Die Kaffeestube Teil 2 - virtual Kaffeeklatsch in Germany and Austria

[cheaspicks]

Chat for those living in a German-speaking country, or anyone else who is interested.

Why does Vorangehensweise not exist

Thanks for the explanation world - its what I thought the reason was but it still riles that the rules will depend on which official you deal with.

So amused (sorry) at linzer and cheaspicks "argueing" about German vocabulary - oh how I wish my German was good enough to participate in that discussion .

Sorry, just dashing in to say that the midwife had to cancel as someone had a home birth and she had to dash off

Oh well she'll ring back so I'll have to wait a few more days!

Due 21st December admylin (Christkind, as everyone keeps telling me :) )

Oh, that's disappointing Cake. Lovely to have a Christmas baby, though - DD1's birthday is on 26th December and it's a nice time of year to have a birthday (no school, no work for most people, everyone in a festive mood, etc.)

cheas Ah yes, I vaguely remember our discussion now. My excuse is that I hadn't heard of the word before, it's not in any of our (admittedly not hugely comprehensive) dictionaries and I thought you meant Vorgehensweise. I wonder whether I might even have asked DH, who told me it didn't exist, in which case I could blame him.

Hiya,

Just popping my nose in to say hello. We arrive in Germany on Tuesday. I'm very excited. I just wish we were staying longer than 2 weeks

I can't really contribute to the passport or vocab discussions, so I'll just stop at Hello

Exactly, world, but Linzer either didn't know it, or had a mental block about it, and "corrected" it to Vorgehensweise, which was equally good in context. I wasn't actually sure that "vorangehen" wasn't a colloquialism, anyway, so didn't say anything at the time (possibly shouldn't have now, either, hope I haven't frightened anyone away .

cake it's probably quite nice to have a winter baby - no feelings of guilt that you're wasting nice weather when you're stuck inside breastfeeding for hours. I'll keep my fingers crossed that you don't actually end up with a Xmas baby, though!

X-posted, Linzer. DD demanded I build a "terrible bridge" out of corn starch puffs .

Hello Emandlu .

I totally love my library, because thanks to what they have on their shelves I've recently watched:

Miranda
Inbetweeners,
Misfits
Doc Martin
Gavin&Stacey
The Thick of it
2012
Prisoner's Wives
Call the Midwife
Stella
etc.

can anyone tell me how I would get British TV channels here, so I could maybe see these kind of series' when they actually get aired on TV????
Would love to know, if that's possible.

world Friends of ours (in Germany and here) have a satellite dish that picks up all the Freeview channels. You need one about 2 metres wide in Austria, which I don't think would even fit on our roof, but I think our friends in Germany have a normal sized one.

Hi Emandlu, hope you have a good trip to Germany. Whereabouts will you be? (Sorry if I've missed an earlier post.)

cheas I just asked DH whether he knew the word Vorangehensweise. He replied (and I quote): "Vorgehensweise heißt es. Vorgehensweise" (with a determined nod of the head). I informed him he was Austrian wrong, which he took in surprisingly good part, though he did mutter something about not being a lebendes, wandelndes Lexikon. So I can blame DH after all.

Why are Kinderausweis different though, because I could equally well abduct my own children travelling on their Kinderausweis with me, and take them back to the UK, if the passport bureaucracy is to stop one parent taking the child/ren out of the country against the other parent's wishes.

I applied for all 3 of my children's Kinderausweis (dh signed the paperwork as well as me, as is standard, but I was the only one the Geminde saw...) and there was no problem with any of them - they asked for my passport as ID (British passport) and we are all registered at the same address - DH German, me British, DD born in the UK, first passport British, got her a German one at 5 when hers expired because yes, they are only ?13, both boys born here, German birth certificates...

I have also travelled back to the UK on my own with my children, them on German Kinderauseweis and me on my British passport, without DH - just got asked in which country I lived when I left Germany no other questions...

linzer oh I see, so it's only possible with those satellite dishes
I wouldn't be allowed to have it here, and was wondering how others might watch the channels.
Sometimes I go online, but then it says it's not possible to watch that programme

Oh and re: passport, I rather not comment further

Hello Emandlu, yay for your December baby cake :)

We have been bowling and to the Freibad for DS1's lesson this aft, and I have booked DD and DS1's birthday parties (climbing for DD, bowling for DS1 - hence going bowling as he wanted a bowling party but had never actually been bowling - turns out he does like it, but it is quite tricky to control DS2 there (technically under 3s not allowed, but it was quiet and I kept him in my arms, which is rather like keeping a lively piglet in your arms I suspect... then had to occupy him at the Freibad too because he is so full of cold it really seemed a very bad idea to let him in the water... tricky!) DD is writing her invitations now somewhat unsupervised, I did check the first one, thought DH has read it too but turned out he was just admiring her hand writing and didn't actually read it

World we have a satellite dish that is about 1 meter across to receive freeview channels. There is a way to decrypt iplayer allegedly but I don't know what it is - DH is techy and has done it in the past, but it seems you have to do it (slightly differently each time) fairly often as the encryption is changed.

world Like EnglishWoman says, there is a workaround with iPlayer but it's fiddly and I always found it very temperamental. I also installed ExpatShield, but it messed up Google so I promptly uninstalled it. Luckily, my parents are very good at keeping us supplied with DVDs.

EnglishWoman I thought ?30 was cheap for a child's passport - well, it is compared to a British one I suppose - but ?13 is an absolute bargain.

english thanks for that, well I also used to be married to a techy (and handyman), that's so great to have one of those around, if not so inclined yourself, like me .

We are not allowed here at all to have those and I don't know how to do all this around thing. It is so sad. In my other flat I had the regular BBC news channel, and even that one I don#t have here anymore. It is so annoying.

I love those British series's and the sitcoms are soooooooo funny and great, and I can hardly endure watching all these U.S. series' here on TV, in fact I do not watch.

Linzer thanks. x-post

How funny we both used the envy face. i don't see that one very often used here on MN.

Linzer I tried ExpatShield too but it put all sorts of viruses and problems on my computer so like you, I uninstalled it.

Maybe we should try a DVD postal service between us? Not sure if the postage is expensive but we're on the final season of The Wire which has kept us going for months. I'm happy to do a swap with someone if they've got something else good which might entertain us for a bit?

Gema is a big pain in the butt too as a lot of YouTube stuff is blocked by them. Even DH complains and he gets royalties through Gema from his music writing days!

Thanks for the crossed fingers cheas (or should that be pushed thumbs? :) ) I'm sort of hoping it hurries up or maybe comes early, but then most days I hope it stays in there forever!! I'm so clueless about what to do once it's actually here!!

Ah reading through the last few posts has reminded me - I'm just about done with the huge pile of dvds of British tv and am happy to post them onto whoever wants them next!

I caught DS eating raw cloves of garlic with a huge grin on his face this afternoon, strange boy! (15 minutes before I was due to meet a friend, so had to turn up with a stinky baby). Then he was so tired he was falling asleep into his dinner tonight, but even with his eyes closed and his head tipped forwards he was still managing to shovel handfuls of food into his mouth

My dad swears by Expat Shield and although I didn't really have any problems with it, all the horror stories put me off so I uninstalled it before it could cause any problems. It only worked for the iPlayer for me anyway, I couldn't ger 4OD or anything, which was a bit disappointing.

Antique your DS must love his food!!

What DVD series do you have? I can have a check through mine and put up a list if anyone wants swapsies

Hi everyone
admylin sorry your physio didn't help.
DH is viewing a place on saturday so fingers crossed it will work out. Yes there really are alot of great parks in Berlin with just so much to do in them completely different to the UK.

English we haven't looked at any clubs yet as we won't be staying in this area but maybe we should. I couldn't find the Families in Berlin FB page. Hope your DDs invites turned out ok and that all the colds clear up before your holiday.

Linzer hope you had a good time with your english friend.

?13 for a childs passport is so cheap

We have MyExpat. Not sure if its the same as Expatsheild but so far it works really well for us no problems at all.

My DDs have been getting really bored without their things so we went to the storage and got some of their toys and they are now a bit happier . Also I finally got my hairdryer from the storage and dried my hair properly for the first time in a month. It really is the simple things in life that can bring joy

wanting Yay for hairdryers! I'd be lost without mine and my BBH; am not sure if I could survive without them for a month.
Will have to look into MyExpat, although I only ever install things on my netbook - not very viewer-friendly with its tiny screen! I'm worried about messing up the settings on my work laptop and our TV is so old that it seems impossible to get a cable to connect the computer to the TV.

Cake My parents record a variety of British TV programmes (documentaries like Location, Supernanny, the occasional drama, Have I Got News For You, the Apprentice, Outnumbered, etc.) and the DVDs make their way round the thread once I've finished watching them. It sounds like Antique has finished with a batch if you're interested.

Antique Well, garlic is supposed to be very good for you! of you having a baby who eats (not that I want another baby, I hasten to add). Two of mine weren't particularly interested in food and I used to get incredibly stressed about DD1 hardly eating.

world I'm not a fan of American series either, and particularly not dubbed ones - I refuse to watch anything dubbed, in fact.
I think the smileys used tend to vary from thread to thread; I do use quite a bit. and are hardly ever used on this thread, but were used lots on another thread that I used to post on regularly.

Had a lovely time with my English friend yesterday; it's a shame we don't get to meet up more often, but it's quite difficult with the children's various activities (the days we're free, they're busy and vice versa). The children (hers and mine) are speaking more and more German together, however; I really need to find them some English-speaking friends who don't speak German, but it's very unlikely to happen!

wanting I've PMed you a link to the Parents in Berlin fb group - it's a closed group which may be why you couldn't find it through the search function. It looks like it's a new and very small group, but apparently the admin is very well informed.

Linzer your parents know how to record to dvd? That would be a cue for 197 phone calls per recording attempt and being posted blank DVDs if it were my parents! I'm still backwards enough not to mind seeing dubbed series I am familiar with because at least I know I will be able to understand what's being said if I'm familiar with the series and characters! DH won't watched dubbed series and has things like The Big Bang Theory and How I met Your Mother in English and won't watch them dubbed into German.

Antique I am odd because my first response was to wonder where you keep the garlic :) Your DS will be very healthy and in no danger from vampires :o

Kids had vaccines booked for today but just cancelled them because of the ongoing heavy colds... rescheduled the toddler's but was going top get the Chicken pox ones for the older 2, but it will have to wait now as it's harder fitting it in during term time. DS1 has his last Freibad swimming lesson this afternoon and will then have some in the indoor pool in Sept, at least to replace the 3 the teacher has cancelled and hopefully some more free ones as supposedly she guarantees to get them to seepferdchen standard for the (expensive) intensive course price, and he's a way off that yet.

Linzer that's all right then!

world we also have a large satellite dish. I saw recently that it's possible to subscribe to iplayer outside the UK, but you only get a selection of programmes and pay 10? a month .

wantingmore hope the place on Saturday works out for you.

antique at your ds. He is going to reek today.

EnglishWoman is it compulsory for dc to have an Ausweis of some kind? I can see that one parent obtaining travel documents for their dc in secret is something that should be made impossible, but if they have to have them anyway?

Hello, we are going to Hamburg and then to Kassel. Hamburg because we were there for a day last year and wanted to explore a bit more and Kassel because my Austauchpartnerin lives there now.
I just wish we could stay longer than a couple of weeks as after that length of time I have just started to feel like I can communicate in German (albeit badly ).