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"Matthew Smith was born in Ottawa, Canada. After stints living in Kenya and China, he began political studies at Queen's University. Upon graduating Matthew began work for the student organization AIESEC in Germany before moving to puruse a Masters degree in Asia Pacific Studies at the University of Toronto. Matthew is currently working fulltime in Ottawa."

My German Stories: June 2001 - August 2002

Printer friendly view of the full text of all my German stories.

The story of my first few hours in Germany, arriving in the airport, and taking the train from Frankfurt to Cologne.

Arriving in the office on my first day, and meeting the people I will be working with for the next year.

One of my first experiences in Germany, a BBQ with members of the Local Committee in Cologne.

On my second weekend, I visited the famous hills outside of Bonn with a few trainees I had met the week before.

My first reception weekend in Germany. I travelled with Janik and a few trainees from Bonn up north to Oldenburg to see the sea and find out what schlick is.

My firstweekend actually spent in Cologne. A little swimming, a little shopping and some much needed rest.

My first business related trip sent me down to southern Germany to T�bingen to setup a server.

I visited Hamburg, the second largest city in Germany, where Michelle will be living for the next six months.

I visited Zurich during a festival with Michelle. We stayed with her family.

U2 came to Cologne, and I was there.

Festival of fire on the banks of the Rhine, and an interesting way to serve beer afterwards.

Touring around Cologne. A couple of museums and then a concert in Bonn.

It's not a movie, it's AIESEC International. I visted their headquarters in Rotterdam.

Another reception weekend, this time with a Wild West theme. I visited historic Aachen, home to Charlemagne.

I combined a business trip to Karlsruhe with a visit to lake Constance, home of the most celebrated reception weekend in Germany.

Michelle threw a party in Hamburg, her brother and a couple of friends were visiting from Canada.

I went to Switzerland for the largest meeting of AIESEC, the International Congress.

Another AIESEC reception weekend, this time in Hamburg with a pirates theme. Boat tours, camping on the beach, BBQs and a little swimming.

A glimpse of my domestic life in Germany.

What it's like to fly standby to Berlin.
Or:
How to have fun in an airport.

I went to a Cuban themed bar in Berlin.

I got a chance to see a litle of Berlin as we did some touring with alumni from AIESEC Germany's national office. From visiting a TV station, to going up an observation deck to a Spanish dinner, it was a busy day.

An alumni arranged for a few people from my office to do a tour of the Reichstag.

Wonder how I'm doing learning German? Read on.

I spent a weekend in Paris with Michelle.

Reunification Day in Germany is holiday, but not a huge celebration, I made sushi.

The Anuga food and drink trade fair, the largest in the world, was in town and I got tickets.

Eating out a restaurants, learning a little about the country, watching TV. What I do when I'm not travelling.

Michelle and I decided to meet halfway between Cologne and Hamburg to add a little variety to our semi-regular visits, and take a bit of a vacation by touring around scenic Bremen for an afternoon.

I got the chance to see a country presentation about Germany, made by German students in Bonn.

I joined the team planning days of my co-workers in the small Rheinland town of Remagen. It was my first chance to do a working meeting in German after I completed my two month language course.

What began as a story about a computer course I took in Stuttgart evolved into a story of the first time I got homesick, and the first time I really felt like a real trainee in Germany.

The story of how my moving-in party became a football fuelled one.

The Hamburg Fish Market. I had heard so much about this fabled marketplace in Hamburg though after numerous visits to the city, I had still never seen it. The place where partygoes who had been all night collided with early risers in search of fresh produce. One of the must see items in Hamburg.

Rostock, a city right at the very north of Germany was my destination on this very chilly week in November. I took in a litte soccer, sea air and fish.

I had a really great weekend in southern Germany / France. I stayed with Michelle at a friend's house in Freiburg where she had lived for six months in the late 1990's. We went dancing one night and then headed to neighbouring Strasbourg and went to a Christmas market.

Feuerzangenbowle. The name of a hot wine drink and the title of a cult classic film from the mid 1940s. I watched it with Michelle and some of her friends in Hamburg on the weekend of our anniversary.

It was finally that time, home for the holidays. I was going back to Canada to see my family.

A brief glimpse of my Christmas in 2001 in Ottawa.

My experience with post-September 11th security in North America + The Euro.

Michelle Moves to Germany - Again.

I visited a museum focussing on German contemporary history.

Carnival time in Cologne is simply crazy.

Koblenz is a gorgeous town on the banks of the rivers Rhine and Mosel. This famous meeting point is capped by a huge statue of the Kaiser, but what drew us was the general beauty and simplicity of the town.

I got a brief visit from an old Friend at the beginning of March. Andy Graves, whose parents live across the street from mine in Ottawa, dropped by Cologne for an evening to catch up a little.

Monschau had been on my list of places to visit for weeks. It was praised in my trusty Michelin Guide to Germany, and quite close to Cologne. It's supposed to be a very scenic little village and, well, that's about it actually. A perfect example of a cute village. As soon as we had a sunny weekend, Michelle and I took off to see it for ourselves.

I have already written once about a giant trade fair I visited in Germany, and how overwhelming it was, but that was small potatoes compared to CeBIT. The largest trade fair, period. It's a consumer electronics and computer show but you can find just about anything there that is in any way remotely connected to computers, and so of course I went.

Michelle's host family from her earlier exchange to Germany had invited the two of us down to Freiburg for the Easter holidays, and, not having family in Germany to visit, we accepted. We had both had a wonderful time the last time we had been just before Christmas (link) and so were looking forward to another nice vacation. Relaxation was one goal, but the other was to see the Black Forest and do some hiking.

About three weeks ago, I got an email from one of my high school friends from China. Lalith had started at the international school at the same time as me in 1996. We were great friends in Beijing, but he had later gone to school in London, and I had headed back to Canada. I had last seen four years ago, but now we're on the same side of the Atlantic, and he had found some reasonably priced airfares to Germany, so we tried to meet up in Cologne for a long weekend.

My Dad made a business trip to Europe and luckily was able to take some time off to visit me in Cologne.

AIESEC in Germany has a large planning conference each year with about 300 students in attendance. This year it was held in Frankfurt, and I travelled to the conference with my father who was enroute to a Monday morning business meeting there.

The pages of our guest book were really starting fill up in April. This weekend we were playing host to one of Michelle's housemates from university, Gavin who took a detour on his way to a business engagement in Milan to visit us.

All good things must come to an end, and so it was with my stay in 519 Subbelrather St. here in Cologne. My lease was up and I needed to find a new place to live for the remaining two months before I head back to Canada.

The month of May in Germany is jam packed with state holidays, and although they don�t all offer up long weekends, they do give you the chance to take off somewhere right smack-dab in the middle of the week. As you might guess, that�s exactly what I did on a Wednesday morning with Michelle as we journeyed a short distance down the Rhine to the spot where it is overlooked by a castle perched upon the Dragon Cliffs.

The following Thursday, we continued our May madness and rented bicycles to do a trip along the banks of the Rhine. (it was a holiday again) I also managed to squeeze in a picnic supper, a trip to a jazz club, and a county fair before the weekend was over.

The oldest city in all of Germany, Trier was inhabited by Celtic peoples long before the Roman empire made it a preffered residence nearly 2000 years ago.

Michelle's friends Mark and Andrea holidayed briefly in Europe, and we travelled with them and a couple of other friends to Amsterdam.

I began my holidays at the end of my job in Germany by going to the Bavarian Alps with Michelle.

After a brief trip to the Bavarian Alps, I travelled to Munich with Michelle to meet up with our travelling companions, Mark and Andrea for a couple of days.

The Golden Jubilee long weekend celebrating the reign of the Queen coincided nicely with my trip to visit Lalith and the official end of my job. I was ready for a holiday and wasn't dissapointed.

Back in Cologne again after my holidays, I had to clean up my office space, but it was back to entertaining on the weekend when Michelle's father paid a visit.

My brother Chris visited me for two weeks since I had some free time. Of course we did a little travelling, starting in Amsterdam after the mandatory look around Cologne.

I travelled with my brother directly from the Netherlands to Belgium where we met up with Michelle for a weekend.

Bruge rounded out the short, weekend trip to Belgium. I think Michelle, Chris and I were all surprised and impressed with Bruge. It was just such a nice place to visit.

Well my time in Germany was drawing to a close. A few days and quite a few more cafes and soccer games later, I sent my brother off at the station as he headed back to Canada, and I found myself with little more than a week left before I�d follow him.

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