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.

ernest - i would say that Tues is the absolute latest you will accept him coming and there will be no discussion about it after that! easy for me to say but hard to stick to face to face!

hope things get sorted for ur ds!

linzer - hope you have a fab weekend away! any reason for it being an austrian bank holiday? who cares really if you're all off! hope you get some nice weather!

Bananas - i got warm and waterproof boots for ds2 last year from aldi! they obviously werent expensive and he had the warmest driest feet of all of us last year! on a lookout for them this year for the rest of us!

So i got through the Frauenarzt altho feel i left a bit of dignity behind! in the UK they always kind of cover you with a sheet but he made me strip off by bottom half in the room then walk across to the chair while he chatted on about scotland etc and it turns out we both know some people!!! felt a bit lacking in dignity! but from a language point of view it was all ok - his english was really good and we did a right mix of english and german the whole time! hope thats it dont till next year!

well off to pick up ds2! have a great weekend!

Sorry we forgot to warn you about the dignity thing at the Frauenarzt, Canella! I'm so used to it now that it slipped my mind. It's common practice here so I always wear a looong blouse or shirt to cover up a bit.

yeah was thinking that for next year westvan!!

canella - Glad to hear you survived the appointment! I almost mentioned the lack of dignity too, but wasn't sure how it compared to the UK... It was quite a shock coming over from the USA though, where not only did the midwife give me a gown to wear if I needed to be examined at my antenatal appointments, she would also leave the room while I was changing into the gown and I had to press a buzzer to let her know it was OK to come back in! I had to undress virtually completely for my check-up at the dermatologist's too; why do doctors always seem to have the changing area as far as possible from where they're going to examine you?!?

bananas - We bought a nice warm (and waterproof) winter coat for DS at C&A last year; it wasn't too expensive either. Have you tried Vögele (can be a bit hit and miss) and H&M? Otherwise, we get most of our clothes shopping done in Bratislava - the new M&S has quite a large children's section (we got DD2's winter coat there), Mothercare/the Early Learning Centre has a small but quite good selection of clothes up to 5/6 years old (although they can be on the expensive side) and Tesco has quite a lot of (fairly cheap) children's clothes too.
Boots are trickier - we've found warm waterproof ones at Humanic at the SCS before now, although they were very expensive. I also like Deichmann for children's shoes; often not too expensive and they have good-quality ones like elefanten too, although I haven't checked out their winter boots yet.

Tues 26th is Austria's Nationalfeiertag, so most schools are closed on the Monday too. Today is a schulautonomer Tag, i.e. our school has decided to close today as well so that we have a longer weekend. I'd much rather have the Friday off at the end of June (in between the bank holiday and the weekend), which is normally a schulautonomer Tag too but apparently it's too close to the summer holidays this year.

Canella, oh yes, Frauenarzt. No one warned me either, and the 1st time I went (about 8 months pg, I was wearing a dress (assuming I could just hoik it up, but was told to remove, so there was I in full pg spleandor, wearing only a tatty old bra. I was mortified! Wear a long top next time... Glad you survived though.

Banana, I'm near Munich.

Ad, I was only considering to make an appointment with English teacher to see if she could possibly differentiate a bit for ds, ie he follow the same lesson and curriculm as the class, but instead of writing out 10 sentences practicing 'The book is on the table ' or whatever, he could use the current grammar topic/theme but do say an essay or creative wriitng incorporating the theme. OIr am I best off just leaving it. Wouldn't dream of going in to have a word with her just cos ds hated her. Hello Mrs X, Ds tells me you scream a lot.

Ernest, yes you could try and ask if the teacher would be willing to let him do extra stuff as long as he can do all the tests and vocab exactly as they learn it in class. Dd got points knocked off in a test for using correct grammar but they hadn't covered it yet so it was classed as a mistake. Teacher said she couldn't mark differently when she has 60 tests to mark and 4 other classes to prepare - no time to check each individual pupil. Oh well, atleast we know we speak correct english, even if it doesn't get full marks in a German Gymnasium!

Did I tell you the car only cost 350euro for the repairs and the TÜV. The week before I took it to a different garage (Pitstop) and they said I had to get the card read at a Bosch garage as they couldn't read it then to come back but I would need both front brakes and the tyres renewed before the TÜV.

The garage dh went to did the whole thing but said the tyres were fine and the brakes didn't need changed either. Won't be going back to pitstop again for sure!

Managed to get ds a winter jacket yesterday so the mild weather could come back - would be typical! And it is sunny today.

Canella, when I saw you were off for your check up on facebook it was too late to warn you about long tops. Also wanted to say - be prepared for it to be alot more intensive than a smear in UK! I had one doctor who checked every entrance and exit on my body with all sorts of scarey tools and her hands. Very uncomfortable.

Bananas, have you seen the Tchibo website? They have good affordable winter boots and jackets but not sure if they are in Austria. My 2 have the winter leggings and underwear from there and it's good quality.

Good morning all...thanks for the boots and coats suggestions. I did not get to the shops as DD was ill, but will look at the ones you suggested. We bought the last pair of winter boots in scandinavia and though they were expensive at around 100 euros each, they have lasted 2 winters...I guess it is worth it if I can get their feet to agree not to grow too much.
glad to hear that the car did not cost too much. I hate the expense of cars and always feel they are ripping me off cos I haven´t a clue.
feeling dreadful as had a bad night...dd (who is 8) had a complete melt-down last night cos she could not get to sleep. (She has had a slight fever for 3 days, and had had some medicine for it). It went on for ages, we started off sending her back gently, then stricter...but she seemed to be in a complete panic attack state. In the end i lay with her in bed, but every time I tried to move back to my bed she would wake up and cry hystrically. She has not been herself since school started but this was extreme. I am off to the dr with her today, will talk to the teacher on Weds, no idea what is going on...all rather disturbing to watch.

Morning. Bananas hope your dd feels better soon. Was teh doctor any help? Good idea to speak to school though. Maybe she's worrie dthat she's missing something? My 2 both hate being off beacuse they miss things.

Both dc got up on time this morning even though they've been going to bed late and sleeping in for the past 2 weeks half term. Bet they'll be tired out tonight.

Dh is still waiting for his repayment for the travel costs of his trip to Athens. It's over 1000 euro. I can see him starting to get really mad at them - they are constantly playing him around at work and to top it all on Friday they introduced a new colleague who has the golden permenant job contract. Dh is still waiting to be offered one, so far we're sure until end of August next year.

afternoon! bananas - that sounds like your dd is really worried about something? hope the school or the doc can be of help! hope you get some rest today!

admylin - glad your car wasnt so expensive! i'm off tomorrow morning to get the winter tyres put on! wont be as expensive this year since I've got them - last year was shockingly expensive for 4 new winter tyres at the same time!

i really splashed out this morning and bought myself some snow boots from Lidl . they are proper cosy warm but bet now that i've got some then the snow wont be so bad this year! we'll have to wait and see!!

but the drama in my wee village this morning was that the Feurwehrhaus went on fire! how ironic is that! I heard the alarm for the volunteers at about 5.30am but couldnt see a fire so went back to bed! but the phone rang at 6.45 to say the school bus wouldnt be running cause its next to the Feurwehrhaus! which is slap bang in the middle of the village right on 1 of the 2 roads to get out the village! then the phone rang again (the village drums were loud this morning!!) to say the dc didnt need to go to school if you didnt want them to! dd was then in a foul mood as we could get out the village at the other end so I said she had to go and that i would drive her! in the end most of the grundschule kids went but not one of the (many) Hauptschule kids! feel like i need to make my first about that!

in the end dont think it was too serious a fire but its still done some damage! and thankfully no-one was injured!

Ooh, excitment in the village canella! Remember when we lived in a tiny village things like that were a reason to meet at the little bakery/tante emma shop next to the village pond to get the news!

The people above us moved out today. They are with the army so had it all paid for. They had a lift up to the third floor to get all their stuff out. Think they could have told us last night though, because by the time they had set the whole lift contraption up I couldn't get my car out of the garage. They've just gone now. A quick knock on our door last night wouldn't have harmed them would it?

Yes, tyres are expensive aren't they. The garage quoted us 700 euro if we wanted new ones but were decent enough to say that ours didn't need changing yet.

Exciting day canella. Any excuse not to go to school for the older ones, eh? It reminds me of teaching in S Spain and the children did not go to school when it rained!! And I am sure you will get plenty of wear out of your winter boots, sooner than you think probably..judging by the speed at which winter is arriving here.

you are right, admylin, it would have been nice to know you could not use your car for part of the day. Let´s hope you get a nice quiet family above you. Our downstairs neighbour (lives alone) has complained about how noisy we are...

I have to do the winter tyres later this week too...fingers crossed.

Took dd to the kinderarzt who prescribed 40 Euros worth of medicine for the flu/cold, including 2 lots of nose drops. She thought the panicky behaviour was about not being able to breathe. This dr is a bit hectic. So, we went straight to the GP, she knows us well and takes her time...she heard the problem about the panic attacks, the unhappiness etc. She prescribed some calming drops and suggested we do take things up with school and go to the Trockene Hose organisation to sort out the bed wetting. Last night was a little better...she managed to go to sleep on her own, though after 1.5 hrs of crying.It is her birthday today and she looks sad plus we had to cancel her fried coming round to play and we can´t go out cos she is unwell...so, off to make a chocolate cake with lot of chocolate and more chocolate.

Oh that sounds as if she is so sad bananas. Hope you manage to make a nice day for her anyway. It's awful when they cry atthat age isn't it. With little ones you sort of expect abit of crying but at that age it's hard.

Neighbours in flats complaining about noise are a mystery to me. If you need utter peace then don't live in a flat with people all around you! We have another neighbour upstairs who keeps ringing the door bell to ask if I heard her ds jump/fall over/drop the toys and to say sorry. I always say no it's no bother at all. She even asked me if it was OK to have her washing machine on a 7am so I said of course it's OK. Noise is something you just have to live with when you live in a flat.

Banana, sorry your dd sounds so sad. It's a horrible feeling. Hope things calm down for you/her.

I mailed the elctriker to give him one last chance - told him I'd been quoted 200 euros to align the dish (which is true btw!) and if he didn't do it I'd get this company to do it and deduct the 200 from his bill!

For the first time ever he called me. And within the hour too! Guess what he said.....

We still haven't heard from our old landlaord (moved out 16th September!) so got dh to email him last night, still the small matter of best part of 7k Kaution. Anyway he says that there were some problems, one was damage to the garage door which was there when we moved in, but dh didn't spot it at Ü bergabe, so dunno if we'll have to lump it and pay. Another thing was that the shower hose was dirty and stained. FFS, these things are plastic and plastic yellows with age anyway. It's a plastic tube that can't cost more than a fiver from Obi, and it's at least 6 years old. Is it just me that thinks that's petty to the point of being weird, or is that normal?

Finally, landlord says that the satellite dish wasn't working and they had to replace the dish itself, the LNB and the multiplx switch, bill 860 euros. Bloody tv worked fine until the day we left. We told him as much and also pointed out that we have 3 programmes on our hard drive which were recorded day before we left, which surely proves it was in full working order. Tell me this will be enough to make him have to drop that. Cheeky bastard. Honestly, we moved out over a month ago and we've not heard a dickie bird from him, then this.

Off to see about getting phone reconnected with someone else.

Hope everyone else got lovely autumn sunshine. It's glorious here.

Sounds like one thing after another at the moment ernest. It'll all be worth it in the end...

The landlord sounds like ours. We got a third of our Kaution deducted because of things that were broken before we moved in but I didn't spot on the Übergabe. The caretaker wrote something but it was unreadable in German style scribble and he was so nice and didn't say anything was wrong so I signed. Have you got a Rechtschutz or can you afford getting an Anwalt to take over? I must remember to join the Mieterverein before we leave this place as I don't want anything to do with the old bat of a landlady.

How is school going this week? How is ds1 liking gymnasium other than the english teacher? Dd had abit of tummy ache last night as she has a dictation klassenarbeit today. She has improved so much since last year but it won't be enough for her to fly through it. It's getting harder.

Dh lost it with Vodaphone yesterday and told them to shove it, so now going to Telekom today to sign with them, so in the mean time, back to no Internet or anything, do I won't be about again for a while

Lanlord can puss off re satellite if we have stuff videos even the day before we can show it was in full working order. Hopefully a nice man is coming in 2 hours to align our dish ( hope sun suddenly cones out as there a right old frost out there, a bit worried about him falling off roof :-0.

Bananas, hope your dd had a better night. Ds1 went through a very sad phase a few months ago, I talked about it on here. Had a lot if trouble coming to terms with grandma's death. I took jim to Kinderarzt as it got so bad, and he recommended I went to Eltern-Kind Beratungstelle. Got conselling basically from the man that runs that, who was amazing and fixed a 2 year old problem in a matter of weeks. It was astonishing. Maybe you could look into if there's similar near you? Important thing was that ds really clicked with this man, who is a really warm and charismatic person. I think the trust, and connection and feel was vital. I'm taking ds3 to see him on 8th November re his school problems so fingers crossed.

Thanks for prompting me to get tyres changed.

Good day to you all and hope to be back soon xxxx

wow, your landlords sound like a nightmare...Ernest,that is a lot of money to be sitting in his bank account when it should be in yours. Esp petty regarding a shower head, unbelievable. Hope you get it all sorted to your advantage. I dread to move out of here...very established, harvard law grads as landlords, eek...I am still trying to come to terms with the 3 month rent we paid the Makler -- wtf did she do to earn that?

i don´t get this owing someone 1000 euros and not paying it, that is a lot of money. And i would be sooooo pissed off at someone getting a permanent job like that. Hope one comes your way soon.

DD did have a better night, thanks. She was more relaxed in the evening and Dh lay on a mat on the floor and did autogenis training with them at bedtime. She went to sleep fine and stayed asleep. She is off school today,as still has a bit of a temperature. I rang the school to say she was not coming in and her teacher answered the phone. I took the chance to ask her if we could have an appointment cos I was worried about DC but teacher replied that everything was fine in school.After a bit of rambling from me, she agreed to watch DC and would ring me if she noticed anything. Not sure what to think of that....esp as did not have a chance to explain things fully. There is a parents evening at the end of the month so I will raise it then. Thanks for the suggestion Ernest, I will have a look if there is anything similar round here.The Trockene Hose organisation has a team of psychologists,etc so they might be able to help too. Hope the man can help with your dc3 too...great to have found someone like that.
Off to face the chores...have a good day all!

I'm very cautious about deposits since our last-but-one landlord went bankrupt and we lost the entire 5000 euros. Makler are such a rip-off too; I remember having to pay a week's rent to our estate agent in London, which I thought was more than enough, and then moving to Germany and discovering that a week's rent is actually very reasonable!

bananas - strange that your teacher wasn't keen on you making an appointment to see her, but at least you have a parents' evening coming up and she knows to keep an eye on your DD now. I hope she settles in soon; I remember there were a couple of girls in DD1's class who took a while to settle in (often off school with stomach ache, etc.) but are doing fine now. It's great that your teacher will make allowances for the younger children; I think that if a child couldn't sit at his or her desk here, the teacher would suggest sending them to Vorschule. A friend's DD (born in August) has just moved from our school to the Vorschule in fact, and I have another friend who is really worried about her DS (teacher has complained he is very slow in class and has also suggested Vorschule).

Ernest - hope you get your phone sorted out soon and that your satellite dish is aligned without incident!

admylin - how did your DD's Klassenarbeit go? DD1 has her first ever test today (they start getting Schularbeiten next year), but I think DH was more stressed about it than she was - she really didn't seem bothered about it at all (not quite sure that's the right attitude...). DH spent quite a long time helping her to revise at the weekend; she had to learn about everything from hedgehogs to the history of the school!

canella - Hope things are back to normal now after your eventful day!

We had a lovely four days in Kaernten (my laptop is playing up and won't let me switch to a German keyboard today!), but it's definitely getting quite wintery now. When we woke up on our last morning, there was snow to about halfway down the mountain on the other side of the lake and we were glad we already had our winter tyres on for the drive back.

Right, must stop procrastinating and finish preparing today's English lesson. The teacher wants the children to learn "I'm ...ing" today and has given me a handout which includes "I'm phoning", but would we ever say that? Maybe if you're dialling the number, but not when you're actually on the phone. That's the problem when text books are written by non-native speakers, although I suppose it's not really a mistake as such. The teacher wanted the children to learn "How do you do?" last week, but I can't see that it's something an 8 year old in the UK would ever say. Must stop worrying about these things and actually get on and do something for the lesson!

tee hee linzer - the thought of my dc saying "how do you do?" - seems crazy! i agree the "i'm phoning" isnt a mistake as such but people would say "i'm on the phone" if they were describing what they were doing. or "i'm phoning admylin" but not just on its own!

but its the same the other way round - some things i learn at my german course, dh says no one says that in day to day life!! not sure how i'm supposed to know that without him! it was a hard morning of german - cases, cases and more cases!! i just dont get it!! there was a big text and you had to fill in the correct case ending to the adjectives! no fecking clue!!! and dh cant explain it! grrrrr!

ernest - sorry life is so crap for u at the moment! surely it must get to the turning point soon!

banana - glad your dd slept better - sounds like she needs some help with her anxieties.

admylin - how did your dd get on? my poor dd is having tests nearly every day in the 4th class! but i'm trying to not put any pressure on her - think that'll make things worse! and she's only 9! seems so early to be having so much stress at school!

well off to sort out the washing! it never ends!

Morning. Sent the dc out into the dark this morning. About time we changed the clocks - even though it's a pain to get used to.

Ernest, hope you are reconnected to us soon! Did you get your TV set up to?

Canella, must be interesting meeting the other students as they're all in the same boat. Where are they all from? I loved my first few German courses because I met people from all over the world.

How do you do linzer! How did the lesson go? Dd always remembers when her primary school teacher brought a pot of peanut butter into class and pronounced, this is what they eat all the time in England! Poor dd couldn't bring herself to start explaining what marmite is so she just kept quiet!

Banans, how is your dd today? Did she go back to school?

Dd said her dictation was OK. They had to underline all the Nominalisierungen (verbs that are written with capitals I think) and she said a girl infront of her underlined in bright green and dd could see that she had underlined less than her. Then the teacher said - after collecting the papers in, I saw that some of you underlined alot of words that weren't nominalised verbs like at the front of the class. So dd is living in hope that she got it right. We'll wait and see. Anyway, she was in a foul mood yesterday so I sent her to bed an hour earlier. Hope it does her some good today.

'Scuse all the mistakes, off to get my coffee.

Morning all, and how do you do. [hwink] It's getting colder by the day here; it was below freezing this morning and my windscreen was frozen (causing a delay I really don't need in the mornings, as we only just made it to the meeting point in time).

I'd never heard of Nominalisierungen before, admylin - man lernt nie aus. [hgrin] I suspect I'll be struggling to keep up with what DD1 is learning at school before too much longer. She brought home her first ever Bildgeschichte yesterday, which was better than I thought it was going to be - the teacher had crossed the second half out, but only because that wasn't what you could see (apparently) in the pictures. Tbh I wouldn't have known that a man holding an apple in front of a barrel of apples was going to be selling them at the market (DD1 had written he was tasting it) - but that's Austrian schools for you (or at least our school): not a lot of scope for creativity.

canella - German grammar is just designed to confuse learners, I suspect. I have problems remembering the gender of nouns, although I've heard that if in doubt, you should guess masculine. I should have remembered that when I was ordering the aperitif at the weekend (well, Aperitif sounds like it should be das to me...). Also, I can never remember adjectival endings after words like viele, alle, jeder, etc. - I just hope that if I speak quickly and/or quietly enough, no one will notice!

Right, must get on with a few bits and pieces before I spend the entire morning on MN. In a moment of madness, I invited four of the DC's friends round this afternoon (two sets of brothers and sisters); with four under 4s, it's bound to be chaos. Oh well, at least I get it all out of the way in one afternoon!

German lesson coming up: Gymnasium, 6. Klasse, Nominalisierung
Wörter anderer Wortarten schreibt man groß, wenn sie im Satz als Nomen gebraucht werden: das Laufen (Verb), im Grünen (Adjektiv).
Das Rennen war kurz.
Das Mitnehmen von Handys ist verboten.

That's the sort of grammar they've been learning. Also recognising signal words and of course getting the spellings right.

Lol at 'I've heard that if in doubt, you should guess masculine' - I always go for feminine and have the dc rolling around laughing at me!

Have done nothing this morning (yet) as started reading that dsd abortion thread. Very difficult to imagine what I'd do in that situation, feel so sorry for the girl and the mum.

Ah, all is clear now - thanks for the grammar lesson, admylin! Next question: what's a signal word?

Well, if it ends in -e or -ei, I would go for feminine too - it's usually easier to tell feminine nouns, but I struggle with remembering whether nouns are masculine or neuter. I seem to remember reading that 60% of monosyllabic words are masculine, which may be where my "if in doubt, guess masculine" comes from! I still remember DH's BIL correcting me when I said "das Baum" - DH is normally the only one to correct me atm (everyone else is too polite), but I'm sure it won't be much longer before the DC start doing so.

I saw the thread title but haven't looked at the thread itself - must have a look later, but I really need to stay off MN for the rest of the morning if I want to get anything done. I've just been pottering around so far, doing bits and pieces, but don't feel like I've been very productive. I was planning on making muffins but am not sure I have enough butter so it will have to wait till this afternoon (even if DS's friend's little sister will insist on helping and half the ingredients will end up on the floor...).

Signal words are : Folgende Signale können auf Nomen hinweisen: Artikel (der, einen...) Präpositionen (zu, fürs) Pronomen oder Zahlwort (ihren, letzten, zehn...) oder ein vorangestelltes Adjektiv.

You can imagine how mind boggling it all gets, especially when dd is struggling to get the spellings correct. Now she has to worry about recognising all the different kinds of words. Teacher gets them to write out a text then says underline all the signal wörter.

In the good old days when I went to school they never taught us grammar beyond verbs, nouns and adjektives. I had to learn it all when I studied French but they realyl go deep into the German grammar here. Remember this is just the start, ds has done some stuff on Satzglieder that just gave me a headache.

Must go and do some work...

i've been following that too admylin - such a sad situation (and not MN at its best when people start their own fights in a thread about something where a poster needs advice and support!).

after my "birds and bees" talk with dd the other month, she's had loads of questions to ask me at random times. I've probably given her too much information since she's only 9 but just want her to understand how serious the repurcutions (?sp) from sex can be (ie a baby at 14!). but she was 5 when ds2 was born and still remembers how much hard work it was for me so hope that puts her off even thinking of babies till she's at least ?30!!!!!! i hope so anyway!

glad you 2 also have trouble remembering the artikels! and linzer it makes me reassured that you cant always remember the endings for adjectives either! but i think dh is right - he says no-one is not going to understand you just because you used "e" on the end of an adjective rather than "er"!!! and i think he's right!

ad - the majority of the people in the course are from countries that previously USSR but since there are so many of these countries i'm not sure where they all are! there's also a few au pairs - one from Thailand, from France and from Kenya and there is a very heavily pregnant woman from Iraq - her baby is due in 4 weeks! but her german is really good - makes me very jealous! But i love meeting all these different people - they have such different life experiences to share!

but the woman who sat next to me yesterday thought i was only 25!! its kept me amused since then!! i'm 36 and have laughter lines!! how did she think that!! maybe cause i dress in the same type of clothes that i did when i was 25!!! who knows but i'll take the compliment!