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!

How frustrating, bebe. Sounds like you're faced with a difficult decision - on the one hand, the more expensive option might be more feasible as you'll only be there six months, but on the other, the smaller place sounds like it has quite a few advantages too. When do you need to decide by?

I've spent the evening working and planning tomorrow's English lesson; I wish I was more confident about teaching but as it is, I like to have everything planned down to the last minute. Fortunately a friend of mine, who's an EFL teacher, has recommended a website that's a really good source of handouts for primary school children so that's saving me a lot of time - scouring the Internet for suitable handouts can be very time-consuming.

bebe...that sounds hard, do take it easy. I did a quick google and came across these, though both require commissions.

Mr lodge requires 1.5 months commission:
www.mrlodge.de/

or this woman requires 1 month commission:
www.lizfrey-relocation.com/

Sorry if this just adds to the confusion but thought I would google as google comes up with different results from here than from the Uk. Fingers crossed for you.

Linzer...good luck teaching today. I hope it goes well. I used to teach english (did a TEFL years ago) and found hangman as a great way to fill time if I ran out of things to do. But it depends on how good their spelling is at this stage!

You poor thing bebe, you don't need this stress now.

This one is also expensive for commission but worth a try as they do furnished and short lets.

Munich is the most expensive city in Germany I think.

Hadn't found that Mr. Living site, so thanks.
Liz had only one property and it was poorly placed (nearish shops, but on busy road, and with no yard, and appeared to also to be far from any park)
We're in contact with Mr. Lodge now, and our contact found the 2 options. He said he'd normally not want to put pressure on the families he's placing, but he said he was amazed at how fast places were disappearing off the lists.
We've said we're siding with the bigger property as overall it looks better placed for family living. We're nervous abt the money tho to be honest, and it looks like it's over an hour and half commuting (on the train alone) Tho dh is thinking he'll try biking depending on how busy the roads are and he figures he could cut it down to about an hour.

I liked the way that Liz said she was good at liaising between different mentalities. And how she randomly capitalised nouns. Nothing to do with her abilities as an estate agent, I know - I just find it hard to switch off the proofreading side of my brain! Hope things work out with the property anyway, bebe. It does sound like a long commute, but at least German public transport is generally quite efficient.

It feels like I've spent all morning photocopying, printing out handouts and making flashcards - I hope I've now got enough material to keep me going for several lessons. Hangman is a good idea bananas, at least for DD1's class. I have to keep reminding myself that most of DD2's class can't read or write yet, so am concentrating more on the speaking with them at the moment (although that's probably the way it should be anyway).

bebe - really hope you get something sorted soon. My brother uses a bike for the last part of his journey to work. He catches a train and bikes the last part because otherwise he would have to hang around too long for a bus connection. He got a really cheap second hand bike that he leaves at the station overnight.

Linzer - I don´t suppose you could let me know the name of the website your friend recommended. I find I waste so much time searching the internet for worksheets. There´s so much infomation out there - it takes ages to plough through it all and sort the good from the bad.

canella -glad you finally got an appointment, but how ridiculous that you can´t go back to the same clinic.

When I taught EFL in France I spent ages making, printing, and photocopying worksheets and coloring pages. :) I found even the little kids, once they learned basic colors/numbers/simple directions, could make arty things when I told (and showed) them how to in English. With the littlest ones songs/rhymes were definitely my friend. Do you sing?

this was one of my favorite sites for making puzzle pages

I sing really badly, but I´ve got an i-shuffle that I can link up to some portable speakers and turn the volume up enough that my voice is hopefully drowned out. I made the mistake of assuming there would be a cd player in the class the first time I taught there and then had to sing without music. Naturally, the children copied me and produced a completely flat rendition of head, shoulder, knees and toes - never again!

Thanks for the link - I haven´t seen that one before.

bebe I do sing - badly - but have lost all my inhibitions since I started teaching as the children don't seem to notice and singing is definitely one of their favourite activities.

hupa Yes, of course - it's this one. The years and months section was so useful for today's lesson and I've printed out four handouts to use (don't expect I'll get through them all, though). Occasionally the English isn't quite right, but on the whole it looks like it's going to save me a lot of time - I used to spend ages looking for handouts on the Internet and would often find something useful only to discover that you had to pay to subscribe to the site.

Linzer - thanks, I´ll have a browse.

My friend also recommended taking an iPod into the lesson, but luckily there are also CD players in the classrooms. I took my netbook in once but it was so quiet (I hadn't realised when I was listening to the song at home) that I might as well have been singing unaccompanied!

we've been accepted at this place (the bigger one I talked abt) Happy that the contracts will be sent out tomorrow, tho I feel all panicky still. Hope it was the right decision and it's just nerves/ hormones making me feel dread.

Just quickly as I am meant to be making dinner.....

It looks really really lovely!:) Can we all come visit?! Fingers crossed it all goes well....

bebe - that looks really lovely. I´m sure you´ll feel so releived when you´ve signed on the dotted line.

relieved

Thanks ladies.
I'm finding myself staring at the pictures and taking deep breaths. Once we sign it pretty much means we're ok to pack and tidy the house. Car insurance still needs confirmation, but we don't think it'll be long for that now.

Dh wants to bring 2 bikes... and I'm debating what toys Moo needs too. Not sure I can fit her bike in the car too.

Phew, so relieved for you bebe! Good luck with packing now!

Yesterday I managed to change the locks on 2 doors (the bathroom and the Gäste-WC) - I was so proud of myself as I'm a real beginner when it comes to d.i.y. The last people who lived here for 10 years painted over all the locks and removed the keys which is OK except the bathroom and toilet couldn't be locked either. Took me ages to scrape the old paint off to get to the screws and figure out how to get the handles off. A lovely man at the baumarkt helped me find the correct replacement locks and I managed to fit them myself too - and they work!

Well, that's how exciting my day was yesterday and today it's mission dust removal! Ashamed to say, you could draw a picture in the dust on the TV at the moment.

wow bebe i want to live in that flat!! it looks lovely! hope it all gets sorted today!

good on you admylin for doing the locks - im such a girl about those kinds of things! Hope youre cracking on with the housework!!

Does anyone know how to switch the keyboard between german and english? dh has put it on german and hes rubbish at answering calls or texts in the day and its driving me mad - everything is in the wrong place (ps - weve got an english keyboard!)

Great news about the flat bebe - it looks lovely!

Canella If you have both languages installed on your keyboard, you can switch between them by pressing ALT + Shift.

you're great linzer!! it had been driving me mad!! the z and the y were swapped round and it looked like comedy german english with too many z's!! thank you!

No problem. I was getting fed up with not being able to type umlauts etc. on my English keyboard, so a friend showed me how to install a German keyboard on my laptop and how to switch between them. You can also switch by clicking on the language button in the taskbar (bottom right) if it's showing.

Hi ladies. Hope yesterday went well for everyone and today is looking good too.

Good job on the DIY admylin :)

So in Germany do they have ellas pouches? or something similar? They're a staple of Moo's 'snack time' routine (and middle of the night wake up -get her back to sleep routine) and I'm wondering if I'm going to need to find/introduce something new.

I haven't seen any of the ells's kitchen drinks over here yet bebe. They do innocent smoothies in some of the supermarkets though!

Had a mad few days and haven't had time to get online. I'm trying to organise a 40th birthday party for my husband - was hoping to book a table in the hofbrauhaus for everyone but they don't accept reservations for the beer hall, only the restaurant. Has anyone been in there? It's upstairs and I'm worried the atmosphere won't be the same!

Congratulations on the flat bebe - when do you leave now?