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Are you interested in the weird nature of the German language? Learn more about it on my instagram channel @whyGermanwhy
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I’m also a “Beekeeper” at chatterbug’s community forum! If you have a specific question about the German language or culture, I’ll do my best to answer it there!
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Hello, g’day, and howzit everybody!
I’m Toby and at the moment I’m living at the foot of the Piedmontese Alps where my partner Anna and I are restoring an old country house. Before the pandemic, we lived a nomadic life for about 3 years. At first, we skipped aviation altogether and traveled from Germany down to Australia through 15 countries, always crossing land or sea borders from one neighboring country to the next. This journey took us a full year. If you’d like to get to know me a bit better before scheduling a Live Lesson, check out our website. It’s in German & English! 
“ Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” - Maya Angelou
I’m a commercial photographer, videographer, and editor by profession but I guess my true calling is being a generalist. Every now and then I dip my toe into another field because I refuse to be defined by what I do for a living - and because I love to learn new stuff. E.g. I worked as a roadie in Switzerland, as a production coordinator in South Africa, as a dog walker in the Canadian Rockies, and as a kiwi flower picker in New Zealand.
Besides globetrotting and connecting with fellow human beings, I enjoy learning new instruments: So far I play the guitar, accordion, ocarina, harmonica, and a wee bit of bagpipe. I’m also a serious film geek, and bookworm, love rock climbing, and a good hike with our dogs Peanut and Tofu. 
Well, I’d love to be your partner in crime while learning German. It’s a wonderfully weird, imaginative, and diverse language (I speak a couple of dialects, too). I learned the basics of English in school, but I was able to master it only through frequent conversations with native speakers. And that’s why I fell in love with the chatterbug 
method: it combines a great linguistic background with sturdy didactics and a friendly and open-minded community!
Looking very much forward to our next Live Lesson,
Toby
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If you read this on my tutor profile:
I use my tutor introduction in the community forum to discuss specific questions from my students!
You can use this link and create a post in my thread if you have any questions regarding your last Live Lesson with me 
, or if you’d like to have something clarified because we ran out of time 
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Please feel free to reach out and I’ll get back to you ASAP. 
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. So many adventures and stories! By the way how was it to be a kiwi flower picker 
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Kiwis grow a bit like wine grapes (you live in Esslingen, so you’re familiar with that I guess), so imagine long rows with vine-like plants. I was picking the male buds from the plant, which got later processed for the pollen in a special mill. The pollen was later sprayed on the open female buds to increase pollination and therefore boost the harvest. Bees still do the heavy lifting of pollination, but not every bud opens at the same time and an unpollinated female bud won’t grow into a Kiwi. So for farmers, it’s very profitable to have people helping with the pollination. I stayed for the whole season and picked the grown Kiwis afterward too.
. You’re right it is a hard work and most people do not know how much time and effort is putted along the whole process. Fascinating, Toby!
Thank you very much Toby, nice work!
