Wandering through the medieval streets of Bremen, Germany.

Here comes another post from our newest YG blogger, Kristi Fuoco.

Great music, great beer, soccer mania and ridiculously old buildings. It doesn’t get much more European than that. My first venture outside of Hamburg made for a true German weekend away. The quaint city of Bremen is just one lovely hour train ride away via Hamburg’s Haupbahnhof (main train station.) Here’s my tip – travel in a group if you can and you will cut your train travel costs down significantly. Make friends with scary looking people in the train station if you must and your single fare will go from around €21 down to €10 if you can travel with a group of three or more. Or, you can opt in for a Probe BahnCard through the Deutsche Bahn (German train) system and buy a discount card for 25% or 50% off train travel around Germany.

Getting a package stuck in customs can be a pain. But if you know what to do, your packages are less likely to land there! Photo (cc) flickr user miskan

Friday morning on my way to the Mainz customs office, I would have looked like a raving lunatic had anyone else been around to see me. I muttered loudly, cursing, as I hobbled down the empty street leading through an industrial park to their offices.  Why the customs office doesn’t just open the packages they confiscate, look at them, and send them on I will never understand. The stereotype that Germans are an efficient people may ring true in many cases, but it is rarely true when it comes to the country’s bureaucracy.

You may have heard about the lions of Munich.  Though most are of the more traditional variety (that is, statues adorning old buildings), the city has been home to a number much more colorful beasts as well…

An example from the 2007 lion parade in Munich. Photo (cc) flickr user spikeyhelen

Another Munich painted lion, 2006. Photo (cc) flickr user fionasjournal

Photo (cc) flickr user Rusilik

A warm welcome to Kristi Fuoco, our latest Young Germany contributer.  Kristi has recently moved to Hamburg and will be blogging on her experience getting settled in Germany.

There’s nothing like a new city to overwhelm your senses and excite you in unexpected ways, especially a European one. For my first blog post on Hamburg I decided to let the photos do most of the talking and feature some of my very first shots of the downtown area (and a few others thrown in for good measure) on this “Wordless Wednesday”.  Saves me writing a thousand words, right? Lots more photos to come soon!  All photos copyright Kristi Fuoco.

My first time driving in Germany…was in a sleek little Porsche! Photo (cc) oliverlindner

A lot of my blog readers and people I meet ask me how it happened that I decided to move to Germany. Well, the short answer is that I got a job au pairing in Frankfurt. But the long answer I’m addressing in a serial. This is part seven. You can read one segment each Friday on Click Clack Gorilla about how I decided to move to Germany and become an au pair, or catch up on the segments already published here.

“We’d like to see you in the office.”

This week’s Wordless Wednesday photos show a few magical glimpses from the city of Wiesbaden.

Photo (cc) flickr user Kay Gaensler

Photo (cc) flickr user Kay Gaensler

Photo (cc) flickr user Kay Gaensler