote, but I have a good excuse. I promise.

I’ve moved across the world, almost back to where I started. The start to Japan, Korean, America, Australia or a variety of other destinations.
I am not back in the Netherlands, though I was for 2 days. I’ve moved to Hamburg. I started working for Airbus 4 days ago and they required me to physically be here. So I’ve been busy moving here.

When I heard I was moving here I was excited of course, looked Hamburg up on the internet and started to educate myself. One thing that stood out was the it was 13 degrees here. Quite the difference from the -10 conditions of Seoul, South Korea. Everyone that feels jealous of this, let me put your mind at ease: It was below zero when I arrived and it hasn’t gotten any warmer since then. Snow too. At least I have a river I frequent which is quite pretty this way.

I’ve moved to the section of Hamburg that Airbus is also located at, which means I’m south of the River. Apparently, all the cool kids live north of the river. I can deal with that as I’ve only booked a month at my gasthaus. What I’m having a harder time with are the things the gasthaus doesn’t offer. This includes a washing machine, a freezer and THE INTERNET. This would be manageable if these things were offered in close proximity. This morning I took a 30 minute bus-ride to get access to the  first two. In a country where “having over 20 ms latency is a National disaster” –Some German; I can’t find free wifi in my entire city section. What backward hell is this? I do think I’ve found a laundrette closer to home though, but the combination I used this morning of laundry and café with wifi this morning was kind of nice.

Now, as mentioned I started my work with Airbus this week and I’d tell you about it, but . . .
I signed some kind of non-disclosure agreement, and it was in German. So I haven’t been able to figure out what I can tell you.
What should be OK is the rough location of my office building. Mine is next to the airstrip on site. This means I hear planes take off every hour or so. This includes first flights and stuff. If you’re not an airplane enthusiast this probably sounds like a nuisance, but for those of you that are . . . . well, lets just say that the majority of my colleagues still scoot to the window every hour or so, regardless of how long they’ve worked there.
Also: Stress Engineer on Vertical Tail Planes/Vertical Stabilizer. Something something project management something something composite engineer something something Long range. I’ve yet to get a precise title of what role I fill but there is lots of room for variety in the department apparently.

Anyway, I am currently benefiting from the free wifi at Starbucks for international communication and to help look for a permanent place to stay. I will take recommendations on city districts and affordable rooms if you have them. But for now, my cup is empty and I will stop being such a leech and get on with my first weekend in my new town.