The German Government has approved a 70 billion Euro deal to save Hypo Real Estate bank. The financial crisis has therefore finally reached Europe, and it has done so in full force. I do not know how bad the situation of banks is here in Germany, but I can imagine that the loss of trust in the system is going to cause a great deal of agony in the near future.

I am not really worried, yet. But I do wonder how many hits the financial system can take before it starts to sink. It is important to remember that actual numbers on a balance sheet matter rather little if panic sets in and the dreaded “run on the banks” begins.

I do have the gut feeling that the situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Got out of the plane and this is what I saw:

It’s like 9°C here at night. Unbelievable – California is colder in June than Germany is in January.

Today a friend of mine from Frankfurt visited, and so I actually went downtown a bit. The English Garden is actually quite nice, and we walked until our feet hurt. Didn’t take nearly enough photos – I am always shy of being “the tourist”.

I fell asleep for a few hours after I got home. What can I say; I am just an aging geek.

It turns out you can actually see the alps from my apartment… sort of:

I hadn’t noticed this before. As you can see it’s just a little gap in between the buildings, but hey, it’s still kind of nice.

I live somewhere in there.

On our way back from Schloss Neuschwanstein we got stuck in a pretty bad traffic jam, that delayed us for about 1.5 hours. Donnie and Andreas took some photos of it:

What had happened? Two cars collided with the barrier between the lanes, and it seems a third one crashed into them. We saw the cars when they got towed away, they were completely totaled, and the central barrier had actually been ripped out of the ground. The passengers and drivers were brought to the hospital by emergency ambulance. There’s a German news article about the accident; it seems the injuries were not so bad, but there’s an impressive photo of the damaged car.

Today, I undertook a road trip with two of my co-workers to see Ludwig II’s famous castle.

Some night views from my new apartment.

To show off the new image layout, as well as to give you an impression of where / how I live:

I’ve arrived in Munich. It’s good to finally be “home”, especially if it’s a new one. My move’s mostly complete, with a few odds and ends left. It went pretty well. I already unpacked most – but by far not all – of my stuff and the only thing I actually seem to have lost – so far – is one cup. Not even a very special one. Life continues.

My first day on the new job went pretty well; I like the new company a lot. Got a shiny new notebook to play work with, too. And did I mention I get to battle spammers on the actual front lines?

I haven’t really seen much of Munich yet. My feet are killing me because of all the walking I did last week, so I am not even sure if I will go out on a discovery tour this weekend or not.