Moving to Berlin...

[Charlielouis]

...with a 1 year old, don't speak German and my husband works all the time! any advice on English play groups or generally what to do with a baby there?

There are a few women's groups there. It's ages since I lived there but there was an American one and and general international one. One of them had a waiting list for British members as they couldn't have more than a certain percentage of one nationality, I got in because I'm Irish. I didn't have kids at the time but I think both of them had baby/toddler groups.

I'll have a google and see if I can find them.

I've been in Berlin for a long time and it's a great place to be if you don't speak much German.

Your first stop would be the Berlin board of toytown Germany

toytowngermany.com

Toytown has a section on family life in Berlin, with a toddler meet-up group, and you can ask advice on where to find English-speaking doctors etc.

There's the Berlin Women's International Club:

www.biwc.de/

More American than British is this one:

www.awcberlin.org/

I was sure there used to be a British Women's Club 10 years ago but I can't find anything about it now.

If you're into church stuff there's St George in Westend, which also has an English-language breastfeeding circle, for instance. There's an American Catholic church in Dahlem, can't remember name.

If you want to put the baby into a nursery when s/he gets older (3 is normal here), there are plenty of choices for bilingual Kitas. We chose the Tom Sawyer Kinderhaus in Dahlem, which is Montessori and very modern. The JFK nursery is also popular. You need to register them a long while in advance, so looking round for places will give you something to do.

Although if you're forces you might not be in Berlin for long anyway. I haven't seen army people here for a long time - will you be up in Spandau? Spandau is a long way from anywhere, unfortunately, but there's a good underground into town.

They were the first two that came up when I googled.

BIWC
AWCB

Not as many people spoke English in Berlin as I had expected (compared to somewhere like Frankfurt) so it would be worth doing some German lessons if you can find childcare. I was there 10 years ago and all the adults who had grown up on the East side of the wall had learnt Russian in school so didn't have any English at all. The Goethe Institute was good, if a bit expensive. The Goethe also had a scheme that matched locals wanting to improve their English (or other language) to foreigners wanting to improve their German. I think they tried to match by area and interests, so they might have a German mother with a small child to match you with which would be a great way to find out what's good with children.

The Berliners are generally very abrupt and tend to bark at you, Germans from other cities find them very rude. It's not aimed at you personally, just be zen-like about it and you'll stop noticing after a while.

I found the Time Out guide to Berlin really useful even though it's intended for holiday makers.

Are you going to use a relocation agent? I found it really useful to have someone who would deal with stuff for me like the phone and landlords given that I didn't speak any German when I first moved there.

Good advice from bran,but things have changed enormously in the last 10 years and there are far more English speakers now, even in the East.

The Goethe Institut is def the best school, but really expensive. I didn't know they run a tandem programme, but there's also the Tandem school in Prenzlauer Berg which does the same thing.

www.tandem-berlin.de/

bran is also right about the rude Berliners. They view rudeness as a competitive sport and think it's hilarious. I find being rude back is far more therapeutic than going all Zen about it, but that's personal choice.

I found the Rough Guide more useful when I first got here.

There's a website somewhere in English on Berlin for Kids.