Wenn es im Winter stürmt und schneit, haben wir eine Flasche Glühwein allzeit bereit - life in Germany and Austria

[LinzerTorte]

As I couldn't find a suitable poem mentioning Glühwein, I composed my own. Please don't laugh.

All welcome - anyone living in Germany, Austria or anywhere else who would like to chat.

Thatis have also sent a friend request.

admylin I got into knitting a few years ago after a friend asked me if I could teach her (I'd learned the basics at school, and knitted a sweater age 13 with a lot of help from my mum - I probably only did the knit rows tbh). Anyway I started off doing a k2, p2 scarf with chunky yarn on big needles, using a magazine article to work out casting on and how to purl, etc. and got hooked. I think doing the scarf was a brilliant way to get into it, as it gave me lots of practice of the two basic stitches and it was easy just to pick up and do a few rows several times a day. I think it's amazing to create fabric out of string .

admylin I hope you've got your duvets hanging out of the windows! (Confession: I have a duvet airing in the garden. Well, actually it's drying.)

Gator Ha, looks like you're right about greetz. We don't greet people at the end of texts or e-mails, do we? Good news on the car.

silken I used to love knitting and really should take it up again, as DD2 is desperate for me to knit a cardigan for her Peppa Pig toy. I bought some needles in Hofer last week. Now I just need to remember how to knit.

gator congratulations for the new car! I miss our old car (the one that was in an accident with a lorry) as I felt safer in it that with the new one because it was slightly bigger. Oh well, get one similar for the next car maybe!

No, linzer I can't do the duvet hanging out of windows as I have a phobia about spiders crawling into the inside of the duvet cover and then crawling back out in the middle of the night! Sounds crazy but I saw it happen once in France and that was the last time any duvet of mine got hung out of a window!

Amazing, our Fahrgemeinschaft for hockey is in my favour today, I don't have to drive at all. Dd and 2 other girls from this side of town play so we said we'd take it in turns with taking and picking up but up to now one of the families has hardly done their fair share and i've been once every training day atleast.

thatis - you'll be getting a flurry of FB requests today. I'm the one with the sandman!
No MN time today-house full!

Canella Sorry, forgot to answer your question about my dodgy taste in music. It wasn't really that I was too embarrassed to answer. a) I was so dedicated to a-ha that I learned Norwegian. (Although the fact that it meant I could give up legal translation was a greater incentive.) b) I bought a Peter Cetera album.

hello, sorry for being a stranger. Was giving myself a MN break as dh was off over Christmas and I was beginning to spend far too much time on here. Have missed you all. How is everyone in Austria and Germany? We have a snow day here today (which are really rare) as there is a good foot of snow and a howling gale blowing. I don't mind as dd is only at school for 2 hours on a Wednesday normally! I can't believe that ds2 is 1 in less than 3 weeks. Where has my baby gone?

Hi Jenny, lovely to hear from you again. I can't believe your DS will be 1 soon; it doesn't seem five minutes since he was born.

All's well in Austria, thanks; we've had snow too, but not too much thankfully - and not until after we got back from our Christmas trip to the UK. No exciting news otherwise; the time is flying by and we only have 2.5 weeks until the Semesterferien. I'm still busy teaching English, slightly less busy with translation and can't get excited about Kachelöfen.

Hello Jenny - wow nearly 1! Eek! My DS2 will be 9 months a week today - he is a proper little menace, all over the place, climbing, crawling, into everything - and he never sleeps, I fantasise about a 3 hour block of sleep, let alone the distant crazy dream of a full night. We are going to tackle night weaning the the weekend after next (can't this weekend as DH is going skiing and I need him to do the first night really - about time he did a night, one night per babyhood isn't asking so much...)

Thanks everyone for all the FB friend requests, I am a bit muddled as to who is who, apart from Gator due to small baby :) I shall go back and try to work it out. But thank you :)

I have never come across anyone using "Greetz" but maybe I don't know the hip young things who use such odd invented terms.

My pet German-English hate is the transfer of bei into English - "I was by my friend's house on Saturday" ... my kids do it and I snarl at them My evening class students now stop and catch themselves doing it and say "Ah, not bei, your children say this" :o

And the baby has made it up onto the bottom stair... off I go

Hi Jenny No snow here as yet - well, we had a few cm one day in December but by the next morning it was all gone. Aww your baby is nearly one! I never really believed how quickly time flies with a baby but now find myself in shock when I realise that DS is now 4 months old and can do so many new things that a few weeks ago hadn't even crossed my mind.

admylin I don't like the whole duvets out of windows thing because of the dirt, but now I have the idea of spiders hiding and waiting to pounce there is no way I'll be doing it!

Thatis Good luck with the night weaning! I hope it leads to a little more sleep for you. I'm really impressed that you're still awake and coherent - I certainly wouldn't be on the amount of sleep you are getting.

The initial contract for the car is now signed! It will take a few days as they need to value our car and let us know what they will give us for it and then it's all go!

Linzer's link explaining that 'greetz' is a word used by non-native speakers makes sense.

It's tipping it down here today and is really, really cold, so my plans for a walk in the park are scuppered. It's so much easier to get out with DS now he is a little bigger and is no longer breastfeeding twelve times a day, for two hours at a time! That really was a hellish blur.
I missed Rückbildung yesterday, although not on purpose, so no weird midwife stories to share. I did order a bunch of flowers to send to my lovely midwife (not the same one, obviously) to say thank you as she was an absolute star during the first few months and really helped with the bf problems. I realise it's her job but it really made a difference and I am a little in love with her now

Morning all!
Just sneaking on to MN before I settle down to chat to my friend in Malaysia - going to try some free call thing like skype but called viber - not sure if it'll work.

Hi jenny - nice to "see" you after all this time. Well done on the willpower to stay off MN. Cant believe your ds is nearly 1 - thats gone way too fast.

Whoo hoo about the car gator - I really want a new car but mine is only 7 years old and absolutely fine so I'll have to keep driving it for a bit longer yet. Thats a really nice thing to do for the midwife - I had a great one in the UK when ds2 was born and its amazing what a difference a good one can make.

thatis - I'm not sure how you gete thro the day on so little sleep with the other dc to look after too. Hope the night weaning goes well.

Linzer - am so impressed that you learned Norwegian - can you still speak it? does it ever come in handy or are you still waiting to impress morton with it? . All the talk of Peter Cetera had dh getting his Chicago record out last night - thankfully we dont have a record player or i'd have been tortured by it. And i'd have blamed you!!!

admylin - oh I'll never be hanging my duvets out now because of the thought of spiders. I dont do it anyway - not sure we're that smelly to need to do it.

silken - wow I'm impressed with your knitting skills - I'm like the others - I'd need to concentrate to do it. I used to knit lots when I was a teenager and when dd had to do it last year at school, all the skills came back. But I was ridiculously slow. Are you doing the teaching in a place that starts Me or Mu? Maybe I should just message you these questions rather than being so vague!

(will probably be huge x posts _ i've spoken to my friend since I started typing!!)

Canella the bloke I'm meeting today is from Mu. It took me a while to work out what he had told me on the phone, but I think he said the others were in BK and BN, if you can work out where they are . I'm not sure how much I will end up taking on, music lessons tend to be in the afternoons and I don't want to rely too heavily on MIL for childcare, especially since she hasn't grasped the concept of setting boundaries yet.

Thatis DD recently pointed at our car and said "That looks beautiful out." Aargh. I've heard the odd "by Omi's" as well . The worst thing is when you've heard it wrong so many times it no longer stands out as such, or? My ears no longer have a problem with "become" used instead of "receive" after hearing so many students use it.

Hope the nightweaning does the trick, or at least improves things. DD was sleeping through (well, until 5am) within a week after we did it, so it might be the answer. She was a couple of months older than your DS, though.

jenny Hi. Well done for staying off MN. My NY resolution was to ration it, that seems to have gone out of the window. Are you planning a party for your ds's birthday?

We live between those 3 places with Mu being our nearest town. As much as it would be more work therefore more money, it would be a fair bit of travelling back & forward. But it would be great to catch up if you were in this neck of the woods. There is a shortage of music teachers here - I find the Musikschule so expensive so we send dd & ds2 to a wee old woman in our village who's teaching methods are a bit outdated (altho for 6€ per lesson I cant complain too much!). I'm hoping dd will get some music lessons at school as I feel bad for the woman if we stop going.

I'm also immune to bad grammar a lot of the time. My boys also say "by" way too often but its the past tense that I spend all day correcting. He catched the ball is a typical example! And I only ever speak English to them - must work harder at it.

canella that is cheap. What are the dc learning to play? I always feel guilty that we were not able to provide the dc with music lessons. When they were small we were living on a student grant and then we moved house so many times since then that it's just never happened.

Ds had trumpet lessons at school for a short time and it only cost 30? a month so not too bad but then we moved again and he has forgotten it all now. Dd would love to learn an unstrument but now it's a time thing and hse's so busy with learning for school, hockey and her dyslexia class starting this week.

jennyalso think it was just a while ago you were giving birth! How are you celebrating the 1st birthday?

silken you are so lucky to have MIL to help out. Is she always willing? Great to be able have the choice anyway.

gator I agree with canella a good midwife makes a huge difference. I had a lovely one after ds infact so good that I went to her when I was expecting dd for all my check ups instead of going to a doctor.

linzer I wouldn't get excited about a Kachelofen either but I wouldn't mind having one! Cold and wet here today and our heating is making funny noises. Atleast it's working.

Dd's friend is coming with her after school and she announced this morning that she is a vegetarian (she wasn't last time she came!) so had to pop out and get an alternative as I'd planned meat for the dc today and my vegetarian option was a bit boring. So now I've got stuffed peppers, half with mince and sweetcorn and half with red onion, olives, tomatoes and feta cheese.

I´m another one who has heard the wrong version so many times I hardly notice. Mind you I still have steam coming out of my ears when I hear "That makes fun," it drives me bananas. Ds has perected the art of adding "ing" to German verbs when he doesn´t know the English word. Yesterday he said "Marcel is einlading me to his birthday." Aarrggh!

Jenny I can´t believe your ds is going to turn one. Time flies so quickly it´s scary.

Gator what sort of car are you getting?

We´ve had torrential rain all morning. It´s the sort of weather that just makes me want to go back to bed. Unfortunately there´s no chance of that happening.

Cold and wet here today too; I think I need to put the heating up yet again. Not ideal weather for DS's Waldtag at KiGa. Was speaking to a friend yesterday who's worse than my MIL for believing that cold/wet weather automatically means illness and she was quite worried about the forecast. I wouldn't be surprised if she's kept her son at home today.

Just had a lovely catch-up with a Welsh friend and now enjoying some of the Christmas cake she brought with her. I'm not normally a huge fan but it's very tasty. No Kachelöfen discussed today, but she's definitely been here too long as she enjoys both balls and skiing.

Thatis I'm the one in Austria. My DC use bei all the time too, but I can't always think of the right English word to correct them.

admylin Stuffed peppers sound good; I was thinking about making them the other day but then remembered that DD2 doesn't like cooked peppers, only raw ones.

Canella I'm always having to correct the past tense too; I usually try to repeat what the DC say in a confirming rather than correcting way (unless I feel that they're just not taking it in!). They must be fed up of me parroting every sentence back at them.
I did manage to order a meal in Norwegian from an Ikea-style counter at a restaurant in Oslo once, and was quite proud of myself. Sadly didn't bump into Morten, though! I've forgotten most of my Norwegian now and could only tell him I'd like a large cup of black coffee and ask him which Norwegian authors he likes. And get your DH to declutter his Chicago record if you don't have a record player!

silken My DC use "or?" at the end of sentences all the time and I must admit I'm a bit lazy about correcting them - it almost sounds normal to me now too. And the German verb plus -ing sounds very familiar too, hupa. Must admit I'm also guilty of anglicising a German verb occasionally; I told someone earlier today that he should make sure he doesn't verkühl his leg.

Gator What a lovely thing to do for your midwife. Other than when I was in hospital when I had the DC, I've never visited/been visited by a midwife here. I don't think you'd be allowed to have your antenatal checks done by a midwife in Austria. I saw a midwife for all my antenatal care in the USA, however (and she also attended the birth - I should probably have sent her flowers afterwards for disturbing her on Christmas day!).

admylin MIL is great, always willing to look after dd and really enjoys doing so (hence the crossed-out criticism). However, she's well into her seventies and I can't rule out the possibility of something happening to her or FIL which would prevent them being able to look after dd.

Atm I've organised my teaching so that I can, if necessary, always pick dd up from kiga myself, although it would mean one long day a week for her which we are currently avoiding by having PIL collect her. I don't know whether I could maybe do one day's teaching in Bayern and assume that DH could leave work in time to collect DD in an emergency.

The plus points are that I much prefer teaching oboe than English (very little preparation needed for a start) and that it might be better paid in Bayern than here (although Canella has made that sound unlikely ). I also feel more of a musician when I earn most of my income from music-related work, rather than relying on English teaching.

Oh well, I'll have to see what this meeting this afternoon throws up and take it from there.

Silken and Canella - you sound like secret agents with your code names for towns

admylin Stuffed peppers sound lovely. I'm off to the supermarket later so might pick up some peppers and have the same tomorrow night. Thanks for the inspiration!

hupa We're getting a Peugeot. DH spent forever a few weeks doing his research and apparently the 207 did quite well in the tests, reviews etc. We shall see! We've had an automatic for 2 years now so getting used to gears again is going to be interesting - especially reverse parking as we live half way up a hill.
It's when people confuse 'fun' and 'funny' that makes me smile. I quite like the idea of having a funny day!

Linzer My ante-natal care was all Dr-led (but luckily I have a lovely Dr too - American so it meant I learned all the important words in both languages). I think you can choose midwife-led ante-natal care here but I didn't really look into it. The midwife was for post-natal care. She works in the hospital where I gave birth but wasn't working that day. She is very sweet and never, ever complained about me calling her in tears at 8pm on a Sunday night (more than once) because bf was so hideous. She has the patience of a saint!

The stuffed peppers were lovely. Dd's friend is in abit of a quiet teenage sulk type mood so they are very quiet in her room now doing homework.

The veggie version was nice with olive oil and balsamico vinager sprinkled on but the whole flat smells of it now!

Can I just have a quick grrrrrr? I'm really good at having the kids friends here - seems like there is at least one here every day. Dh thinks I'm too soft & should stop being used as the village afternoon kiga but its normally ok.
So ds1 comes home from school saying he wanted his friend & the friends brother to come to play. I phoned the mum & said it was ok but not till after 3.30 since I needed to pick up ds2 at 3.20 & didnt want 3 boys in the house alone. 3.10 the door goes - guess who? The 2 boys!! So I sent them home! In the rain! (they only live 5 mins away). Found that really cheeky. I phoned her to say I'd sent them back - she said "oh they were just so keen to come that I told them to walk slowly!" i find that even more cheeky! But feel proud of myself for being assertive enough and not letting her/them take the piss out of me.
Grrrr finished!

Well done canella! Hope they play nicely now and the ds gets to play at friend's house sometimes too.

Sounds like me though, last night was the first time i didn't have to do one of the hockey runs even though there are 3 of us sharing it. I don't mind doing it and i'd gladly drive my dd anyway but one of the girls actually lives out of our way so I burn more petrol when I have her to collect too.

Hello all. (Did thatis used to be 5moremins?) Glad things are going well, children are doing well at school and extra-curricular activities and you're picking up work and new cars! I love the word Kachelofen, but am glad I don't have to do anything with one! I can't believe how fast the babies are developing, either. S is almost walking now and trying to say a couple of words. I hope the sleep training is successful, thatis. I would also like a few full nights' sleep, in a row!

No snow day today, just wind and sleet and general yukiness. Our ski resort is, however, closed, due to avalanche risk and high winds! I hope it's safe for our lessons on Saturday!

I've picked up an hour's tutoring and my German course is due to start again next week, although without the required minimum sign-ups. Fingers crossed it's not dying out here.

I hope you all have good evenings. I think I will gradually work out what's going on again, though I am determined not to have a MN tab open all day this time.

jenny hope the weather gets better, you've had more of a winter than over here in north Germany atleast! It's bordering on Spring like weather and my dandilions are growing again (for the gerbils).

Wonder if you could tell me if you have a trick or easy way to learn the clauses in German. I always just guess as I didn't get the explanations for dativ, nominativ, akkusativ etc when I learned German (here in Germany).

Dd has her first dyslexia lesson this afternoon. I really hope it helps.

Morning!
jenny - hope you get some more takers for your german course. Its snowing here too this morning but not lots so i'm hoping it melts again soon.

admylin- i'm by no means a german grammar expert but they taught us that accusative is used when something is the direct object of a verb "wir kaufen den Wagen", and dative is for the indirect object "ich hole dem hund das futter". I find that easy when I know the gender of the noun in a simple sentence but in more complicated sentences I get confused. The hint about dative in my grammar book is to compare it to using the preposition "to" or "for" in English. "i'm getting the food for the dog".
Clear as mud?

And the prepositions that we talked about on her last week.
Akkusative - bis, durch, entlang, für, gegen, ohne, um & wider.
Dative - mit, von, seit, aus, außer, bei, nach & zu.

Thanks Canella! That's already a much better explanation than I ever got at VHS Deutsch für Ausländer! I think that was partly the problem, we were all different nationalities so from the first day the lesson was given in German but we were all beginners so only understood the basics and the explanations were too difficult or we weren't able to ask questions if we didn't understand.