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.

Hi admylin its in Köpenick. We can move at very short notice. We have the deposit ready and DHs work will be paying the comission. So hopefully it will be us.

wanting you will get something. You will. And you will love it here. Home hunting is such a pain, but you will find your place, I am sure.

I just moved myself very recently, from one flat to another, 3 weeks ago, and the time prior to that, I was a nervous wrack as I was under time constraints, wanted to stay in same neighbourhood, had a budget to keep in mind etc. It was hard and then I found something so wonderful, signed the contract, moved a few weeks after that, and then needed to sleep for 3 days and recuperate from all the stress...

It must be hard for non-natives and I feel with you.

Oops missed reading your post wanting - hope you get the house and if you do it may well be a step towards feeling more9 settled and happy here - I was miserable my first 2 weeks, OK once I got a car :) then miserable again about 5 months in, once DS2 had been born and winter set in, and all the adrenaline of making an effort at first and having a baby in a new country without speaking the language much had faded :o Took me a good couple of years to feel settled, but the lows get less low progressively as time goes on, and you feel normal about it more and more.

English sounds exhausting. Hope you all have a good holiday.

world thank you for your kind words. I know you are right it just doesnt feel like that right now. Im glad you found a great place in the end.

English thank you for your encouraging words. I know it will get better i just have to keep telling myself to give it time.

wanting I am sure it doesn't. And how different it is when organising all these things with a child to think of and all the school schedule and all of it in a new country, new language, new everything.
But you will overcome it, when we all look back then we would find plenty of examples in our past, where we felt like you are feeling right now, and we made it. And you will make it now, too. Keep us posted. Wanting are you the Canadian with German husband and the blog???

Hi world no thats awsomesauce not me.
Thanks again.

world dont be embarrassed there is so much activity on this thread its hard to keep up. Thank you so much for saying you would help if you could it really means alot. Also you do help through your encouraging words. Its great you met so many helpful people when you were in the US and UK.

wanting by tomorrow I will know who you are and also the other regulars are from this thread

english you and your family have a wonderful holiday!!!!!

thanks for the sympathies everyone...

admylin I got some nuclear strength anti-b's from the out of hours doctor this morning and had an easy day :)

Good luck with the house wanting - this is definitely the most stressful bit but once you get a house sorted and have all your stuff around you, then you can concentrate on making it (and Germany) feel like a home...

Have a good holiday English! I am

Hope your headache has gone and the UTI is on its way out, cake.

admylin, how is the shoulder?

antique, no rest for you now the little one is up and off! Enjoy! :)

wanting, hope you get the house you want and it feels like home soon.

cake, I'm not personally one for coffee mornings (don't like coffee (or tea!), don't do mornings! ), and vegan cake out is hard to come by, so I'd suggest offering vegan cake!!! :) Non-vegans can of course eat it too! And a comfortable, rocking, rotating nursing chair. Would have loved ones of those when out and about. And a comfortable, well-equipped nappy-change area.

This is NoHun, btw, in case you couldn't tell, trialling a namechange, just to add further confusion to this thread.

Hello to everyone else I haven't namechecked; so much to catch up with if I don't check in every day! Chatty bunch!
Thanks for the links to the German CDs, must up my game with my German. I am having lessons now, some of it is sinking in, but I think, I'll never be as fluent as many Germans are in English, even if I am here for ten years. Need to sign up with Amazon.de too, though I am noticing there isn't as much choice as there is with Amazon.co.uk, so have ordered a few things from the British site. Going to Scotland in a few weeks for a family wedding, so will retrieve it all then.

I knew it was you straight away, Vegans. I order from both Amazon.de and Amazon.co.uk, but you're right that there isn't much choice on the German site. I almost always buy books from the UK site, as they're far cheaper too (at least in Austria, they're not allowed to sell books at a reduced price) and have them sent to my parents, order DVDs from the UK site as well and often have them sent here as the postage is fairly reasonable, and buy general stuff from the German site (I told DH off yesterday as he bought a printer cartridge from a shop; even though it was 15% off, it was still about ?5 more expensie than on Amazon).

Have a great holiday, English!

admylin I've just started sorting the DC's autumn wardrobes out; DS seems to have grown out of all his trousers over the summer. We went to C&A yesterday and discovered that children's clothes were all 25% off, so picked up a few bits and pieces there. I find it so difficult to get nice clothes for DD1 now that she's in "older girls'" clothes; it's hard to get anything decent above size 128 (all the tops I was looking at had horrible cheap-looking designs).

wanting Fingers crossed for you for the house. It's such early days for you; it's quite natural for you to be homesick but it will get better in time. I was horribly homesick for months when I was in Berlin (the first time I'd lived abroad), but once I'd made some friends it all started looking up. The fact that you have children to get settled as well must make it all the harder, but at the same time I've found that having children has made it much easier to get to meet people and so I've settled in much more quickly. (The only other time I was very homesick at the beginning was when we moved to Germany pre-DC; the month before I found a job was horrible as I could go for days without talking to anyone other than DH.)

We're having a day out today as we're going to some kind of event organised (I think) by the company that DH works for - he's got tickets for it through work, at any rate. All I know is that there's wine tasting, and that's good enough for me. There are some kind of children's activities too, but not sure what. As it's fairly near to the border with the Slovakia, we're going shopping in Bratislava beforehand. A woman I met on the plane when we flew back said that M&S is getting a bigger food department with more fresh food, which would be great.

Hey wantingmore

I am the Canadian, with the German husband, 18 month old munchkin, fab' doggie & groovy blog who lives in Köpenick.
Whereabouts is the house/apt(?) you looked at? - we're about 10 minutes from the station. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you out, I've lived in Berlin for about 4 years, the last 2 spent in Köpenick.

Fingers crossed you get the home you want! - if not..there are LOADS of "move-in-now" apartments here:

www.immobilienscout24.de/Suche/S-20/Wohnung-Miete/Umkreissuche/Berlin/12555/238779/2504728/Ahornallee/-/10/4,00-/85,00-?enteredFrom=result_list

*this will help you with the search & translations: awesomesauceasshattery.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/finding-a-home-in-berlin-germany/

Here's a much better, narrowed down list:

www.immobilienscout24.de/Suche/S-20/Wohnung-Miete/Umkreissuche/Berlin/12555/238779/2504728/Ahornallee/-/5/4,00-?enteredFrom=result_list

=O)

:) Linzer, glad it's not just me being incompetent searching for things online in German! Everything shopping-wise here seems limited with regards choice. I haven't bought much yet, still trying to remain frugal and not have so much stuff. But when I do want to find something, and I am a bit particular, shopping here is an effort!
Hope you had a great day out.

It's just not you Vegans! I probably do more shopping in the few weeks that I'm back in the UK than I do the rest of the year here.

We had a nice day out thanks; it was actually at a palace, and it was a lovely sunny day so nice to walk round the gardens. Not a huge amount to do for the DC though and the food was disappointing. DH thought there would be lots provided, but it was just bread with various spreads - none of which were vegetarian (they offered me salmon ). Lots and lots of wine to sample, but it was a bit early in the day for me!

Back to school today, and new schools for both DD1 and DS. DH has taken the day off so that he can go with DD1; her church service is an hour before DS's, but we're not sure whether the parents go to the school afterwards. Also need to sort out a babysitter for the parents' evenings as we'd both like to go to DD1's and DS's (I'll go on my own to DD2's).

linzer how was the morning get up and get ready? My 2 were amazingly fit and out of the door at ten past seven! Only have a 10 minute walk and school starts at 8am! If only it would last!

Oh I hate those first parents' evenings. They'll be voting for the new Elternvertreter and some other positions that I dont even understand. I just try to look interested and nod now and then, laugh when everyone else laughs etc.

Vegans shopping is indeed slightly more difficult here than in the UK but good for frugal living. Did you decide about a fireplace surround thing yet?
How do you find the supermarkets? They are getting much better than 10 or 15 years ago. Used to be impossible to get things like fresh ginger or chillis in the normal supermarkets but they're standard now (thank goodness).

cakebump hope the meds start to kick in soon. How was the weekend? Is it your busy time?

wave to awsome, wanting, world and have a lovely holiday english

Morning! wrote a big post yesterday on my pod and as I pressed send MN decided to pick that moment to be offline. grrrr.

Admylin and vegans - I agree that shopping here is definitely more difficult than in the UK - definite a lack of more exotic veg but think you get used to eat and def used to eating seasonally.

ah Linzer the first day back. (cant wait for ours next week!). Hope dd1 and ds settle into their new schools. I also wont be volunteering for the Elternvertreter position admylin - have no interest in going to meetings that seem to go on for hours!

wanting - think we can all sympathise with you feeling homesick. We've probably all felt it at times but the unsettledness about your flat cant be helping. Hope you get the perfect flat soon and the school situation gets sorted out and I think you'll then feel more settled.

cake - how are you feeling today?? I'm another one with an unsympathetic dh - it drives me crazy at times. I'm still trying to change mine so hope you have some luck at making yours more sympathetic .

Have a fab holiday English .

aw antique - first steps . Its such a magical moment. But saw on FB that it had been accompanied with a first tantrum - sorry but they kind of go together. Maybe it was his first and last [hopeful emotion!]. Was it about anything in particular??

So this is our last full week of school holidays . Next year i'm taking linzer's advice and organising some weeks away at the end of the holidays too. We've been at home too long this year. Or I send the dc to camp?? Never looked into it and the dc dont seem to keen but maybe if they went with their friends it might be fun?? We dont have any plans this week at the moment but the weather forecast is good so think some nice days out locally will make it fly by.

Morning ploom - dd's friend goes on a horse riding camp in summer as her parents both work and in Berlin alot of the dc went on camps too in summer. Not sure if my 2 would go freiwillig though! Hope the last week goes well and you can all fidn something nce to do.

Dd went into town yesterday with her friend as it was one of those rare Sunday open days so all the shops were open. She said it was full to bursting! She bought herself a t-shirt and set of nail polish! Thank goodness we have a bus that goes every 15 minutes so easy to get into town even though we live right on the edge of Hannover.

Its the same here when the shops are open on a sunday - wonder why there's no pressure to open them every sunday?? Think it'll be a lifetime before that happens in conservative Bayern.

Its from friends in Berlin that I heard about these camps - a horse riding one sounds fab. Have got a whole year to persuade dd and ds1 for next summer.

Got some really sad news this morning - i had an email from the dh of my lovely friend who died in 2008 to say that her sister has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer . I think she's only 38 and her dd isnt even 2 yet. You would think that family had had enough rotten luck when my friend died so suddenly but now this. Just so unfair .

Morning!

Sorry to hear about your friend's sister getting ill, ploom . How horrible for the family to be hit by yet more bad luck. I hope they've caught it early and that she makes a full recovery.

wanting hope you get the house. It's completely normal to feel homesick - the short-term solution is to get into a routine which gets you through the day and the longer-term solution is to make some friends . Are you planning to work over here - I think you said you moved for your dh's job, didn't you?

cake hope you're feeling better now. Are you and the restaurant in a village, or in a small town? Re the menu, I didn't really mean to suggest you put raw salad sticks and hoummous on the kids' menu, like others have said, dd will also happily eat fish fingers, or schnitzel, or pancakes with applesauce, and I can't imagine many other mums I know here would order what is basically just a salad for a toddler. It was more just a rant about restaurants not giving any thought to the kids' menu and often not offering anything even balanced, let alone healthy.

antique yay for first steps . Your ds seems to be growing up really fast, it almost feels like a time-warp. Mind you, it's already a year since I was on here moaning about dd starting kiga...

I must get on with some work. I've made three semi-scary phone calls already today, so feeling quite good, but I'm waiting for the kiga chefin to call back about when I should start up the English lessons again.

Morning everyone.

Thanks for all the sympathies! I'm feeling back to 100% today, luckily. I used to suffer from UTI's an awful lot (like one every 3 or 4 weeks) so I know the drill... with anti-b's it doesn't take me long to feel back on top, thank goodness.

We have Ruhetag today, yippee! The weekend was very busy with lots of tourists, so we feel justified in taking it easy. Our lie-in was interrupted by the council coming to install a new heating system, but we've been out to the bakery for breakfast, now we're going to walk the dog and this afternoon we're going swimming. I must be one of the few people who love Mondays :)

Ploom I'm so sorry to hear about your friend's sister. Life is just so unfair sometimes . My best friend in school lost both her parents by the time she was 27 - some people seem to get all the bad luck.

I also don't get the closed-on-a-Sunday thing. Sometimes I feel like Germany is like living in the UK 20 years ago. Some things seem so old fashioned.

Vegan I definitely find shopping in Germany a chore compared to the UK. I very rarely buy anything new, and going shopping for something specific is a nightmare as I can never find what I want. I still buy a lot of stuff on the internet.

By and large I'm just not tempted by the shops here. I'm 24 weeks pg now and everyone is asking if we've started buying for the baby. Apart from some second hand bits offered by friends I haven't bought anything! Firstly there is very little time with the restaurant, secondly there are no baby shops for 50km and thirdly what they have got in stock I don't like!! The baby will end up wrapped in an old t-shirt for the first week if I'm not careful :)

Big wave to everyone