O du wunderschöner Herbst - life in German and Austria thread

[admylin]

It is a wunderschöner Herbst at the moment isn't it. Lovely sunny bright blue sky with a chill in the air. Shame we're stuck in the house, ds has a flu like virus so the balcony is as far as we'll get.

I'd better get off here too - it's dd's birthday tomorrow and I have to go and get some wrapping paper to wrap her presents. She's started doing those scoubidou braiding games so I got her some of those and a big painting set.

I also have loads of bottles to take back to the shop. Dc take two a day to school and we seem to have missed taking them back for well over a week.

tis a permit brought in three years ago

which we do not have,
which we did not know about

which is a big muddle

and now with wrong information[them not us]
and even a solictor

who says it is wrong

we have a choice of a fine
or a 30 hour stay in prison

tis going to get very silly I feel,

a permit for what cinders?

canella - I can definitely see why you want to do something if your DD is complaining about being bored. Tbh I'm glad DD1 is learning English as her foreign language as I think she'd struggle with a language that really was foreign to her. Her spoken English is fine, but she really needs a lot of writing practice - I think that can wait for the moment though, as we're focusing on her German for now.

Yes, it would be a good idea to take some Vitamin C along with the iron - the doctor recommended it too. I take a multivitamin at the same time as the iron tablet which is supposed to provide 100% of the Vit. C RDA, but I'm sure an extra dose wouldn't hurt (I think you have to take quite a lot to overdose on it!).

admylin - Hope your DD has a lovely birthday tomorrow. Birthday season is in full swing here - two of DD2's friends have their birthday on Sunday (the same day as me), DD1 and DD2 have been invited to another friend's party on Sunday too, and DS will be going to two more parties over the next week or so. We had a 15% voucher off at the toy shop last weekend, but unfortunately I only knew about two of the parties then!

Cinders - I've never heard of this permit either; what's it called? I still don't understand why you should need it if EU citizens are supposed to have the same rights as Austrians - it sounds like a bit of a money-making exercise to me. Maybe the bureaucrats who introduced it felt like they didn't have enough quite enough paperwork to deal with...

dh
has taken all the paperwork with him to work

Im a tad upset over it
as we are now agreeing so to speak
to only having lived here for a few months

because of the incorect information,that they are using

im

till later anyway.

Sounds good if you have a solicitor to help cinders.

Anything nice planned for your birthday Linzer? Apart from chauffeuring dc around to parties?

Dd's presents are wrapped and hidden. This afternoon we have to go to the supermarket to get her choice of drinks and snacks for her 'party' on Friday. We're taking her to an Australian restaurant tomorrow night as a treat.

well
it would of been if he had not
changed his mind on everything
the solictor that is

well
will see what happens,

hope your dd has a lovely birthday Admylin

Canella
my dd always has taking part in the English lessons

she did moan about it in the past,

ds is helping his teacher
or so he says

The Australian restaurant sounds good, admylin - I remember going to one in Frankfurt years ago. DD1 wants to have a sleepover for her party this year, but I'm hoping to be able to talk her out of it over the next few months!

My only plans for the day are to take the DDs to their party (luckily DD2's other friend isn't having her party until Thursday), although we might go out for breakfast. We usually go away for the weekend between my birthday and DH's in early November (instead of presents), and have booked a few days at a Kinderhotel in Kärtnen at the end of October. It was quite hard to find somewhere that was still open, as a lot of places seem to close at the end of September.

Cinders - it all sounds very frustrating; I'm glad we haven't moved to Austria within the last few years. Can you cheer yourself up with a trip to Bratislava? It often works for me. I hope DH has brought some nice things back from London, but I'll have to wait until he gets back from work to find out (tempted as I am to have a look in his suitcase).

ohhhhh

Id peek

but I am the one who used to open all my presents if I ever found any hiden

ds gone to play with a friend

so
to bake or not to bake

Hi everyone! Lots of new posters here, that's nice to see.

Admylin - so sorry to hear about your m-i-l - very sad and stressfull for all of you.

Too bad the Sauerbraten didn't turn out. My mother makes a lovely one, marinated in the fridge for days and really delicious, but I've never tried to make it myself.

Last night I made Zwetschgenknödel - plum dumplings rolled in browned butter and breadcrumbs and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. A nice, healthy, balance meal. NOT. My m-i-l always gives us a ton of prune plums from her garden so I need to use them up. I'm going to make more dumplings today and freeze them so we can have some in the middle of winter.

This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving so we're going to Metro today to try to rustle up a small turkey so we can have our traditional little feast on Sunday. No one likes my turkey stuffing so I will just be eating it all by myself!

Canella - all I can say about English lessons is "grin and bear it". My two were born here and are fully bilingual but we realized early on that there's not much you can do about them being bored or not being challenged in English class. It does get more difficult in Gymnasium and mine rarely get top marks, usually because they substitute different vocabulary words or grammatical structures than they're currently covering in the class and the teacher takes off marks for that. We just laugh (in private at home!) at the teachers' odd pronunciation and mistakes.

Linzertorte - I was anemic several years ago due to heavy menstrual bleeding (one reason for having my hysterectomy) but my doc also checked for intestinal bleeding which you sometimes be hidden. I had to take something called Ferro Sano Duodenal - horrible huge iron pills that gave me the worst heartburn.

I'm not sure if my kids have to clean this Friday. It is very common and they have to bring their own sponges and cleaning rags to school and scrub everything down.

I will be SO glad to get off this predisone mid-November. It puts you in an awful mood and I really don't need that.

And Happy Birthday to your dd a day in advance, admylin! She must be so excited.

Yes, she is excited westvan - she can't wait to be 11 at last like most of her friends! Both my dc turned up early today, last 2 lessons cancelled. Dd has her friend here as she forgot her house key so she's waiting for her mum to finish work. We'll have to go shopping abit later!

I remember eating Dampfnudeln in south Germany with vanilla custard. Very tasty fresh from the oven. Is that similar to plum dumplings? Have a good Thanksgiving on Sunday! Are you having guests too or just the family? Is your mum better?

I wonder if I have to give dd cleaning stuff then? A sponge and cloth, maybe a bucket? The worst thing (she says) is that they have to scratch the chewing gum off the underside of all the tables.

Oooh, i'd be too impatient linzer, go and have a peak and tell us what he brought. You can pretend to be surprised when he unpacks later!

11 is such a sweet age.

Dampfnudeln are usually made with yeast and then either steamed or baked. Soooo good. There are different recipes for the plum dumplings but I used a potato dough - cooked potatoes, flour, egg, salt. A pitted plum and a sugar cube go inside and then they're simmered them in hot water for about 10 minutes. It's all a variation on a theme, I guess.

My mum is doing much better, thanks. She's got her medication regulated and is sleeping much better without all the heart palpitations.

If they don't say anything, you could just give dd a dustcloth or something. Last year ds14 said he HAD to have some of those magic eraser sponge thingies so I went out and got some at Schlecker but usually they don't care that much as long as it looks like the kids are doing something. Mostly they just wipe off the tables and dust a bit to get rid of the worst of it.

It'll just be us for Thanksgiving but that's the way we like it. I'm too scattered right now to do a big dinner for guests.

Morning everyone.

And Linzer, what did you get in the suitcase??

Had to take dh to work in the car as he missed his bus. He's getting fed up with the working atmosphere which makes the home atmosphere abit fed up too. Now he's applied for a job as professor in the middle of the USA near Denver I think

Forgot to book the table at the Australian restaurant yesterday, bad mum. Hope they have a table free (but I think they will) when I ring at 5pm when they open!

After all that anticipation, the contents of DH's suitcase weren't all that exciting in the end! Food and books for the DC; magazines and a few other bits and pieces that I'd asked for for me. DH said he'd wait till the DC were in bed before he gave me the things he'd brought back - it turned out to be the two magazines I'd asked for plus two more, and two newspapers. I almost asked, "Is that it?" but didn't want to sound ungrateful! I was most excited about the Tangle Teezer he brought back, another thing I first heard about on MN - it works wonders on the DDs' hair. I know he went for the conference and didn't have much time for shopping so I know IWBU to expect very much; it's just that he didn't seem to bring a great deal back considering the size of his suitcase!

Did your DH hear back about the job (or was it jobs) in Canada, admylin? I don't know much about Denver apart from the fact that it's near the Rocky Mountains, but a former colleague of mine spent a year or so in Colorado (Boulder, I think) and really enjoyed it. DD2 is very keen to go to America for some reason; she's brought home a couple of friendship books where she has to write her greatest wish, and has written "to fly to America".

Hope your DD enjoys her birthday today admylin and that you manage to get a table OK - I'm sure you'd be very unlucky if they were fully booked on a week night.

westvan - My MIL always used to make Marillenknödel (apricot dumplings); I wouldn't have minded them as a dessert, but couldn't get used to them as a main course. Thankfully they now seem to have vanished from her repertoire. Sweet main courses are quite common here, though; Kaiserschmarrn, Palatschinken (with jam) and the like are quite often on the menu at Kindergarten.

Hope you have a good Thanksgiving - I was quite confused as I was sure it wasn't until November, but then reread your post and realised that you're celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving. DH wants to cook a Thanksgiving meal next month (I keep telling him we're not American, but he just won't listen); I think it's just so that he has an excuse to cook a turkey!

Oh well atleast you've got something to read linzer! I'm all out of decent reading material at the moment too. Could do with a trip to an English speaking country! In the US we bought a few books, must admit they weren't cheap either. Aren't books cheap in the UK?

Dh didn't hear back from Canada that's why he's carrying on with applying for jobs when good ones come up. There aren't that many assistant professor jobs in his area. Last place he applied is in Aurora, Colorado.

Actually my 2 dc are keen to go to America since they found out that often a grade 2 in Germany is an A grade in the USA (something to do with the percentage) and especially ds would be a straight A student - so he thinks!
Here dd has one teacher who says more than one mistake means she can't/won't give a 1 in a test.

Westvan - is Metro something worth seeing or is just the biggest shopping centre on your side of town? Don't want to miss a visit if it's got something other shopping centres don't have!

I've heard that Colorado is a nice place to live, actually.

Admylin - you can only get into Metro if you have a company card - dh has one from work. I wonder if your dh could get one? They're a sort of wholesaler that sell to retailers like restaurants, small shops, kiosks etc but also to private customers. They have a large selection and a lot of stuff that other supermarkets don't have, especially frozen meat and nice fish, tons of cheeses etc and they sell things in huge packages. It's a bit messy and not cheaper than anywhere else, I find, but we go there now and then and we did find a 10 lb baby turkey there yesterday so we're happy. Our Edeka usually doesn't have them until closer to Christmas.

Linzertorte - my dad is Austrian but emigrated to Canada when he was in his late 20's so he's always going on about Palatschinken and Kaiserschmarrn and Knödel etc. Up here in the north they consider rice pudding a main meal.

admylin - happy birthday to your dd - hope she's having a fun day!!

linzer - i'd love if dh brought me those things back! my dh brought me back some kind of liquour drink even tho he knows i dont like liquours!! but my SIL shamed him into buying me some perfume after he got back!

i'm also out of books but flying to scotland on sunday so will be stocking up and borrowing from friends and family!

no use on the chat about america - i've never been!

Well, we had a nice meal at the restaurant last night. Dd was happy with it and today she's got her friends coming (and one sleeping over!) so I'm trying to get her birthday cake ready.

She has wished for a sort of Obst Torte which she has described to me but I've never made. We boufght Wiener Boden cakes and lots of fruit (peaches, tinned pears, oranges) and I have cream but now where do I start...? 'Oh, and it has to be decorated nicely, not just plonked on mum..'

Glad your DD enjoyed her birthday meal, admylin - how is the cake coming along? DD2 always wants a kind of fruit tart for her birthday but luckily it's very easy to make; we buy the base, put lots of strawberries (and sometimes other soft fruit) on top and then put Tortengelee over it all.

canella - Rereading my last post, I do sound quite ungrateful; after all, DH brought me back everything I'd asked for plus a bit more! Hope you have a good trip back to Scotland; will you be going for the whole week?

westvan - Interesting that your dad is Austrian; did he speak German to you when you were growing up? My dad is Welsh but didn't see any point in speaking Welsh to us when we were growing up in England - but we then moved to Wales when I was 13 so I had to start learning Welsh more or less from scratch at school.

I've just made an appointment at the dermatologist's as my GP has recommended I go for a Muttermalkontrolle. I've only ever been to see a dermatologist once here (about a mole on DD1's foot); he was a grumpy old man and we had to wait hours (1.5 IIRC) because he's a Kassenarzt - I definitely didn't want him looking at all my moles, so I'm going to see a Wahlärztin that the GP recommended.
I have just realised, however, that I am turning into an Austrian, as a) I am now prepared to travel to a different town to go and see a doctor, b) I no longer mind paying (something I was always very set against before - although I should get 80% back from the Krankenkasse).

The DDs have decided they want to walk all the way home from school today, which will be the first time that DD2 has walked (she normally finishes earlier than DD1 so I pick her up from school, and I generally pick DD2 up halfway as she claims her school bag is too heavy for her to walk any further). I can't wait until they're all walking/cycling/scootering to school, but it will be a good few years yet.

The cake is in the fridge, think it looks OK but the cream was a mistake as I can see it melting before they eat it! It's OK though, there are chocolate muffins too and the Raclette is set up for their meal.

It is nice when the dc start getting more independant isn't it? My 2 leave for school alone and come home alone now that we've moved and I've even sent them to the shop one evening when I noticed something was missing for the meal. Dd is planning on going into the centre of our Stadtteil for a pizza with her friend who is staying over tonight. Honestly, I don't think they'll want one as there is so much food here!

aw glad she had a good birthday admylin! think the cake sounds like you did a good job! My dh hates when his parents bring out the Raclette - too much "faffing" for him!! but i like it!

i agree about the independence thing - dd is able to do her own thing in our wee village! and ds (6) is also allowed a bit of freedom to walk down to the village hall - I'd never of dreamt of that in the UK!

linzer - that sounds like the kind of cake my ds wants for his birthday next saturday! they are the easiest to make! I'm only going to scotland from sunday - weds - dh is off all next week and wanted to spend some time with him too but we couldnt all go to scotland since dd is at school! but i'm taking a big suitcase to stock up on stuff! ah tea bags! cant wait!

hope you all have a good weekend!

Hope the Obst Torte tasted good admylin.

Canella - I think the greater indepence for children is one of the real advantages of living here rather than in the UK. My friends are always really surprised when they hear about what dd is allowed to get up to on here own.

We´ve just had visitors who have got a 9 week old baby. I have to say that even though she was really cute and didn´t cry, I didn´t feel the least bit broody. The thought of sleepless nights and changing nappies are obviously too fresh in my mind even though ds will turn 6 this week.

Are any of you able to suggest a few holiday activities for a family to do in and around Vorarlberg? Two children, aged 14 and 12. We'll be going in Fruhling and I thought if there were austrians about you might be able to point me in the right direction.

A cable car type thing would be good. None of us ski, though.