I have a german colleague at work, which happens to live in the same area we do. Sometimes we take advantage of that and carpool to work. This week – while driving all the way down to Downtown – we started talking about work. During that talk I told her that I am a kind of person that always thinks he can achieve more, do better or set himself higher goals. She told me that this in general is a good thing to do, but that I should give myself enough credit for what I have already achieved over here. That made me think!

If I make a list of the things that I have already achieved in my career, that list ends up being pretty long. I always followed my dreams and even if there were some bumpy roads along the way, I made nearly all of them come true. Even over here I alreay climbed the career ladder a little and actually made my job be the one I always wanted. Another notable thing she told me is that we sometimes tend to not give ourselves enough extra credit for not being natives. For sure everything gets easier by time, but still it is a pretty high achievement to perform better than some of your colleagues when you have to talk in a foreign language all day long.

There are still a ton of goals I want to reach in my career. And I am far away from giving up. But sometimes it is nice to take a little rest and feel proud of yourself. Even if you just do the normal things in life – you do them in another language. And no matter what, that is a big achievement on it’s own!

Even if we don’t miss Germany that much, it is always nice to find a little German touch in LA. German restaurants are actually spreading like crazy over here lately. We have a ton of Bratwurst places and Germany themed restaurants. The one that in our opinion had the best food always was the Red Lion in Silverlake. But on Thursday we found our new german hotspot: The Wirtshaus on La Brea Ave.

The Wirtshaus opened a few months ago and my german colleague actually had told me to try it out since its opening. This week we finally went there with our American friends who happen to love german food. The place is designed really rustic and actually reminds you of Germany a lot. I was more than thrilled to find Bionade, which is a german Soda I love, on the menu. We all shared a Bratwurst platter as an appetizer and had Schnitzel after that. The Schnitzel was really good, but I stopped halfway through to leave a little space for dessert (Apfelstrudel) and to have some leftovers for my lunch on Friday.

We all had a lot of fun, loved the food at the Wirtshaus and will definitely come back when the german cravings hit us again. To really give you a little taste of how good the Schnitzel was: My friend was nagged at the metro station by a homeless guy who wanted her leftover food. She said he was really pushy and scary, but instead of just giving him the food, they decided to run away. When I asked her why, she said: “I would normally have given that guy my leftovers. But this Schnitzel – never!”

In case you wanna try the Wirtshaus (which I highly recommend):

Wirtshaus LA
345 North La Brea Avenue  
Los Angeles, CA 90036
www.wirtshausla.com

I have to admit that Flo and I watch way too many german TV shows about people emigrating to foreign countries. Sadly most of them are super naive and think that moving to a new country means that you won’t have to work as much as you did in Germany. That actually makes me so mad. I hope none of you lucky Greencard winners who are about to move to our new home country, thinks that! Because let me tell you that: Moving here means work! And not only work to earn money!

Besides working for a living – which actually is a lot over here, because living is really expensive – you have to work on yourself in so many different ways: You have to work on the language, you have to work on your social skills and you have to work on your attitude! Because moving to a new country does not only mean joy. Don’t get me wrong: I love living here, I love our new life and I don’t regret that step at all. But I had to be brave in so many situations and that normally is so not me!

Sometimes Flo and I feel like little children or maybe people who study at nights after they did their day job. Moving abroad means being a student non-stop. I would say at least for a year! Sometimes it’s nice to learn new stuff, sometimes it’s surprising, but sometimes it’s also hard! But it also is a huge adventure! One you should appreciate! Even if it means a lot of work!