Expat Empire Podcast 8 | A Decade in Germany with Colin Miller

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Episode Description

Today we will be hearing from Colin Miller. Colin has been living in Germany for over a decade with most of his time spent in Munich and more recently in Berlin. In this episode, you will learn:

• What it is like to live in the “overgrown village” of Munich
• The benefits of living and working in Germany (hint: lots of vacation days and travel opportunities!)
• Tips for finding English speaking jobs in Germany
• Transitioning from Munich to Berlin and comparing their similarities and differences
• How Germany has changed over the last few decades and where it is headed in the coming years

You can reach out to Colin on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinmmiller/ and see his photography on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/whatsthewurst/. Eli Hermit edited and produced the music for this episode, please check him out at elihermit.bandcamp.com/. Learn more about Expat Empire at expatempire.com!

Episode Transcript

Intro

Welcome to the Expat Empire Podcast, the podcast where you can hear from expats around the world and learn how you can join them.

Hi everyone, thanks for joining us today for the 8th episode of the Expat Empire Podcast. Today we will be hearing from Colin Miller. Colin has been living in Germany for over a decade with most of his time spent in Munich and more recently in Berlin. We discuss many topics including what it’s like to live in the “overgrown village” of Munich, tips for finding English speaking jobs in Germany, transitioning from Munich to Berlin, and much more.

Without further ado, let’s start the conversation.

Conversation

David McNeill: Hey Colin, thanks so much for joining the Expat Empire podcast.

Colin Miller: Thank you.

David McNeill: It’d be great if you could tell me a little bit about your background. You know, where are you originally from? Where around the world you’ve lived so far and where you live currently?

Colin Miller: Sure. So, I’m originally from the west, New Jersey, infamous New Jersey is where I was born and grew up; left to go to college, university in Virginia, in Richmond, then wound up staying there for a couple of years after graduation. For the last more than a decade or so I’ve been based in Germany, the last little over a year in Berlin, but before that, almost 10 years in Munich.

David McNeill: Awesome. Yeah, that’s amazing. So, what was your original interest in working abroad? Where did that come from? How did you decide that this is something that you wanted to do? Is it something that you had been thinking about for a while or maybe had some study abroad experience or a lot of travel experience? What generated that interest for you?

Colin Miller: Yeah, I think it’s interesting, I mean, going back to the beginning. I mean, childhood I think always had an interest outside of my small little town or kind of general area. We… my parents didn’t… we didn’t travel so much, I mean certainly not abroad, sometimes growing up friends would, I don’t know, they’d go to Canada or they’d go to Mexico or to Europe, kind of summer trips with their parents but we didn’t really do that. I think we went to the Caribbean once or twice.

But I always had a fascination with like the broader world and kind of, I mean, I always loved history and political science and that’s what I wound up studying in college. But really all throughout school there was interest, you know, when we learned about a new country or some thing in history about world wars or going back…. Well, before that I was always curious about what that place was like and I never had the typical study abroad experience as well for various reasons, just opted to stay where I was for four years. So when I graduated, I thought, well, now’s my opportunity to kind of go see the world and I spent the better part of two years doing that and coming home and working a little bit to save up money and then basically spending every penny combing the world, Europe at first and then Asia. And when I returned home, I thought, okay, I loved that experience and I’d like to somehow incorporate that into my career and wound up finding a job with a Taiwanese company and that luckily kind of brought me over to Asia, Mainland China. It was, I think at some point, I was over there pretty frequently, every month or two months or so. And parallel to this, during my travels I met a German woman and we kind of developed a relationship, a long distance at first and then she was lucky to move to New York with her company, but we kind of knew longer term that if we were going to stay together that ideally that was going to be where she was from, which was Munich.

David McNeill: Were there any particular trips during those two years where you’re going around the world that really made you think, you know, outside of the relationship that you developed that Europe was probably the place that you’d want to end up or even Germany in particular? Or was it more just that particular situation, the relationship that led to that decision?

Colin Miller: I think it was a few things in… I mean, it’s never… I don’t think it’s never one single kind of reason or experience. But I do remember, like the first place, the first foreign place I ever went, I landed in London and I remember taking the train from probably Heathrow Airport, into Paddington Station. I remember stepping, you know, into the station and thinking, wow! This is different. This is, you know, I mean, it looks very similar in some respects, it’s a busy Metro… you know, Metropolis kind of like New York, but it’s also very different and it’s all the kind of little things that were different and I was just fascinated by that.

And then spent the next couple of months going from one big city to the next and, you know, checking out different countries and thinking I just… I loved to be experience of kind of learning what the differences were, how people kind of lived and what, you know, what their daily lives were like in each of these places. But in the middle of that trip, September 11th happened, which was gut wrenching and emotional experience for everybody. I’m going to think it… but you know whether you were in New York or somewhere else or had no connection to New York and kind of seeing it almost in a, from a foreigners perspective of being surrounded by foreigners and not being home, you know, consider New York home; I grew up in a suburb of it. And that was an interesting experience and then I think kind of helped cement my, you know, interest into having a different experience and kind of immersing myself into other cultures; probably within a year after that is when the relationship started on a second trip. Yeah, that made it clear that that I would probably wind up spending some portion of my life and over the next couple of years abroad, didn’t realize it would turn out to be quite so long but…

David McNeill: Right. What was the initial thinking? I mean, of course, depends on how the relationship and how your experience in Germany went. But was it sort of, hey, let’s try this for a year or two, and it ended up turning into what’s now about a decade or more or, you know, what was your thinking at the time?

Colin Miller: I guess when… typical of long distance relationships, you do what you can to kind of make it work. And so I was, you know, based in the US close to New York City and she was in Munich, we did that for a couple of years. And then just, it lucked out that she managed to get a transfer with her company and that was kind of the most ideal situation because I hadn’t yet found a job even though I was looking in Germany, so we said okay, let’s try that out. That’s, you know, that’s a nice fit for us.

Although that turned out to, in retrospect not to be the best fit. She wasn’t very fond of New York City, as I think a lot of Germans and particularly people from Munich, they call Munich an overgrown village, and if you’ve ever visited there you can kind of see why it’s very low to the ground. It’s very green. It’s a wonderful place but it’s really the antithesis, the opposite of New York City, which is concrete, urban jungle. So, the decision was made. Well, you know, New York is not making her happy so she wanted to go home. So I said, yeah, absolutely. Now it’s, let’s give it a try. It turned out… Again, I think a lot of things in life turn out to be kind of more luck and circumstance. I managed to keep this job with the Taiwanese company and was working remotely from Munich, so that was a nice kind of cushion; so I didn’t have to kind of land and either look for a job locally in Munich or hope that someone would bring me over. I could just hop on a plane and continue doing what I was doing.

David McNeill: And how did that work in terms of your visa situation coming in from the United States and moving to Germany, especially working with a company remotely based in Taiwan if I’m not mistaken?

Colin Miller: So, I was technically let’s say, just a tourist. You know, I was… This is also kind of before, that predates the term digital nomad, that’s becoming quite popular. So I really was in essence a digital nomad. I had, you know, my laptop, worked from home or a local cafe, but I would come in and out. I think back then you had 90 days every time you came in and out of most European countries. So, luckily I had to return home to the states for various reasons; a friend’s wedding or went home for Christmas.

But after six months of, you know, that wasn’t sustainable over the long term, plus I realized, you know, working for a company where my main office was on the east coast of the US, so six hours behind Germany, and most of my kind of the business partners and clients were based in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mainland China, which was, I think six hours ahead. I was kind of getting up in the morning to talk to China, you know, going out during the day for a couple of hours to go to German class or run some errands and then coming back in the early afternoon when New York got online, doing work and then, you know, of course, if… even if they were getting off at five o’clock in the afternoon, you know, typical end of the work day sometimes in an office, that was 11pm for me, so I was, I wind up working really almost around the clock. Of course holidays in the US or holidays in China were not the same, didn’t always match up with those in Germany. So, you know, I’d have friends and my partner at the time, you know, going… they had a day off but I had to work, so it really got to be a kind of a frustrating situation. So, the visa question and, you know, my day to day kind of work situation, it made me think I’m going to leave this behind and try to find something local, which I then did, actually ironically with a huge American technology company but working from the German, the Munich office which was tied to the India headquarters. And then, again back then, which I think is still the case, although I haven’t had to think about this in some time. My visa was sponsored by the company that I was employed.

David McNeill: So how long were you actually working for the Taiwanese company in total while you were in Germany?

Colin Miller: I was with them in total for four years, six months of which were my time in Munich.

David McNeill: So I guess if you could take me back actually to the time when you just arrived and just had moved to Munich, what was that like? What were the surprises and challenges that you encountered in those early days? And how did it compare to be a resident there as opposed to previously more of a tourist?

Colin Miller: So I had… So, going back to that kind of, that backpacking trip or after college, you know, as you do; it kind of coincided with Oktoberfest and people from all around the world I think are fascinated by that. So I had spent, I don’t know, two or three days in Munich, so I had already been in the city and then of course, during this relationship had made quite a few visits. So when I moved there, it’s not as if it was the first time I was in the city, I already had some familiarity with it.

Although visiting, you know, as a backpacker or visiting kind of friends for a week or so is quite a different experience than living there. You know, if you’re on holiday and vacation or something, you know, at the end of it you’re getting back on a plane or a train and leaving there but, you know, when you’re living there it’s, you know, the alarm goes off and it’s just another day. I remember, well, actually I’ll never forget my first night there. It’s interesting anecdote which I think ties into the theme of Munich being this overgrown village.It was, I think it was a Saturday, had… looked quite tired and jet lagged from the trip over; it was summertime so I was a little bit warm, the window was open and the flat where I was living was really right in the middle of the city, just a 5, 10 minute walk from the main train station. So, you know, the windows open, its 10 o’clock at night, I get into bed and I’m laying there, you know, trying to go to sleep and I noticed that I can’t hear a single peep. I mean, there’s nothing and there’ll be no noise coming from outside, which I was kind of blown away by when, you know, I don’t know. I think in almost any city, particularly New York, there’s always car horns or sirens or, you know, even birds or just something. And it was just… it wasn’t a peep coming from Munich. So, and that… I found that all throughout. I mean sometimes friends would visit and we’d be going from dinner, bar or something like that in the city on a Friday or Saturday and they would just stop and say it’s really quiet here. And it was. Turns out, I mean over… Again, people ask me, how do you like Munich? And I think it’s a wonderful place, I mean it has some… In my experience, I think this is true of Germany, but particularly of Munich, has some of the best quality of life of any place I’ve found in the world. I mean I’ve, you know, lived in a few places and certainly traveled in a lot more and I think the quality of life is incredible there. But Munich is a bit quiet and people say, well, how did you wind up staying there for so long? And I think I had an experience, which I think is typical of many Expats who wind up in Munich either because of a job, a job transfer or for a relationship, which sometimes ends as it did in my case in Munich. You… then you say, oh! I’ll spend a year, I’ll spend two years and that turns into three, five years, ten years. I know a lot of people who have been there 25 years now and have no intention of leaving, you kind of just get sucked into this really great quality of life and you kind of, you compare it to, you know, life where you came from or your other alternatives of, I don’t know, going to another city like London, or Paris, or Tokyo, or Sydney or something and you say, yeah, I mean it’s not superlative in many respects. I mean, you have the Alps there and it’s clean and everything, you know, the trains run on time. There’s nothing superlative about it, like, you know, like a New York or Tokyo or some of these other larger cities. But when you kind of compare all of, you know, you look at all the metrics across the board, Munich kind of wings out in most cases, so. And I have… during that time, I had kind of always thought about, oh! Yeah, I’ll go somewhere else. So, I’ll move to Berlin or I’ll move to London or… and friends and, you know, good career prospects and, again, quality of life just sort of kept me there for quite some time, until I broke free.

David McNeill: Yeah. So, we’ll get definitely more into how you ended up deciding to break free from Munich shortly. But just in general, what were those things that made the quality of life so good? I mean, from my perspective, I’ve heard about the almost unimaginably high number of holidays, which I think can probably play a huge role for somebody that’s interested in traveling around Europe and the rest of the world. But were there other things about Munich in particular, I mean, even within the context of Germany that made it so attractive?

Colin Miller: It’s interesting you hit on probably, if I’m being completely honest, probably what was at the top of my list was the travel opportunities. I mean, as I mentioned I’ve always had a curiosity and I’ve always really taking every opportunity I could to go somewhere, to go somewhere new. And, you know, Munich being in the center of Europe, you can reach, I don’t know, seven or eight different countries by car, by train and obviously, certainly by plane within just a couple of hours so it’s perfectly situated.

In Germany typically most, you know, as in most European countries, there’s a kind of government minimum number of holidays that they have to grant employees, that companies have to give to employees. Often companies are a little bit nicer, a little bit more generous and will give you an extra three, four or five days. And then in Bavaria, which is a very Catholic region, you get all of these religious holidays which, you know, coming from the States, you know, maybe you’ll get Good Friday off and of course you’ll get Christmas, you don’t typically get any other religious holidays, particularly that one’s related to a specific religion. So, you know, in a typical year while I was living in Munich, depending on how the calendar fell, I could have something like seven weeks of vacation, of annual leave. And I used really every minute of that to go somewhere, whether it was, you know, further field out to Asia or South America or just, you know a weekend, kind of a long weekend in Europe. So I would really, again, if I’m being honest, that would probably be it. I figured, I’ve got this opportunity, I’m here, I might as well use that. But if I’m looking at the kind of realistic and more important things let’s say, career prospects are fantastic in Munich. You know, the economy is very good, there are a lot of very large multinational companies or very good kind of German companies and then the Google’s and Microsoft’s and HPs and all… Cisco’s, and everybody has big offices there. There’s a burgeoning startup scene, although not quite as good as up-Berlin or Hamburg. And then you’ve got, you know, great German companies like the Allianz’s and other insurance companies, so you can get a good job, something that you want to do, they’re a good pay. Housing although is expensive, it’s good quality, you know, transportation, public transportation, getting around the city or, you know, to and from work or to shops and things or, you know, at the weekends going out to the Alps or to a lake is all very easy to do. People complain, I… It’s funny, you talk to a German or other, most other Europeans and you say, coming from New York, if you compare the cost of living in Munich, it’s not so bad. Most people’s heads kind of spin when you say that, even though it’s the most expensive place typically to live in Germany. It’s not outrageous when you compare it to a New York, or London, Paris and Tokyo and so on.

David McNeill: Did you speak much German before you arrived in Munich? And, how important would you say it is to be able to speak German there?

Colin Miller: Yeah. So, about the German, so I kind of knew in the back of my mind when I was in the US that there was at least a 50/50 chance that I would wind up in Germany, where kind of life was heading and, as I mentioned, something I was interested in. So I thought, you know, I took Spanish in, you know, in high school and college, I was pretty good with that, but didn’t know a word of German outside of einz, drei, zwei, obviously, this is not, was not even correct.

So, I said, I’m going to do what I can. Rosetta Stone existed at the time, but no, certainly wasn’t going to invest that much in this kind of software program, so I found, you know, remedial class at a local community college, just said, yeah, I’ll start taking that. It was a couple nights a week after work. So, just go, do some studying. I think I took two of those classes just to get at least a foundation for the grammar and a little bit of vocabulary, and sure enough that, you know, after I think maybe two years after I started those courses, you know, made the decision to move to Germany. And when I got there and, you know, as I mentioned, working for the Taiwanese company, my schedule was sort of all over the place but I had a block of time typically kind of late mornings to mid day, and really for the first… so certainly for that first six months and then for probably another six months after that, you know, kind of after work and so on. I was pretty diligent about taking courses and trying to, you know, advance my language abilities. So, you know, if you ask how necessary is it?In the time that I’ve been in Germany I haven’t ever found it very necessary to speak German, I… it was more of a, and that… outside of let’s say, you know, supermarket or your local cafe and things like that where you might be dealing with somebody who’s, let’s say a little bit older, doesn’t, you know, hasn’t traveled a bit and maybe doesn’t know English, but most people do. For me though it was more of a, I don’t know, I’m living in a place I feel like I should, you know, immerse myself as much as I can in the local culture and a big part of that is the language. So, I put a lot of effort into that, although in Munich I’d say it’s a very nice to have but not necessary. In Berlin, I find that almost nobody outside of a local kind of Berliner or somebody who comes from a different part of Germany actually speaks German in terms of Expats. So, and I think that’s not… I don’t think everybody does that and I think the key to that, like with anything in life, I mean if you want to be a great, I don’t know, athlete or a musician or good at anything you have to put the time into it. I think a lot of Expats sort of, who work up here and, you know, they get into the job and, you know, into setting up their life and things are busy and they don’t make the time to speak German and they think, oh, yeah, well, I’ll kind of learn it here and there. Then it doesn’t happen that way, it doesn’t happen by magic, you do have to put the effort into it. I’m kind of… I think my German is good. But I’ve never, and I think this is true especially if you’re a native English speaker, you don’t have a lot of opportunity to practice it, unless you’re really forced, you know, your job is really in German, or you’re in some kind of situation, you know, a partner or something where you’re really forced to use it. So, I mean, despite of the fact that I’ve never really had to use it outside of kind of local government, you know, dealing with the bureaucracy or the supermarket or, you know, those typical things. I’m still, you know, fairly proud and I, again, connect that to putting in the effort of taking those courses. And I haven’t taken a class in probably a decade but once you have that foundation, you know, the basic grammar and some vocabulary, it kind of builds on it; you know, you pick up things here and there.

David McNeill: What’s your experience been like in terms of working with German bureaucracy trying to, I don’t know, move into a new flat or get something set up? Has it, you know, have you… do you have any tips or advice for folks that might be going through that in the near future?

Colin Miller: I think the key to dealing with that, and I think it’s probably true in any country, any different culture, is being flexible. It’s always going to be different; it may be radically different, it may be just slightly different. You know, I found… There was certain, you know, we all kind of talk to Expats and, you know, people come here and there’s a lot of kind of stereotypes about the German, the beamt, the bureaucrat in the government office, and I don’t, I don’t think I’ve had one kind of generic experience where it’s always frustrating or maddening or confusing.

I’ve certainly had those, but I’ve also had experiences where it’s been quite easy and straightforward and a lot more so than I expected. And this is, there’s different kind of spheres of life and there’s just, you know, things really connected to the government like your visa and registering your, you know, your apartment, where you live. There’s other things like, you know, kind of necessities, basics, getting your internet up and running, which is typically frustrating or telephone. And then there’s additional things like, you know, getting the German bond, the train discount card or a gym membership. I think most of us probably go through certainly all of these, I mean, the government kind of topics are all requirements but most of us probably go through the additional ones. And it’s funny, Germans have this reputation for being very logical and efficient, often that’s true but then there are certain outliers where you just, you scratch your head and you think, I can’t believe they do it like this and you can go crazy, kind of being frustrated by that if you encounter one of these experiences where you say, I can’t… oh! This is so stupid; I can’t believe they do it this way. But you can’t change that, you know, you’re just one Expat amongst, you know, whatever, 90 million Germans who have been doing it some silly way for all their lives and for generations. And that’s where the flexibility comes in, you just, you have… you just kind of have to accept it and you learn kind of how to deal with, you know, you figure out sort of tactics of how to, kind of how to manage those situations. And once… and I think this is true with anything in life. Once you kind of go through those things a couple of times, you sort of notice a pattern and you can, you know the next time that comes up maybe how to deal with it a little bit better.

David McNeill: I think that’s a great point. And it’s good to keep that open mind and flexibility at the forefront when you’re dealing with these situations that may be… well, are probably going to be frankly quite different from what you’re used to, right?

Colin Miller: And I think that the same would be true if you ask a German who moved to the US. You know, oh! I can’t believe you guys do X, Y or Z this way, it’s… But I think that’s the, also the kind of the enjoyment or that’s part of the experience and it just comes with the territory of living in other places. And, you know, hopefully, hopefully, you know, looking back, you can kind of laugh even though it’s maddening at the time you can, you know, about trying to cancel a gym membership or trying to get your internet up and running.

David McNeill: It’s funny because then you get the opportunity to also commune with your fellow Expat brothers and sisters and have a good… I mean, everyone has sort of been through these generic set of difficulties, I think what would be interesting would be to look at what difficulties tend to stand out for Germany versus France, versus Thailand, versus China or, you know, some… Egypt.

I mean, I’m sure every country sort of has its five, top five things that are going to be the most difficult for most, you know, your typical Expat profiled person to deal with. But, you know, it gives an opportunity for Expats to join around that topic together as well. And with that in mind, actually, how did you make your friends initially first in Munich outside of, of course the person you were dating at the time? How did you, you know, meet more people? Were they other Expats? Were they Germans? Was it a good mix, about 50/50 in terms of your friend group? And how did that change over the years that you lived in Munich in particular?

Colin Miller: Definitely… So we definitely did change. I think when I first got there, I didn’t want to immediately fall into the trap that I think a lot of Expats do and certainly ones who, let’s say are on a, you know, a placement; you know, they get a transfer with their company for two years and it’s kind of a fixed contract and they fall into just an Expat circle, and they don’t have a lot of contact with locals. I think it’s easy to do. It’s one approach. I’m not saying there’s anything kind of necessarily better or worse, but I really wanted to kind of get into the local culture. I had a partner who was local with friends and family.

And so that was a… it was obviously easy. It was right in front of me. But I wanted to kind of take advantage of that, it helped with language and kind of understanding the culture and the country that I was living in. Only after a certain time then I, you know, like, let’s say through my German classes, which were obviously all foreigners, you know, kind of start taking advantage of that for, you know, for social reasons, to kind of meet up with people after class or in the evenings or something. And eventually though, the relationship ended and I would go out of my way kind of to, you know, make connections with colleagues or there are other things like… Now there’s quite a lot of them but back then, there was really just one sort of Expat, you know, online kind of chat forum. It was not just a platform but, you know, you could find, you know, a new apartment there, you could find bicycles, you can find job opportunities and stuff called “Toytown”, which I think is still just for Germany. Now there’s lots of different kinds of groups, you know, for networking purposes and, you know, social reasons and stuff. So, there would often be these groups of, you know, hey, I’m new in Munich, I’m putting together a Tuesday night, you know, Tuesday curry night or a Friday beer garden or something. So, you know, I started doing some of those just to meet additional people. Yeah, and then I think it’s, kind of the natural momentum of, you know, living abroad is, you know, you kind of develop, you know, friendships and relationships here and there, through work, through, you know, hobbies and, you know, groups like this.

David McNeill: Yeah, it sounds like a great way to really build a friend group there, especially around those, you know, local communities and people getting together, especially at a beer garden in Munich. That seems like the perfect opportunity, right?

Colin Miller: Yeah. I think there’s, I think you hit the tu mas kind of level and all of a sudden your German increases by 5X. Then everything kind of, the wheel sort of fall off but, yeah, it’s a great, a great… I mean, that’s one of the things I probably miss most about Munich except my, the proximity to the mountains. But the beer gardens are just a wonderful aspect of life there. And very much something, you know, not just the tourists visit, but it’s very much a part of daily life there. You know, you go with your family and your friends and you go after work or at the weekend. So, yeah, that was a nice way to kind of get into the local culture and meet people.

David McNeill: So I guess when you first moved there, it sounds like maybe you moved in with your girlfriend at the time into her apartment. But in general, what would you say are, you know, good places to live? And do you have any particular advice for people that are looking for an apartment in Munich?

Colin Miller: Munich is very difficult. A lot of… Berlin has become this way as well but I think, feel that Munich is worse. They don’t, I mean, as I mentioned it’s very low to the ground so they’re not a lot of very tall buildings. I think there’s a local ordinance that nothing can be taller than the main Cathedral in the center of the city. So, there’s not a lot of housing stock. What’s there is very good, very good quality, but it’s probably a bit more expensive because of the limited supply. I… Yeah, as you mentioned, I moved over and moved right into a flat that was already kind of there and waiting for me.

And then when I looked for a new place, I think I only…. I looked at, again, this kind of “Toytown” website and I looked at one flat, went over and met the guy who was renting it out. And it was perfect, and I wound up staying there for another nine years or so. So, I didn’t have the kind of frustrating experience that a lot of people in Munich have. I remember one friend who was Irish, who’s, again, one of these people who came over for a year, I think 15 or 20 years ago and will never leave Munich, he’s still there. I think he told me when he tried to find a flat that he probably looked at 40 or 50 places and you’d, you know, you’d show up and there would be just a queue of a line of people waiting to view the place. So, your chances of getting something were very slim. Again, I just had a lot of luck, I’d say; right place at the right time. So, but most people I think, it’s very difficult for people and I would say, use any kind of channels that you have. A… There’s a number of different kind of websites, there’s “Toytown”, there’s “Immoscout”, you know, simple search and you’ll turn up the typical ones. I would say spend a lot of time going through listings and write anybody and everyone that looks interesting because you’re probably going to have to view quite a lot before something kind of falls into place.

David McNeill: Yeah. So it sounds like similar to Berlin that the situation is such where you don’t have to worry so much about what part of the city that you’re living in, you just have to worry about finding an apartment. Is that the case?

Colin Miller: Exactly. Yeah. And then I mean, in Berlin, I think each neighborhood is kind of different. It depends what you’re looking for, you know, are you a bit younger and you want, you know, a lot of nightlife right on your doorstep. You… do want something kind of quiet and more-green and want to be a little bit outside of the center. Munich’s a much smaller city, you know, even though it’s so low to the ground, I find it’s not so spread out; you know, on a bike, I think, you know, 20 minutes from one side to the other and you’ve kind of crossed in any, you know, the majority of the city or any of the neighborhoods that you’d want to live in.

Most people gravitate towards Schwabing, which is very central. It’s where the university is, it kind of had a reputation of being a bit more bohemian, although I don’t think anything’s really bohemian in Munich anymore. So, but in the 60s it was kind of where, you know, whatever lot of hippies and the, you know, the 68 generation lived. It’s still a wonderful place. I think it’ll always have a kind of a younger vibe, because I think that there’s something like 50 to 80,000 university students all in that immediate vicinity. Haidhausen is a wonderful neighborhood, I lived in Neuhausen, which is kind of on the opposite side, a little bit more quiet. But, you know, two or three Metro stops and you’re right in the center, so…

David McNeill: Yeah, thank you for that great overview on the housing situation. I was also wondering if you have managed to change jobs while you were in Munich.

Colin Miller: I did a couple of times. So, and we kind of talked about that first change between the Taiwanese company. I did fail to mention and it’s something that I think still exists and it could be useful for people; you know, the economy is quite good, unemployment is quite low in Germany, in most places in Germany, except for kind of the former East. I didn’t go immediately from that job at the Taiwanese company to a local job; I kind of quit that, used a little bit of that gap to go travelling. I traveled in Africa for a couple of months.

And in the meantime, I was applying for jobs and when I came back, basically got, I don’t know if there’s an official term for it, but let’s call it a kind of a job seekers visa that was a temporary, I think three month visa at the time. So, I just had to prove that, I guess I was kind of… I don’t know if it was because I was living with a local but, you know, I had, you know, there was some money in the bank. I had a, you know, an apartment in Munich and I was actively seeking, you know, a professional job. I don’t know if anybody can just kind of turn up in Munich but as I said, you know, unemployment is quite low and, you know, there… it’s quite an international city. So, if you’re not from, you know, if you don’t automatically get residency in a visa and like to work there because you’re Europeans or if you’re from somewhere else, North America, Australia, or any other country, you know, I would say look into this. It could be an opportunity for you to get a temporary visa to look for something. So I used that time, that three months, luckily I found a great job; I had that for about a year. It was a, not time limited contract but I was, I actually employed through one of their creative agencies for this company, big American, kind of multinational tech company and I actually worked at the client side. When 2008/2009 hit, the very severe economic crisis, the company was looking to just kind of shed anybody they could, so me being a foreigner, being, you know, employed by an external agency I was, and kind of principle of last in first out, you know, I was one of the first to be let go; lots of people including. Actually my Irish friend, funny enough were caught up in that as well. But as happens and I think, I think it’s true no matter where you’re living, if it’s in your home country or somewhere abroad kind of networking with people to look for other opportunities. I actually found something through one of my contacts, which wound up being a great job that I wound up staying in for about almost seven years in Munich. It was really a great fit. And also part of the reason that I thought, well, you know, the original reason that brought me to Munich, the, you know, personal reasons, those kind of ended around the same time and I thought, well, I just got this new job, I’ll… it looks like a good company, I’ll stay there maybe for a year and then maybe go back home to the States. And again, one year turned into two, turned into five and so on. So…

David McNeill: Yeah. No, it’s a great journey that you’ve had in Munich, and I guess that brings us up to your time which started in, eventually in Berlin. Yeah, what was the real reason you decided to move to Berlin. And especially given that you’d had such a great experience at this company in Munich?

Colin Miller: In the back of my mind, and I think I kind of mentioned earlier, I had always thought about leaving Munich; it meant a great quality of life but, you know, a little bit too quiet and that I thought, Ah! I want to go somewhere more exciting: London or Berlin. You know, and I had visited Berlin and it was going back years, but during my time living in Munich, you know, you go for a weekend in Berlin, go see some… I had some friends living here and periodically over that time, and every time I was in Berlin, I thought, ah! This is just a great place and it just feels like a better fit for me, it’s bigger, there’s a lot… there’s just a lot more going on.

So, it was kind of always in the back of my mind that, you know, maybe I’d … Someday I’d explore or move to Berlin. I decided to leave the job in Munich, you know, seven years with the company is quite a long time. It’s not our kind of grandparent’s generation or even our parents maybe when you spend, you know, most of your career, all of your career with one company. I think it’s more typical to move every couple of years but it was a great opportunity, but after seven years I kind of, I just… I felt like I needed a change and, you know, kind of breath of fresh air. And probably a running theme you’ve noticed here; decided to leave and took the opportunity to go travel for a little bit, for a little bit of time and went with my partner who, she kind of had a break in her career for various reasons. She has a medical career and just had a natural break between trainings and so we decided to go travel together. When I returned I was looking at, yeah, again go back to the states, go to the UK, so I started looking for jobs; I was looking in Munich. I… by this time I had gotten permanent residency in Germany. I don’t think I got it right when I could have, which is after five years; there’s different routes to this and there’s a little side note and anybody who’s interested in, you know, life and working and living in Germany can easily find, kind of on the web any answers to these questions. But there’s different routes to this. I had, and had mentioned getting sponsored through my company. After a couple of years you get a visa that’s not linked to an employer and then eventually you can get permanent residency. I think I got it maybe one or two years after I could have. It wasn’t really so important for me, I had a nice job, wasn’t looking to move, but yeah, I locked up the permanent residency so that when I came back from traveling, I could just pick up residency here and work for any employer. So, I took advantage of that, looked for jobs in Munich just as a fallback, I was familiar with it, but focused a lot more effort on Berlin. And because I’ve been mostly in the broadly defined kind of tech space doing kind of marketing and sales for the much of my career, Berlin was a natural fit. There’s a lot of startups and, you know, established tech companies in Berlin. I think it’s become over the years, especially over the last, you know, let’s say five years, a very natural place. So, I found a lot of cool opportunities, wind up taking one that looked like a good fit.

David McNeill: Great! And that just brought you over then and you’ve been in Berlin for a year, a year and a half now?

Colin Miller: Yeah, it’s about a year and a half now. So, I took that job with that company. It was a good fit but as can happen with, it wasn’t quite a startup, it was more of an adolescent company but something change and I looked for a change and again, through networks and kind of, let’s say luck of being in the right place at the right time and also knowing what you want, and in knowing what you want, maybe knowing what you don’t want, you know, what you’re kind of are not looking for in a job, I found yet another one that I started at the beginning of this year.

David McNeill: So is, one other point to talk about as you moved actually from Munich to Berlin, of course the first time that you moved to Germany there were quite a few changes, a lot to get used to, some surprises around the quietness in the area that you were living and so forth. But I was curious, as you moved within the country itself especially after nine or so years in Munich, was there anything in particular about the move to Berlin that was still challenging for you or surprising? You know, how was that experience to actually move within the country?

Colin Miller: A lot of people, I’ve mentioned, you know, kind of friends from Munich saying, ah! Berlin, blah, blah, blah, you know, it’s nice to go up there for a, you know go clubbing, go for a party or whatever, the weekend! But, you know, Munich is a real place where you can live not that, you know, kind of crappy, dirty Berlin. I kind of laugh at that; I can see the differences between the two, I mean, I mentioned, you know, Berlin is bigger, it’s more, you know… we have more conveniences, things, you know, supermarkets are open till midnight, as opposed to closing at 6pm or 8pm if you’re lucky.

But to me, those are very superficial differences. I find that, you know…. Yeah, if you live in like a little hundred person village in the middle, you know, out in the countryside that’s quite different from Berlin. But I think if you look at all the major cities or the kind of tier-two cities in Germany, there are small differences but they’re all still very German to me. They’re much more similar than, you know, Berlin and Austin, Texas or, you know, something like that. So, I kind of laugh when German, you know…. And Germans are very, they’re very proud of where they’re from. You know, how Stuttgart is better than Munich and Hamburg, you know, Hamburg is great but Cologne is terrible. I kind of laugh at those; nevertheless, there was, there were differences even though I was familiar with the city. Again, you know, when you’re living in some place, it’s different than just visiting or, you know, being on holiday. And even if you have some familiarity with it, you know, this is your everyday kind of 24/7 life now and you’ve got to get used to those, and to be honest, it took…. I think they’d say when you move somewhere new, particularly a new country, it takes about 18 months before you really feel settled and kind of comfortable. And I, maybe it wasn’t 18 months, but I think it took a good nine months before I really kind of felt settled in Berlin. I think that that process was sped up a little bit because I knew the city and it was the same country. So, you know, all of those bureaucratic issues that we talked about were quite the same here. So, it was… it was not, I mean, it wasn’t difficult, but it wasn’t like kind of from one day to the next where I felt, okay, here I am, everything’s running smoothly. There was definitely an adjustment period, but not in a negative way. It’s just, I think part of life when you move someplace, even within your own, you know, your home country, you know, moving from one state to the next in the US and you have to get used to kind of how things operate there.

David McNeill: So you moved to Germany about, I guess 10 or more years ago first to Munich and now to Berlin, how have you seen the country change in that time? And, you know, if you had to make any projections about where it’s headed in the future, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Colin Miller: Yeah, that’s a great question as well. And I… probably one of the, well, I wouldn’t say my, kind of favorite parts of my time here, but something that I’ve always been very cognizant of is, it has experienced a lot of change during the time that I’ve been here. I think I’ve been coming to Germany for almost 20 years now and I think when I first came here, it felt very German culturally and just when you, I think when you walked around you didn’t see people from other places, let’s say.

And I think that because, for a lot of different reasons; one, European integration, so making it easier for Europe, people from, you know, Eastern, you’re from Bulgaria, Romania, from Southern Europe, Greece, and Italy and Spain; it’s been in the last, you know, five to ten years much easier for people to move from one country to another, like in the US, where you can easily move from New Jersey, to Texas, to California, to Idaho, or wherever you want to go. So that’s changed things here. But then there’s also people coming from, from all other parts of the world. And it’s not true just in Berlin, in the tech and in the startup scene, I think its true all, you know, all around the country; you know, the economy is good, they need people to work. You know, the population growth here is not huge as it’s true in a lot of kind of developed countries all around the world. So, you need to have people immigrate here from other countries. And you’ve also seen the immigration crisis, you know, people coming from, you know, the Middle East, in North Africa and, you know, Afghanistan and other countries and Germany has been generally pretty welcoming to people from these countries. Although politically it’s been a bit tricky for Angela Merkel but I think, I don’t know what the numbers have been, but certainly I think at least a million kind of refugees and immigrants from these countries that have poured in. So, the makeup of the country has changed quite radically I’d say in the time that I… you know, in those 20 years since I’ve been coming here and in the last 10 plus years that I’ve lived here. And then you look at other kind of external factors; questions over European unification, you know, and you look at Brexit or certain national elections where there might be kind of anti-European candidates running. You look at the economic crisis and the European debt crisis, throughout all of that the kind of common theme has been or common themes let’s say, in terms of people, of characters here; Merkel, again has been in charge of this country and really very, a very powerful figure. And so much so to be, I mean, one of the most powerful leaders in the entire world, probably number one right now if you look at national leaders, and certainly the kind of leader of Europe. Germany has been the economic powerhouse of Europe and the most powerful leader, and the one really fighting, you know, a difficult history, of course, you know, between world wars and so on; and I think has been the one kind of continuous voice the last 10 years of kind of fighting for that ideal of a unified Europe. So that’s been fascinating to watch. And I think with every, you know, every crisis is an opportunity. And I think Merkel and the Germans have really taken the opportunity to, you know, express their voice and exert their influence and then kind of become more powerful. And I think that’s benefited everyone. I mean, people inside of Germany and around Europe that we could be entering, I think we’re entering, getting into a long political discussion; I think, everywhere in the world, that kind of idea, that openness and that sort of unity is fraying a little bit but as I see it right now, I think Germany is in a very good position. And that’s been, yeah, been very fascinating to kind of watch, you know, in my time here.

David McNeill: Yeah. I can imagine and that’s extremely well said. I would echo this sentiments and I couldn’t have said it better myself. You know with that, I really appreciate our conversation together; I would love to hear if you have any other advice or recommendations for people interested in living in Germany outside of what we’ve already covered today.

Colin Miller: Yeah, I… It’s, as I said, I think I haven’t found a place with as good on most kind of metrics and quality of life. If anybody has an interest, you know, whether you’re, you know, a college or university student, and you want to study abroad, or you’re kind of an older, you know, professional and you want that experience and I think you’re hard pressed to find better places to kind of come to for a couple of years or for a longer stretch as I have, it’s… you can certainly find more exotic experiences but, you know, if you want a good quality of life, a good career prospects, you know, study opportunities and so on, you know, Germany is, I would probably put at, you know, very, very high up at the top of the list. It’s a nice life here. So…

David McNeill: Great. And is there any way that our listeners can find out more about you and what you’re up to here in Berlin?

Colin Miller: Yeah, I… Probably LinkedIn is the best place to find me; Colin Miller I believe is my profile. I should be the only Colin Miller based in Berlin. That’s probably the best way to find me. If you’re able to, I’m a hobby photographer; you can also try to track me down on Instagram.

David McNeill: Okay. Perfect. Will definitely put that information in our show notes. And I just want to say once again, thank you so much for joining the Expat Empire podcast today and we look forward to hearing more about your successes and challenges and exciting adventures here in Germany as well as around the world.

Colin Miller: Great. Thanks, David. It was fun.

Outro

Thanks to Colin for sharing his story with us. You can find the full transcript for this episode at expatempire.com.

If you are interested in sharing your story on Expat Empire, please consider submitting a user post about your expat experiences on expatempire.com or email us at podcast@expatempire.com and let us know more about your international background.

Music on this episode was produced by Eli Hermit, please check him out on Bandcamp and Spotify.

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Originally published at expatempire.com on March 18, 2019.