Sommer, Strand und Sonne - life in Germany and Austria

[LinzerTorte]

A thread for all those living in Germany or Austria, and for anyone else who would like to chat.

The news from Norway is awful, so many young people, teenagers dead. Amy's death wasn't really a surprise but very sad as she had a great voice. Ds said she's joined the great choir in the sky with Elvis and Micheal Jackson.

It's a strange summer isn't it - such cold weather, doesn't bother me as I hate the heat but we haven't had it this cold for years. I keep thinking typical - I just bought ds some shorts after ages (months) of searching and brought the fans up from the cellar!

Took the dc out this afternoon - don't know how i managed to talk ds into it but he came, dd took her wave board and he had a go too - I said I would get him one, or even a skateboard but he always says no, maybe I should just get him one.

Having a lovely glass of French sekt now that a colleague of dh brought from his holiday, very drinkable.

Thanks for the kind words and hugs! He had been kind of ill for ages, but it was a steep decline since the end of April. We are all "grateful" he went sooner rather than later, and with no pain. My mother has support in Spain - her own brother, and my brother and his children (my brother's in-laws are also very close and lovely people).

Canella-Happy birthday!!!!! Did you manage your no cooking weekend?

admylin - sounds like you should just get him a skateboard. Well done for getting them out. I am taking notes because I am sure to need them in a few years time.

Linzer - we do need to start the anti-sweet campaign. Yes, let's pm about meeting up.

What a grim weekend for Norway.

Must get ready to go to work. Hope you all have a good week, and perhaps some sunshine too?

platanos - can understand being grateful in a way as sad as the whole situation is. I really felt that way when my grandmother died. Sometimes life just seems too painful & awful due to illness that death would at least let you know they are at peace. Glad your mum has lots of good support.

The situation in Norway is so horrific - just unfathomable that anyone could murder all those people in cold blood.

Read about Amy Winehouse - such a tragic situation but inevitable when so much drugs are involved. Feel heart sorry for her family - they always seemed to be trying to get her back on track .

Thanks for the birthday wishes - had a lovely weekend and stuck to my no cooking! Sadly suffering this morning with a dicky tummy - i never cope well with eating out (?IBS) and eating rich food but will put up with it since it was my birthday! Dh excelled himself by buying me a present that I really wanted (nothing huge - a box set of dVD's) but he's bought me some random presents before so I was v chuffed.

Last week of school here finally - but got our annuversary tom then dd's birthday and then I'm going to Munich to see Take That on friday . Busy week ahead!!!!!

Sounds like you had a nice birthday canella. What did you have for your meal out? Sounds like a busy week for you but it'll be nice to have school finished. Is kindergarten also closed?

I've been nagging at the dc that late nights and getting up almost at midday mean that they are too young for the late nights as adults go to bed late but can get up the next day! Seems to have convinced dd, she'll go earlier now but ds has just got up to prove his point that he can cope with late nights still.

It's a cold wet day again, strange summer this year. Shopping day for me as the fridge is empty again.

I dread the summer holidays a bit as dd is the same as your 2 admylin. i like my free evenings and then making the most of the days but dd will also wanting to lie in till 10! But I like your reasoning! Might have to use it on dd . Yes Kiga is closed for 3 weeks but dh is off for 2 of them and we're going to Austria for a week so plenty to keep them occupied.

Had steak at a grillfest on Saturday then cake yesterday afternoon followed by pizza yesterday evening. Think salad might be a good idea today.

Have fun food shopping - i need to tackle the washing - got mountains of clean and dirty clothes. Will be needing some podcasts to get me thro.

It's cold and wet here too; I'm hoping the weather picks up by the weekend when we're off to Zell am See for a few days.

Glad you enjoyed your birthday Canella. Even though I wished you a happy birthday on FB yesterday, I've only just realised that you and DS have the same birthday! His party went well in the end, although we decided we really had to get out so took all the children for a ride on the little train that goes round town - they loved it and it killed well over an hour!

admylin Our three have been having quite late nights (for them) since the summer holidays started and were going to bed at around the same time as us when we were in Italy, but unfortunately a lie-in for them means till around 8.30 am!

platanos It's good that your mother has family support in Spain; it's so difficult when all your family are far away. Hope you have a good week at work - at least you won't feel like you're missing out on any sunshine!

It feels like it's the first day of the summer holidays here even though school broke up three weeks ago, as we've either been on holiday or the DC have been out in the mornings up until now. DS is already wanting to watch TV but I've told him he has to have some breakfast first! I'll def. have to try and make some plans to go out if the weather stays the way it is, as I can't just throw them all out into the garden. Some friends mentioned that they might be going to the delightfully named Bogi Park today (soft play), but it's in Vienna and I'm not sure how easy it is to drive there.

Back from shopping, took both dc just to get them out of the house and seeing as ds was up early for once! I spent a fortune, remind me never to go the Real centre, we always go mad and spend twice as much as a usual shop but don't have half the things I really wanted!

Anyway, ds is happy, he spent some of his money ona new mouse for his laptop and is trying it out now. Too fancy for me, he has to programme for some reason.

Linzer did you decide to go to the soft play park? I find that I can get to most places if I have my TomTom to guide me and I can click the option not to go on the Autobahn!

Canella, don't worry about late nights for your dd as long as you can get her out of the house and running around and playing they do get tired enough to go to bed at a reasonable time but ds just sits around so isn't ready for bed. As Ernest said, a garden with a few sport items (trampoline, pool, scooter etc) is usually a good help at getting them tired! I spent a while online looking for a better flat or house for us but I think we'll have to consider moving abit further away from this area as there are rarely any on offer here.

So sorry to hear about your father, Platanos. I understand what you mean by 'grateful' - sometimes that really is the case. It's good that your mother has support in Spain. I hope you feel you have enough support around you too.

Canella Happy belated birthday! And well done on the no-cooking weekend. It sounds like you had a lovely weekend. I hope your stomach is better soon.

Linzer Did you make it to the Bogi park? I find that, like Admylin, I can get to most places if I have the Tom Tom with me - saying that, I do swear at the Tom Tom quite a lot so maybe not the best with the kids in the car :)

Admylin - isn't a different, bigger supermarket dangerous!? I'm exactly the same and end up spending a fortune but still don't come home with half of what I went in for.

Aachen was great - I only stayed at the party for 2 hours (we didn't get there until 11pm) but DH stayed a bit longer and we met the birthday boy and his wife for breakfast the next day. I love going to the Mayersche bookshop in Aachen when we are there. It's absolutely huge and we ended up spending ?80 between us. I wish there were a bookshop like that near us somewhere, but think it's probably better for the bank balance that it's a once in a while opportunity!

Platanos - sorry to hear about your dad. I´m glad your mum has got a good support network. Hope you´re doing o.k.

canella - glad to hear you had a great birthday. I bet the Take That concert will be fantastic. I´m not really a fan, but I´d still love to see them in concert, but I´ve no chance of getting dh to come along.

Later - I love a good bookshop. We´ve got a big Thalia here with a nice coffee shop. Luckily it´s situated next to the children´s books/play area, so I can drink my coffee in peace and the dc don´t get bored.

We´ve only got 2 weeks left of the holidays and it´s such a shame the weather is so awful. I´d planned to spend the time at the Freibad reading a book while the dc played with their friends. No doubt the sun will come out when they´re back at school.

I think I'm probably going to have to resort to shopping to get the DC out of the house as well, admylin. I just didn't fancy the drive to the soft play place in the end (plus I didn't hear from our friends whether they were going or not). Even with the satnav on, I don't like driving in cities and I've never even attempted driving in Vienna. I often have to put the satnav on just to drive round our small town!

The DC are desperate to go to the toy shop to spend the pocket money they got from my ILs on Saturday - we said they would put it in their piggy banks but MIL said, "No! They must spend it!". It's only about three weeks since they got ?30 from them (pocket money + Zeugnisgeld) but I'm trying to pick my battles and so am just focusing on trying to stop MIL stuffing them with sweets for the time being (with limited success).

Right, must get out of the house before the DC kill each other.

x-posts as I had to stop after almost every sentence of my last post to break up fighting.

Glad you enjoyed Aachen Later; the bookshop sounded great. Fortunately for my bank balance we only have one small bookshop here; I suspect I shall make up for it once we're back in the UK, however.

hupa Can't believe you only have two weeks left; we still have six weeks to go here. The first three weeks went surprisingly quickly, but that was mainly because we were either on holiday or the DC were out in the mornings.

Hupa, when you said 2 weeks left I had to run and check our dates! We've got 3 and a half left, it's gone by quickly really even though we haven't done much.

What are your 3 fighting about linzer? Must be difficult to get one thing for all 3 to do together. Hope you manage to get out and about abit and they manage to get something they like with their money! I remember spending ages with my 2 dc while they decided what to buy in toy shops - now we're onto computer shops instead. Remember once ds bought a magnetic toy (a dinosaur to build I think) that had been advertised on TV alot and looked great and he was close to tears when he got it home and opened the box to see how small it was and not half as great as it looked on TV. Cost alot too but it taught him to be careful with his money and he's a good saver now!!

Oh, they quarrel about anything and everything - usually fairly petty things. DD1 is very good at knowing exactly which buttons to press to wind up DD2 and DD2, in turn, completely overreacts. It did us all good to get out of the house anyway, and they're now all busy putting their new Playmobil together - which will join the tonnes we already have in the cellar. Still, at least it's keeping them occupied (and unusually quiet!).

The DDs are being picked up in about 15 minutes to go and stay overnight with a friend. DS was invited too but the friend they'll be staying with has two cats and an incredibly cluttered so I assume fairly dusty house, and he didn't react well the one time he stayed overnight there before. Instead, he has a friend coming to spend the night here. It turned out they went to the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna in the end - somewhere else I wouldn't have wanted to drive to, although I suppose we could have caught the train in.

I know what you mean about driving places though linzer. Sometimes the train or bus is just easier as you don't have the hassle of finding a parking space either. Luckily after a few tries I have found the route into town with my sat nav and a 50cent an hour car park that always has spaces.

Dull and wet again today so we're going to watch the dvd that we bought yesterday and then go to the book shop and get new books. Dd has read 5 books already this holiday, such a change to see her reading (and enjoying it too).

morning all. Has anyone seen the adverts for bbc i player soon to be available in Germany? Says coming soon, wonder how soon is?

I'm sure I've messed up loads on end of term preparations. 4 different kids in 4 different institutions, often the emails come through without indicating which school they're talking about. Maybe they're not used to people having so many kids. I can't keep up! Missed Abschiedsfeier on Sunday for ds2

linzer, mine can be the same. endless bloody bickering about nothing. Mine just love to disagree and/or try to prove each other wrong about everything. Ds3 is seemingly incapable of talking. His default setting is shouting.

Who was it on here who started teaching english? How's it going? I want to start working after the summer but I need to have the holidays free cause of the kids. Can't think what I could do that was term time only other than teaching.

Looks like the sun might bother to come out today! Hope everyone has a nice day.

I've heard that the BBC will be launching an iPlayer app for iPads later on this year, but I think you have to pay a monthly fee. There are workarounds for watching iPlayer abroad but they're a bit fiddly; I can watch it on my netbook but the screen is tiny (am still waiting for DH to work out which cable we need to be able to connect the computer to our TV). I also tried installing expatshield (which was recommended on another thread recently), but apart from all the adverts, it also stopped google working so I uninstalled it. So for the time being, we're still relying on the DVDs that my parents send.

Still cold and grey here and the holidays are starting to drag now. Oh well, at least we only have a couple of weeks like this with nothing planned. DS has a friend here to play this morning (she stayed overnight, in fact) but they seem to need lots of supervision and don't go off and play on their own like the DDs do with their friends. The girls are still at the friend's where they stayed last night and we've been invited over for lunch too, so it will be good to have some adult conversation!

Ernest I tried teaching private lessons but I gave up as i didn't enjoy it and had to spend longer than the teaching geting prepared as my knowledge of grammar is really bad. Dh speaks terrible english but he can tell you the rules and how to use the grammar from learning it all off by heart in India as a child! I don't remember ever having grammar lessons at school, we had language and literature lessons. Anyway, someone will be bale to give you some tips I'm sure. Were you thinking of looking for a job at a language school or German school?

I think I would be a TV addict if I had UK TV so quite good that it's not easy to get!

Just had the garage on the phone asking what they should do with the old car - yes, it's still on their ground, probably rusting away so I said to ask the Anwalt as I have no idea. As far as I know the insurance will pay the Restwert of the car to me and they get the car too but the garage seemed to think they could have it (proabably to use the parts). I hate this sort of thing as I don't know what I should do - let the garage buy it or the insurance people...hope the Anwalt sorts it out for me. I presume that's what he should do.

Ernst I teach at VHS and a little private "Freilernen" Grundschule - I was at school yesterday in fact as they haven't replaced me so I've been in a couple of times with baby. I only worked 1 day a week and the school is right at the end of the S2 line out of Munich so I think they are struggling to find anyone to fill my role - are you in Munich? Do you want the job? I don't think I'll want to go back til baby is 3 so have told them I don't mind if they prefer to replace me permanently as its a bit much to hold a 1 day a week job open for 3 years!

If you want to know about the VHS that is quite easy and flexible, but not a lot of money (pays OK per session but you'd have to register self employed and teach a lot of courses to make a living wage, it depends what you are after, you can earn up to ?2000 tax free with VHS on top of another job, because they have a special tax status.

Better go get the kids, after today dd only has 3 days left at KiGa ever! Eeek!

hi 5, would be interested to learn more. I live on the S2 - which end is it though?

Dunno if I fancy registering as self employed, as then I am committed iyswim. I thought if I tried a couple of private lessons, I could drop it if it didn't suit. I don't particularly want to teach, like you didn't have really official grammar lessons at school, so would have to learn that. ooh I really want to work now. Really. But the school holidays are the deal breaker for me.

Would registering as self-employed really commit you, Ernest? I don't know about Germany but I'm registered as self-employed here and all it means is that the Finanzamt sends me a tax return to fill in every year - if I don't earn anything, I just don't have to pay tax. In fact, looking at my earnings so far this year, it looks unlikely that I'll have to pay tax this year anyway.

Teaching is probably the way to go if school holidays are a deal breaker, although I usually just turn work down during the summer holidays (was really annoyed to have to turn a job down while we were in Italy that would have paid for our holiday!). That only works if you're freelance, of course - and turning work down isn't always ideal either.

admylin I also find that it takes me far longer to prepare lessons than it does to teach them. I gave Nachhilfe one summer and all the preparation, teaching and marking made it incredibly time-consuming - the financial reward wasn't great considering the amount of time I put in. We did quite a bit of grammar at primary school but I still find it hard to explain why we say certain things the way we do and have forgotten all the names of the different grammatical terms.

Yes, that's the biggest problem remembering the names of teh different grammatical terms. On the other hand a friend I went to school with used to teach English in Germany at VHS and at a prison and she said it was so easy as they both had a set book to use.

I've got to go back to the lawyer tomorrow. The garage are asking 15? a day to have the car on their land and as I've sold it (well, told the anwalt to) we have to get the people to pick it up as soon as possible or I'll have to start paying. He's saying I should drive it off their land and park it somewhere at home but I think that's going to cost me money too as I'll need to get number plates (temporary ones) to drive it. It's all getting complicated.

To top it all, dh rang to say his old boss has offered him a 5 year contract and wants him back in Berlin as quickly as possible. I told him he'll have to tell them here and see if they can offer the same otherwise we start packing AGAIN.

I thought if I registered as self employed I would then have to pay NI contributions and goodness knows what for myself, not to mention omg tax return. I have never done a tax return in my life.

You've put me off teaching now. Now I am back to square one. Desperate to work but no idea what or anything, and the holidays being a huge problem.

You're right Ernest, I do pay quarterly SVA (Sozialversicherungsanstalt) contributions, which cover health insurance and pension. However, there's a Versicherungsgrenze of just over ?4,000 which I think means I wouldn't have to pay anything if I earned less than that.

Re tax returns, I'd also have to fill one in if I worked for a company so there's not a huge difference between being employed and self-employed in that respect. (And DH seems to accumulate far more paperwork related to his tax return.) It was a bit of a nightmare the first year I did it but very straightforward now that I know what I'm doing - just a bit time-consuming.

However, things may well be quite different in Germany so all that is probably not much use to you. I know that the VAT threshold in Germany is much lower (around ?15,000?); I'm relieved it's well over twice that here so I get out of having to charge it.

What a pain about the car, admylin - it seems so unfair that an accident that wasn't your fault is causing you all this hassle. How would you feel about moving back to Berlin? I thought last time we were there that it would be nice to live there again (even though I was glad to leave both times), but I have no experience of living there with children (other than those I was an au pair for).

It does sound like enough to put me off too - extra paperwork and stuff to do with tax returns in German - no thanks!

Linzer, I'm glad you said that about it being unfair with all this hassle even though I didn't cause the accident. I'm starting to think the Anwalt is abit rubbish. I chose one within walking distance but we are in a very sleepy area on the edge of Hannover so there's maybe a reason he's got a job here and not in the city!

I have done a lot of English teaching over the years, but have never "registered" as self-employed . AFAIK there is a threshold below which you do not even have to fill in a tax return, but I always have, despite never having earned enough to pay any tax. It was terrifyingly awful the first few years, but actually, the only information they need on the form is your profit for the year and the amount you have paid in health insurance, etc. As a teacher you then attach your payslips and any receipts for related purchases, travel fares, etc. Since getting married, I am included on DH's tax return, which somehow makes it less scary.

The disadvantage of being freelance/self-employed is not being "pflichtversichert". However, if you are married and insured together with your husband, that shouldn't affect you. My DH has private insurance, so I have to pay separately.