leise rieselt der Schnee - for all those lovely people in Germany and Austria or whoever wants to join us!

[Canella]

a new wintery thread in honour of Hupa's first snow of the season!

Thanks for starting the new thread, Canella!

Only four days to go until the first snow of the season here, if my iPod is to be believed.

we've had sleet this afternoon - does that count?

I think it does - it's definitely wintery rather than autumnal weather, anyway.

Have just been talking to a friend whose DD is the same age as DD1, and she's already put her DD's name down for three or four Gymnasien. The Gymnasium that we were thinking about for DD1 is apparently very chaotic (something I've heard from a few people) and we're now also thinking about a Gymnasium in Vienna, something I'd virtually ruled out before because of the distance... Oh I don't know, I'm feeling more confused than ever!

Btw if anyone in Vienna would like a ?5 voucher for Strassl hairdresser's, I have a voucher that we don't need!

Hi! Well, it looks like most of the children will be staying home tomorrow, including my two. I asked them if the teachers or principal had said anything but it seems it wasn't really discussed except to ask who would be there on Tuesday and who wouldn't. All the teachers have to show up and I guess they'll have a large police presence during the day. Most likely a stupid little kid who thought it was a bit of fun, but when they catch whoever did it, there's going to be big trouble, I'm sure. The principal said in her letter that it had caused a huge disruption in the school community. And this is a school in a smallish city, you could even call it a village, where NOTHING ever happens.

I went downtown today for a couple of hours but I was sooo tired I decided to just come home again. And it's getting cold! We had to go to Oma's yesterday to eat a goose and I was freezing the whole way there. They say it's supposed to start snowing here on Thursday or Friday and we're having a huge new window put in. Dh is taking out the old one ( one of those 70's Glasbausteine things about 2m x 2m) on Thursday and we'll have to live with the wind whistling through until Friday morning when the experts come to intall the new window. Should be an interesting time.

Dh made it to Nürnberg today so I'm assuming he'll make it back safely tomorrow. There was another incident in Hannover on Friday where they found an abandoned plastic bag with a back pack inside and had to blow it up or whatever they do. False alarm but you do wonder if someone is doing these things to cause panic and disruption.

Back later!

Great welcoming title, canella thanks!

Westvan, bet your 2 will enjoy the extra lie in! It's serious though and I'm wondering if it'll be reported big time or rather hushed up as it could easily be copied. There are plenty of fed up dc in school who wouldn't think twice about the consequence of writing that.

I braved going out quite late with dd when ds went to table tennis club and although it wa sraining it was quite mild so either the temperaturte changed dramatically or I was having a good old German Kreislauf problem most of the day!

Linzer did you hear from your dh again? In the news I heard the Reichstag building and surrounding area is all closed off to the public now too.

I think this land lady is getting to me, I dreamt that we were being arrested (by her) and everyone in the prison was a lawyer and they all said you can't be arrested for that (for what??) but we were and then the door fell off and everyone escaped...must be careful what I eat in the evening...

Wonder how Ernest is doing with her connection troubles.

I'm not surprised most of the children are staying at home, westvan; no matter how unlikely it is that it's a serious threat, as a parent you just wouldn't want to risk it. Whereabouts are you in Germany?

admylin - It does sound like your landlady is getting to you; I bet you'll be glad to see the back of her when you come to move out!

DH texted me last night but didn't really say much, so I assume everything's OK. I hadn't heard about the Reichstag being closed off; DH assured me he wasn't going to be in any public buildings, but I pointed out that he was still going to be using public transport. At least he's in Dahlem all day today (until tomorrow morning, in fact), so should be fine there!

I ordered the TomTom for DH from Amazon last night; thanks for all your advice, admylin! I saw it on offer in Libro yesterday and almost bought one there as they only have it until tomorrow, but decided to check on Amazon first - and was glad I did, as it was over ?20 cheaper. So that's most of my Christmas presents sorted (admittedly I don't have many to buy, and DH bought all the children's); just need to make a start on my cards now.

Hi from Switzerland! Are you all ok there? Is the threat concrete and are you all nervous? It all sounds a bit worrying...

We got ours on Amazon too, always worth checking for offers.

Where do you hear all the info about Hannover Westvan? I have a local radio station tuned in but always seem to be out of the room or not in the car when the news is on! Do you get the local paper every day?

Linzer I also don't like the fact that dh will be on the S-Bahn every day when he is in Berlin although he won't be on at rush hour. Dahlem is one of the nic areas isn't it? I never explored that far when we lived there, stayed in my Kiez (Mitte) and went to the tourist places once or twice when people visited us.

Hi Sauerkraut, where are you in Switzerland? I'm in Austria so not too worried about the terrorist threat here, although DH quite often travels to Germany (he's in Berlin atm in fact).

Yes, Dahlem is fairly quiet and residential; not very touristy, although it does have a few museums (where I whiled away quite a few hours when I was an au pair). The FU (where I did the third year of my degree) is also in Dahlem, although I lived in Charlottenburg both years that I was in Berlin. I did lots of sightseeing when I was there as I arranged it that all my lectures/classes were only on two days a week, so had the rest of the week off. It was quite an easy life, looking back!

Yes, university life seems really easy going in Germany. I had friends who didn't like to get up early so they never had a lecture before 11am and only had one day a week where they had to be in earlier. None of them seemed to be in a hurry to finish either, they would rather take it slow and spread the work load over even more months!

Aren't the museums in Berlin amazing. Did you go to the museum insel area in Mitte? We lived near there (Mon Bijou Park) but they seem to be constantly changing things, building work every where and doing the museums up too.

It's just a completely different system and mentality, isn't it? I knew quite a few "eternal students" when I was there, who just didn't seem to bother if and when they would graduate. I remember saying to my ILs at DH's graduation that he'd been studying for quite a long time (six years) and my MIL looked at me as if I'd gone mad and told me how quick DH had been! (He was actually the second in his intake to graduate, and would have been first if he hadn't gone to Berlin.)

I used to spend hours in the museums in Berlin; I remember it took me several weekends to see all the museums in Dahlem. I must have visited all the museums on the Museumsinsel too, although I don't think there was quite as much there at the time; the Egyptian museum was still in Charlottenburg back then, for example. We wanted to go to the Museumsinsel when we were there in June but the queues were ridiculously long, so we went on a boat trip instead.

Dh lived with a couple of architecture students for a while. They were both in their late twenties with no sign of them ever being close to finishing their degrees.

Well the snow didn´t settle here, but I took dd to ballet yesterday which is only about 12km away and there was 2-3cm on the roads.

admylin - if you still fancy London have you looked at the price through binoli. They are a partner of Air Berlin and the prices are much cheaper than booking the flight and hotel seperately.

Westvan - are the school any closer to finding out who wrote the threat?

quick hello

brrr

Ernest - have you managed to sort your connection? Any snow yet?

Thanks hupa, that's a good website. will save it for future reference. The great offers that are available don't work when you put all our family details in though so they must be fully booked for my dates. We're going to have to force ourselves to go against our rule of planning ahead and book for summer or Easter atleast!

By the way, when you book now for summer do they take the money in advance, like right now or just before the trip? If so we'll have to wait until next year to book anayway!

Hi ernest, hoepfully that quick hello was from home and not from a starbucks hotpoint!

Are you looking for a double and twin room, admylin? In most hotels we looked at, the doubles were already fully booked around Christmas time. We're usually limited to family rooms as the DC aren't old enough to sleep on their own, unless DH and I sleep separately - but even then, we'd need one triple room.

Have only had a quick look at the website, but it looks like one of those kinds of sites where you normally have to pay the full amount when you book. Whenever we've booked a hotel in London, we've just had to give our credit card details but don't pay until we're actually there, but you often have to pay in full when flights are involved.

Not sure what sort of room, a family room would be OK but not if that means the dc have to sleep on a sofa bed together. Usually these search machines online don't let me get that far, as soon as I press search after giving family details and ages of dc they stop showing the good deals.

Looks as if ds, who is 12, counts as an adult now too. Did you book your hotel direct by phoning the hotel of your choice? I could try that, as I can find flights that don't cost a fortune so it's just the hotel I would have to try and sort out.

Anyway, I just stood on the lid of the bin in the kitchen so I'm looking online for a new bin - what's pedal bin in German?

Pedal bin = Treteimer! What a strange name.

I'm supposed to be cleaning up this tip and I still have ton to do but I'll be back later.

We booked the hotel in London online - most hotels seem to have an online booking system or at least a form that you can fill in and they then get back to you (but I can't be bothered with that; I like to book online straight away!).

I wouldn't have known that pedal bin is Treteimer. I wonder if there's a different word for it in Austria, as the word for bin is Mistkübel here. Not Tretmistkübel anyway, as I've just googled it and only got four hits!

Morning all.
Just looked across the street from our balcony to see a massive plastic father christmas hanging out of someones window! Behind us out of my bedroom window someone has sprayed fake snow on their window and put fairy lights all around the edge of their balcony. Am I late in getting into the spirit of things? Don't feel like any of that yet..

Have they all gone back to school westvan?
Still searching for a Treteimer, just don't need a luxury expensive one! Found a damp patch in the bedroom yesterday where everything was freshly painted in August, right in the corner of 2 outside walls. It's in our room so atleast the dc's rooms are OK but it's so annoying.

Hello again. I'm in a village near Baden, near Zürich, LinzerTorte. Where in Austria are you? Do you like it there?

Hi SauerKraut, I'm near to Vienna - also in Baden, in fact. There are confusingly rather a lot of them, but ours is the "bei Wien" one. What takes you to Switzerland and how long have you been there? I really like it in Austria and in a lot of ways feel more at home here now than in the UK.

That is early for Christmas decorations, admylin - they've got them up in town here now, but I haven't seen any in people's homes. I always feel like I'm breaking the rules by putting our Christmas tree up in mid-December rather than waiting till the 24th!

DH texted me last night to say that he'd heard that Air Berlin pilots would be on strike today so he wasn't sure whether he'd be back this evening. However, I've just been looking online and it seems like the strike has been called off so fingers crossed he'll make it home tonight after all.

Hi!

Yes, all the kids went back to school today. There was a small article in the paper this morning saying that nothing had happened and that about 10% of the students (there are 1000 in total) actually had gone to school on Tuesday. They're still working on the case and whoever did it could face a jail term or a heavy fine depending on his/her age. Terrible thing to do. The warning was apparently scratched right into the desk.

Admylin - we've been subscribing to the Hannoversche Allgemeine daily newspaper for years and I really like it. It has a world news/Germany-wide news section, a Hannover section and also a smaller newspaper with news and event listings specific to where you live in or around Hannover. We get the Calenberger Zeitung because we're in the so-called Calenberger Land out in the sticks. They also have a website where you can read most of the news and if you have a subscription, they let you log in and read the e-paper as well. www.haz.de

Hope you'll be able to find a bin soon! You migh try one of the building centres like Obi or Hornbach.

LinzerTorte - we live way up north in a small town called Ronnenberg just south of Hannover.

How are you doing with the school search? They're starting to consolidate the Hauptschule and Realschule now into something called an Oberschule and people are a bit worried about how that's going to work out. When we were deciding on a school for our two we checked out the kooperative Gesamtschule in the next town and found it to be just too big with too much going on and the integrative Gesamtschule didn't have a very good reputation. We decided on the Gymnasium one town over because it's pretty small and has a nice, calm atmosphere. A new head started a couple of years ago and she's not that great, but the assistant head seems to have things under control.

Hi to everyone else!

I agree westvan, the 2000 pupil gesamtschule was just too big and the one where my 2 go now is great with the calm atmosphere too and they are happy there. I think if we had to relocate back to Berlin it would be difficult to find a new school.

Yes, good idea Westvan, I have to go to Hornbach at the weekend so will look at bins there.

Anyway, just got back from the shops, one present found and still one to go for my dad then I can get the parcel ready. Told them today via email that we told friends to visit over Christmas and then we'll be going for 3 or 4 days in a nice hotel to relax before dh starts a big new project in January. Also said I would book for Spring or next year when they will be available.

Big news on the shopping front - Real supermarket now does drive-in shopping! You order online, they shop and you just have to collect it at a drive in point. They even bring it to your car. I'm going to try it next big shop. Now we just need them to start delivering!
Half our problem (although it isn't really a problem) is that dh doesn't get Christmas as he was brought up in India so it's nothing special for him. Atleast he's taking time off to have a few days this year, other years he's worked. He used to work at a maternity hospital and always took the Christmas eve shift, the German colleagues loved him for it!