Well, since I have been here a month and it has been a little cold outside for exercising in Westpark (which is beautiful and right next to my apartment), I have joined a gym here in Munich.

We checked out a few different gyms here in Munich and I was very shocked at the prices and poor quality of gyms we found. We started by going to see a gym called Body & Soul (I wanted to go there because it used to be an Elixia - which is the gym I went to in Oslo that was amazing). I could not believe that the membership was over 100 euros per MONTH! AND the gym, in my opinion was pretty crappy. I was not happy and did not want to go there.

So then we found McFit. As funny as the name is, it is not a bad gym. This gym is open 24 hours, which is really amazing and only costs 17(ish) euros a month. A HUGE difference. It reminded me of 24 hour fitness back in the US. It had the same kind of feeling there. The only big problem for me is how bad it smells like B.O. in there.

Yes, most gyms smell. They usually smell of a lot of sweat and some B.O. But this gym really amazed me at how much it smelled like B.O. Its like a gym full of people who belong to the church of “I don’t believe in deodorant” who were working out very hard and smelling very bad.

Need to find a good gym to workout at in Germany? I suggest you check out McFit!

I also don’t love the treadmills they have at McFit (and this is what I use the most at the gym) but still because of their prices and hours this is the gym we chose to join. The treadmills have these awkward low and long handrails on them. They are too close together so when you walk and swing your arms you are constantly hitting them. And for some reason on the right handlebar this is a big black protruding object, that I don’t know what is is for or why it is there, that I hit my hand on constantly. Its not very pleasant.

PLUS those handrails that you constantly are hitting while working out shock you every time you touch them. Like an electrical shock. I don’t know if its the air, or what. But for some reason I am being shocked every second of my workout, and that’s super annoying. But I am still happy to have a treadmill to work out on, even these ones.

My solution to the problem of the smell is to just wear craploads of perfume, so that when I am hot and sweating I am only smelling myself. Although this is a good idea in theory, it has not really worked as I planned. Because no matter how much perfume I wear, when someone who smells extremely strong of B.O. gets on the treadmill next to you, the perfume is NOT what you are breathing in anymore.

Well, the truth is that smell or no smell, I am really happy to have a gym membership and a place to work out now. And all-in-all I like McFit (so far).

What gym do you go to in Munich? Tell us about it in a comment below!

So now I have been in Munich, Germany officially for one month now. We are getting settled into our new life here and its been very nice. I am a little surprised at how cold it has been though. When we arrived at the end of February it was sunny and fairly warm. It really felt like spring. But about a week later it started snowing again and it was like winter came back for a while. It is still really beautiful but just feels like it should be time for spring to come soon. (Note: I wrote this post about 5 days ago, and since then…spring has definitely come! It is BEAUTIFUL here!)

We are attempting to buy a used car in Munich right now and have had some funny experiences with that.

We spent a lot of time on autoscout24.de (like most people in Germany looking for used cars do) and found a few used car dealerships that had the car that we were looking for. We thought it ‘feels’ safer to buy a used car from a dealership than from a person (doesn’t mean its true, just felt better). Well we went to the first dealership and found a big used car lot with a bunch of numbers offices that were in small trailers around the lot.

I was waiting for someone to come up to us to ’sell’ us a car - isn’t that what car salesmen do? Especially used car salesmen? Well, no one came up to us and we walked around looking for the car we had come to see. Everyone working there happily ignored us. I thought it was very strange.

We finally found the car we came for on the lot, but no one to let us test drive or see inside it. So we looked for office #12 (which is who supposedly was selling it - according to the Internet advertisement) and could not find it anywhere. There were offices 1-10. So we asked around and of course no one knew.

So finally we called the number on the advertisement and the person said “I am not ever there, but since your there I can meet you in 45 minutes”. This was very annoying, so we left and went somewhere else.

we went to another used car dealership/lot. When we arrived we were still ignored by the sales people (but now I am used to it). We found the cars we wanted to see. So we went to the salesman and told him we wanted to see inside and test drive this car.

He asked us if we were exporting it and we said no. We told him that we moved to Munich and are living there now and we are looking for a car. He said okay, no problem. Then he said this is the price, there is no negotiation, just so you know. We were like, okay, whatever…what are you supposed to say to that? And also that he only accepts cash. We thought that was also a little strange considering this was a pretty huge car dealership.

So we wanted to drive it, so he gave us the keys and said “go drive around for 10-15 minutes”. When got in the car, we noticed that there was no gas in it at all. we went to him and told him. He proceeded to just open up his wallet and gave us 10 euros and told us to go to the gas station and get it ourselves. :) I thought that was really funny…we were laughing about that.

So we took the car to the gas station and put some gas in it, and drove around for 15 minutes or so. It was so strange to me that he did not go with us (which is what ALWAYS happens in America when you are buying a car).

Well, we really fell in love with the car and definitely wanted to buy it. On our 15 minute drive we even went to the bank and got the cash we needed to buy it. We were so excited.

When we got back to the dealership we told him we wanted to buy it and went into his office to do all the paperwork to buy the car. My husband was asking many questions and clarifying many points (since this is the first car we were buying in Germany, we had a lot of questions).

My husband asked him about the German law where if anything goes wrong with the car for the first year, the seller is responsible for it. He just wanted to know more about this ‘warranty’.

The dealer looked at him (mind you this was exactly when we were going to sign the contact to buy the car) and said, “I am not going to sell you the car”. Of course, a little confused, my husband asked some questions and the guy had just decided that he was now NOT going to let us buy the car. He said that if we would buy the car for export using our Lithuanian address he would sell it to us. Otherwise he would not sell it to us.

Looking for a used car to buy in Germany? Start here:
AutoScout24.de
Mobile.de

So we left a little disappointed that we could not buy this car that we fell in love with. But we were really thankful that we did not buy it because we think that he was planning on saying that we were buying it for export - even though we were not. We think that he believed that since we were so new in Germany that we did not know about the ‘warranty’ laws and might not notice if he registered that he sold it to us for ‘export’…even though we clearly told him the first moment that it was NOT for export.

He only changed his mind about selling us the car once we made him aware that we knew about certain laws. I am sure he was planning on selling it to us as a car for export weather we knew about it or not. So although we loved the car, we are very thankful to have not bought that car from that dealer.

It was a crazy experience with the test driving alone, getting the gas for ourselves - then ultimately having the seller decide at the MOMENT we were going to sign the contract that he would not let us buy it. But I think it all worked out for the best in the end.

So we are still looking for a used car in the Munich area. Wish us luck! It looks like we might need a little of it :)!

If any of you out there have some tips or advice about buying a used car in Germany please help me out by leaving it in a comment below!

Well, it is official. My residence in Europe has now officially changed. We have  moved out of Norway and our new home is now in Munich, Germany. It is a new adventure and I am really loving it so far.

Of course my website is still a great place to find a lot of information about Norway and moving to Norway, so just search around my site for that information. I will try to bring you just as much great information about living in Germany as I get settled here.

So to start, here are just a few random pictures of Munich. Nothing amazing, but just a few sights I have seen since I have been discovering my new city!

Click on the pictures to see them larger.

This is one of the coolest things here (I think). It is the Allianz arena where the football/soccer teams play. Above is a picture of it during the day and below is a picture of it lit up at night.

You can see that even the dogs drink beer here in Munich! :) Just kidding, but this was a cute picture my husband took while we were in the famous English Garden in Munich.

This is just a picture of a snow storm that we woke up to two days ago. It seemed like spring was coming when we arrived here but then in one night it changed and we woke up to a beautiful blizzard. It was really pretty though!

Well, I hope to be writing much more about living in Germany for you all to enjoy….as I do enjoy sharing it with all of you!

Side note: If there are any expats in Germany out there reading this…we need advice and tips on how and where to buy a used car! Thanks!

Well I have finally left Los Angeles again after being there much longer than originally planned. Now we are in Frankfurt and have traveled around Germany just a little bit the past few days. Then we are on to India again.

I just wanted to share a few pictures that I have taken on this little trip in Germany. We arrived at Frankfurt airport then went to stay in Mainz, Germany for the night. With some of our frequent flier miles we had we got a suite at the Hilton in Mainz. It was very fun. But only for one night.

So since we had a car for a few days we drove to Cologne. We only stayed there for one night, but it was fun to see. It was snowing so much on the drive from Mainz to Cologne. We survived and made it there but the road conditions on the way there were terrible. Here is a picture I took on that drive. (Click on the pictures for a larger view)

Then once we got to Cologne it was night time. We walked around a little bit and saw this beautiful gate. I thought it looked so cool with the full moon right over it and the snow on the ground.

The next day like good tourists (that we are usually not) we went to the most famous place in Cologne. It was the Cologne Cathedral. I did not expect much of it and did not think I would be very impressed. But I was wrong. That place was HUGE! Just its size alone was awe inspiring. I really enjoyed seeing this beautiful place. It was worth going to see.

After seeing a little more of Cologne, we got back on the road to head back to Frankfurt. It was not snowing like the day before and the road conditions were MUCH better. The drive took less than half the time since the weather was so much better, and that was really nice.

I am sorry to say, but in my opinion Frankfurt is boring. There really is not much to see. But we did go to the old part of the city to see what there was….but it was not much, in my opinion. Here is a picture I took of the old city in Frankfurt.

Although Frankfurt has been pretty boring, I did enjoy this sight the first night we were there. At night it started snowing again, we were in the city center where there is a big pedestrian area with many malls and stores. In the distance one of the huge building was lit up so pretty in a green light. It just looked really magical with the snow falling and how everything was lit up.

It looked a lot cooler in person, but here is what I got with my camera.

Well hope you all enjoyed my few pictures from our quick trip to Germany. Off to India tomorrow. Hopefully I will get more pictures to share with all of you!

Have you been to Mainz, Cologne or Frankfurt Germany? Do you think Frankfurt is as boring as I do? Tell us about it in a comment below!