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.

but now got 2 hours free time so going to get off MN and do nothing! ahh bliss!

Canella, that thread made me think I need to have 'The Talk' with both my dc soon.

Wow, somuch to catch up on.

Ernest - glad the move went well and hopefully you´ll be reconnected soon.

It´s interesting to read about the lack of creativity in German schools. I went to parents evening last night and the teacher is planning to do a lot of creative writng this year. The class had written a poem last week and lots of the parents were complaining that it didn´t rhyme. The poor teacher was trying to explain that poems didn´t have to rhyme, but the parents were having none of it. Maybe it´s not totally down to the teachers that they are so prescriptive if parents react like that all the time.

As an aside, dh is meeting a Herr Wanka next week. What an unfortunate name. I think I´d change it by deed poll if that´s possible in Germany.

admylin - thanks for the explanation,. I´m dreading it when the dc need to learn this stuff.

I really need to have a birds and bees talk with dd. She´s nearly 8 and has never asked a single question. I´ve been waiting to take the lead from her, but realise time is getting on so I´m going to buy her a good book for her birthday and explain the facts.

DD2 was asking me some birds and bees type questions not long ago and I was completely unprepared for it, so just waffled my way through without really telling her anything! I need to be more prepared for next time, although I'm not sure I'll need to have the talk with DD1 for a while - she's nearly 9 but completely uninterested in, or rather unaware, of it all.

hupa - There's a Trafik in Linz called Wanke, which I was a bit about when I first saw it but I don't think I even notice it now! I also had a (German) friend in London whose surname was Schittly; not exactly an ideal name in the UK either, although she never complained about it and I didn't like to ask!

canella - That's exactly it; people will understand you even if you use the wrong ending and I'm sure that most Germans/Austrians don't notice half our mistakes (or that's what I like to tell myself!).
Wow, that's great to be told you look 25! I was often still asked if I wanted a child fare at about that age and was told by a woman at work that I didn't look old enough to be married (I was 27!), but sadly that all stopped when I was in my thirties and I rarely get taken for any younger than I am nowadays. I think the laughter lines and odd grey hair must be giving me away. [hblush]

In Texas they wouldn't serve me a beer until I'd shown my passport! No way I look under 21 but they insisted!

My dd is 11 (just recently) and she has never asked questions. I was just thinking - how should I start. I can do the anatomical side of it first maybe, we've got loads of books for that too, dh's anatomical and phsiology books but it's the rest that's difficult. I know why I want to be careful though because i remember when my mum told my sister and I we were horrified for years!! Ds is 12 and not into girls yet but a couple of his class mates are.

Hupa, tell us if you find a good book will you?

There is a family in our town with the surname Kloschies, but everyone says Kloschiss, so the children have reverted to using their mother´s maiden name - can´t say I blame them.

Until I was in my late thirties, I often got mistaken for being younger than I am, but it seems to have stopped now I´ve hit my 40s. Mind you people always think I´m younger than dh which is always pleasing because I´m actually 4 years older.

admylin - I´ve seen this recommened on here and the reviews sound good, but I haven´t got round to orderin it yet.

oh hupa - that man's name is terrible!! but doubt it means anything so bad in deutsch!

i had have the "talk" with dd - she'd been to my IL's for a few days and think they'd left her in a room watching the telly in the eve and i dont know what she saw!!

but she came home and asked "mum - whats sex and what does it have to do with getting babies?". no room for beating about the facts there!!

so i explained it all - what actually happens during sex, why people do it, how it makes a baby, contraception, feelings, everything!!

didnt obviously tell her it all at the one time but the first time we were snuggled in her bed so she didnt have to look me in the eye if she was embarressed!

she was obviously shocked that dh and i had done the deed and 3 times at that!! think i've got some more explaining to do! but i've put the fear of god into her by explaining that ds3 came despite us using contraception! hope it sticks with her when she's older!

Oooh, lots of new posts, must catch up. No time now, I've been on the internet long enough today already. SO hard to get off and do other things, isn't it? I'll be back!

gosh, lots to catch up with...from german grammar to birds and bees.

I can´t remember gender either so there is little hope in then getting the adjective endings right. Oh dear...but as mentioned here, I don´t care when I speak - just good as swallowing endings. But writing is a nightmare...no room for camouflage there.

On names....We live under "Dr Wanke"!

On birds and bees, that book looks good. My eldest two know that babies come from an egg in mummy and a sperm in papa. But they have never asked how papa gets the sperm into mummy´s tummy..and at 8 and 6 yrs I have not gone into it yet. I remember being shocked as a child...I can remember I learnt about it on the school bus from another child!

Intersting about creativity...my two go to a state school which uses Montessori methods and they are pretty creative so far. I guess it changes when they get older...

DD1 is still home with a bit of a temperature though looking a bit better she still looks tired. Going to bed was fine, but she woke me up in the middle of the night to say her tummy hurt. Luckily she went back to sleep quickly. Got to do a Protokoll this weekend where we measure everything she drinks (and note when) and then measure everything she pees out for 2 days and, trickier, 2 nights. Oh, the joys, but I can see how it is crucial to the bedwetting business. And the youngest is potty training so lulu (how is that spelt?) seems to be theme of the week!

canella, great complement! I also enjoy the german classes for the mix of nationalities.I went to one class where it 19 out of the 25 were turkish young men...I was the Alte Oma there. On the first day we had to do a getting to know each other exercise and had to establish if we had anything in common. One guy looked at me and said "I don´t thing we have anything in common". I found it hard to believe somenoe could be born in 1989 - that is not a date of birth, that is when i started uni! But I got on with quite a few in the end...respect for the elders and all that....

Must go nurture little ones...

admylin - went to do my homework for tomorrows class - heading was "Grammatik - Adjektive - Nominalisierung!!!! spooky!!

Spooky indeed, canella! I just asked DH if he knew what Nominalisierung was and he said, "Is it when you use a lot of nouns in a sentence?" He claims he never learned it at school - I felt quite smug being able to explain what it really meant thanks to this thread!

Lol, if we all help each other with grammar tips we'll come across as being great at German!!

Sent my 2 dc to bed early again tonight. They need it. They've been slowly getting later until it got to after 9pm on school nights but I've put it back to 8pm now. They have the classic excuse - 'everyone goes at 9 mum, some even stay up til 10 so it's only fair if we stay up'

I try to have my three in bed by around 7, 7.30 at the latest - they definitely need the sleep, as they're still tired and often very grumpy when I wake them in the mornings. My mum always insisted we had an early bedtime (I can remember arguing that "everyone else" went to bed at 8) to preserve her sanity, and it's only now that I understand why! My SIL has always been a bit about us putting the DC to bed early, however; her two have always run round until all hours. Once when we were staying with them, DD1 kept trying to climb out of her cot (it only happened there as the cot sides were much lower) and I remember SIL saying, "We never had that problem with our DC as we only put them to bed when they were tired." I'm still annoyed about it!

This thread - in fact, MN as as whole - is great for my German! I learned a new phrase on another thread recently ("jammern auf hohem Niveau", on an expats thread I think) and have been reminded of it recently with all the protests about child benefit (the age limit is being reduced to 24). DH actually said when we were discussing it at the weekend that it's "sudern auf hohem Niveau" - the Austrians just don't know how good they've got it a lot of the time.

bananas - Hope your DD is feeling better today. Good luck with the potty training; it's great when the youngest is out of nappies! I can't wait until we can get rid of the nappies entirely, but DS is still in them at night. I keep trying to persuade DH to use Lulu with the DC rather than wischeln (sp?), as a) it's a nicer word IMO, and b) everyone uses Lulu here. It's probably too late to get him to change now, though! It's funny how much words vary from region to region; I was convinced that Vopper (sp?) and Batterl were the normal Austrian words for dummy and bib, and then moved to NÖ and discovered that people do use Schnuller and Lätzchen in Austria after all!
I thought of you when I was out shopping this morning btw as I was looking for chorizo; no sign of any at Billa so I'll have to try Spar like you mentioned.

Right, must go and lug the rest of the shopping up from the car - twice as much as usual, as it's our turn to take the Gesunde Jause to Kindergarten next week.

I've just got back from shopping too - and gave the garage a quick tidy. It's down a slope and all the leaves get blown in as soon as you open it.

Poor dd, she keeps getting t-shirts or trousers out of her drawer and saying oh this has shrunk! I have to keep reminding her, no mum isn't shrinking all your clothes, you're growing! I'm going to try and order some basics on the m&s website I think. I'm fed up of going round shops and finding her size is sold out or there's nothing she would wear (she has an aversion to pink and hanna montana which rules out 80% of all girls clothes)

Have you all adopted the warm mittagessen ritual here? Out of habit I always made the hot meal in the evening but since we moved I'm trying to do it at midday. All the dc's class mates seem to go home to a hot meal at lunch time so I thought I'd try it. I'm still not used to it but they do eat it all and don't mind the cold abendbrot style food in the evening.

Viele Gruesse.

Just lurking a bit as a slightly homesick half German person.

I adopted the hot lunch, cold evening meal ritual for the DC when DD2 and DS started staying at kindergarten for lunch. DH also has a hot meal at midday at work so just makes himself a Jause in the evening. I'm sticking to British traditions though, with sandwiches at midday and a hot dinner in the evening!

The other thing I can't get used to is how early lunch is. When I worked in Germany, everyone would go off for lunch at 11.30 am - not only was I not hungry by then, it also made the afternoon go on for ever. My ILs also like to eat at about 11.30 - my MIL usually asks when she should have lunch ready by but I know I'm pushing it if we say much later than 12. She always asks what we want to eat as well - one day I'd had enough, and told her that I always looked in a recipe book if I didn't know what to cook!

Hi BoffinMum - did you grow up in Germany?

So do you reheat the lunch time food for yourself in the evening? I plate dh's food up as he never gets in early enough to eat with us.

I try that on the dc, what do you want to eat today, and I always get - nothing. As if!

11:30 is abit early isn't it? We have lunch at 1:30pm here because that's when they get in from school. in Berlin they had school until ten past two which meant us getting home at quarter to three and their lunch time hunger was over and it was too late to give them a big meal.

I found that quite an unhealthy time as they took plenty of snacks to get through the day at school and then just snacked at home then some evenings they were tired and didn't eat their hot meal properly.

Hi BoffinMum, which area are you from in Germany?

Sometimes I heat up whatever the DC had at lunchtime, but more often than not (if they don't have a vegetarian meal for lunch) I just get something out of the freezer as I usually make and freeze extra portions. Or, if I'm feeling particularly lazy, just have something like a boiled egg.

I can see that 2.45 would be too late for a proper lunch - could your DC have had a hot meal at school in Berlin? Mine could only have lunch at school if they went to the Hort, but they finish by 12.45 at the latest which isn't too late for lunch at home. What time do your DC start school in the morning?

They start at 8am here but in Berlin it was 8:20 which was easier! Ds is so eagerto get to school he sets of as early as possible. One day he was ready to go at 7am but I made him stay until 20 past. We only live a 10 minute walk from school (that's slow walking too)!

No, the hot lunch at their Berlin school was for Hort dc too so my dc came home. It was a mess really as the hort dc would go for lunch at ten past two but they went in year groups because the room wasn't big enough for all at once - some of the dc weren't getting lunch until 3pm and the parents were complaining.

hi all, just stumbled across this thread. How lovely to see all these MNetters in Germany/ Austria. I live in the UK but visit Austria (mainly Salzburg) quite regularly.

Wondering if anyone can help me - everytime I go I get really high mobile phone bills so was wondering if its easy to buy prepaid SIM cards in Austria? or do you have to have a registered address as you do in Italy for example?

Sorry for the hijack!

hi all
My lot eat at kindergarten/hort...they get a warm meal there. I make a warm meal in the evening, but that is only because I don´t have to do one at lunchtime...making two hot meals would be too much work! hmm...you have got me thinking...what do you feed them for dinner? At the weekends we sometimes have a cold lunch, but they complain about it...so I have taken to sticking in the oven and calling it pizza.

Linzer- where are Vopper and Batterl used? Never heard of wischerl either- where is that from? where is your DH from? Hope you find the chorizo, it´s packed up near the other sausages and next to a catalan fuet... also very nice.

My 8 yr old girl has the same problem with clothes...she is in the 134 size now and they all look so teenagery. uurgh. It is really hard to find some trousers for her that are not skinnies.She is still off school as had a fever. I think I am taking her back to the dr again in a whle....I shall take my toiletries and duvet and just camp out in the waiting room...I seem to spend so much time there.

Another long weekend here, with Monday and Tuesday off. DH is working through the weekend it seems. I am not looking forward to 4 days being stuck indoors (due to one feverish one), alone, with all three causing havoc, and the neighbour complaining. Must think of some coping strategy...MN?!?!?

bananas - Thanks for the tip about chorizo; I'll have a look tomorrow. DH is from Oberösterreich, about 20 minutes from Linz, and his family all speak the impenetrable (to me) Mühlviertel dialect - his sister generally switches to Hochdeutsch with me, but his parents can't speak Hochdeutsch so I rarely understand more than about half of what they say. Thank goodness the accent around these parts is a bit more comprehensible! How does your DH cope with the Austrian accent/dialect? Sympathies wrt long weekend - DH will also be working on Sunday and Monday (he'll be in Turkey, in fact), although at least we won't be stuck indoors - weather permitting.

Hi 2009 - what takes you to Salzburg? I'm not sure about prepaid SIM cards but will ask DH if he knows and get back to you.

admylin - I must admit I'm not looking forward to the even earlier starts when DD1 goes to secondary school, as the Gymnasium she's most likely to go to is on the other side of town from us and starts at 7.30 am. Fingers crossed she does get into one of the two Gymnasien anyway, otherwise it will mean a train ride for her.