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 Everone

Just back from holiday and trying to catch up backwards, have my mouth hanging open after reading Awsome's dog poo story! He deserved the poo in the face but I'd never have had the nerve!

I recommend DiBa the online bank for no free current account with EC card and credit card (Visa) also free on which you can withdraw cash for no fee at almost any bank, in Germany anyway. All the bricks and mortar banks charge for having an account, at least the card kind, but the on-line banks are the way to go in my opinion - DH changed our main/ joint account to them a couple of years ago and it's caused no problems and cost nothing :)

• no fee or free not no free... hmm Henry didn't sleep any better on holiday! :o

Thanks for the tip English, that definitely sounds worth looking into...

cake you sound so lovely, your PIL must love you, too. They must feel very comfortable with you

We do get on well world.

now I'm thinking possibly a little too well

There will have to be Rules though when DC arrives I think.... until then I'll have to put up with it. :)

Cake I'm terrible with parents I wish I was more chilled about them in general...
I think it stems from my parents messy divorce and the fallout thereafter. DP tries to understand but I feel guilty because he is the youngest and really their only chance for Grandchildren... I wish I could chill out about it all and be more relaxed...

How do you do it?

They're pretty easy, so they make it easy iyswim.

They've always been really welcoming towards me, and they're also quite conscious that my family are a long way away, so they sort of "look out" for me too. For instance my MIL helped me pack everything when I moved in with DH, and even went back to my flat later that week (I was with DH) to defrost my freezer!

My parents have said too that now I'm pregnant they feel much better that I have "family" looking out for me here.

So all in all I feel pretty guilty when they start to get on my nerves a bit. Its hard because they do a lot for us at the restaurant (in fact MIL is currently washing up, which I should be doing) but I just wish we had some choice over when/whether they come and stay!!!

DH has agreed that if they still want to come and stay overnight once the baby is here, he'll ask them to stay at the local "hof". Our flat really is way too small for us, a baby, a dog plus overnight guests!

I suppose DP's parents aren't exactly hard but they are old.... And their world is very small... I think they need hobbies

Not helped by FIL's crazy schemes i.e. let's sack the cleaner and clean the house together - he hates cleaning- but believes he can do things better and much faster... He cleaned the windows once. They were so bad I don't think he'll be allowed again.

Actually Nutella I may have spoken too soon...

My FIL retired a couple of years ago, and also seems to struggle to fill his time. At the moment he fills it with Riesling.... he is currently getting stuck in downstairs, aided and abetted (unfortunately) by DH. MIL is all cat's-bum-mouth but isn't saying anything...

I've come to bed to escape check my emails... :)

Oh dear Cake I'm sorry!
The PIL have both had heart bypass operations and MIL had a new valve put in (actually I think FIL has had two bypass operations); now they don't drink much... but at Easter there were seven (7) different kinds of meat on offer.... and the vegetable portion of the meal was bravely held together by three tomatoes cut into halves... I ate 3 halves... think the rest were left over

Hello world :) I'm good thank you! Glad your polish friend realised that none of us are totally harmoniously getting along here in Germany :)
I get shouted at regularly when cycling and usually just smile as I sail past. It takes me a minute to think again about what they said and figure it out... sometimes I honestly have no idea :o
Oh, and our (miserable) neighbour once told me off for turning on the light in the treppenhaus during the day "ist es nicht hell genug?" she got a smile "Tag" and I carried on past into my flat. Closed the door and thought "eh...?? Miserable old cow" and then chuckled to myself. Reading the stories from the others I'm considering myself very lucky!

nutella good to hear from you

I have never had one bad experience in the UK or the U.S. serioulsy I am so glad I spent quite a few years in anglo-saxon company as it has serioulsy made me very friendly and mellow

Crawled out of bed and turned this thing back on to come onto this thread to...

APOLOGISE BIG TIME to you all...

I meant English speaking folks as in English and Scottish and all the rest of the UK!!!!!! Or as in British, I mean all of you So, now I can sleep better

Apology accepted world but you didnt need to get out of bed to post it! Hope you slept well the rest of the night .

cake - I think some time away from your IL's no matter how nice they are is a good thing esp if you're all in your 1 bedroom flat. I had simliar situations when I was first with dh and when my dc1 was born and the in laws used to come over - thankfully we had a bit more notice but we definitely didnt have the space. Deep breaths & some quiet time alone def helps.

nutella - i'm a bit that you've foubd an English speaking hairdresser - doubt i'd find one here in the back of beyond! glad I'm not the only one who doesnt cope with parents/IL's well. My mother died when I was little then my father became an alcoholic until he found a new wife when I was 17 & buggered off to live with her & left me to fend for myself . Never been able to forgive him & our relationship is Christmas cards and the odd email. Dh's parents on the other hand have been married for nearly 50 years & altho my MIL can drive me quietly crazy sometimes (well often), they are genuinely nice people. But our relationship has only started to get better as my German has improved - there were lots of tense situations over the years. Your mum nutella sounds like a right free spirit - does she have much interest in her grandchild to be?

Last day of the holidays & I feel like I've survived (apart from a few days in the middle when I had PMT and was demented!). Started a reward chart a few weeks back to stop the fighting and its def worked . There's only been one day where ds1 wolloped ds2 in 4 weeks . So much better than before.

Ploom Well done on making it through to the end of the holidays! I must admit I'm starting to miss them as I'm already finding all the homework and afternoon activities (despite having cut back) a little stressful. It was so much easier when DS stayed at KiGa until 3 pm and wasn't around to distract the other two!

world I hadn't actually noticed you referring to the English - and if you said English-speaking folks, that would cover the rest of us too. My friends here are actually quite good about referring to Wales rather than England, apart from - strangely enough - a couple of (native) English-speaking friends.

Nutella Your ILs sound similar to mine; my MIL has also had some kind of heart operation (involving a stent) and my FIL had a DVT not long ago. MIL doesn't drink either and vegetables are a bit of an alien concept, other than salad swimming in a mixture of water and oil!

Cake Luckily I was very far away from my ILs when DD1 was born, but still had to get DH to ask them to stop phoning unless it was at a prearranged time. I remember one particularly sleep-deprived morning when both I and DD1 had only just got back to sleep and I was not best pleased when they phoned and woke us both!

Had better go as my neighbour is due to arrive any minute so that we can go for a run. It finally seems to be cooling down here and is quite pleasant here today but 14° and rain are forecast for tomorrow, which I'm not particularly looking forward to.

Haven't read stuff from yesterday evening - will be back after kiga run - but quick question: what's the sizing at Vertbaudet like? I want to order a winter coat and other stuff for winter and I think size 92 is going to be a little bit small, but the next size is 98/104 which sounds like it could be quite big . Anyone order stuff there regularly?

cakebump - you are so very lucky to have such wonderful in-laws. My husband's parents (whom, no matter how hard I tried, were never pleasant begin with) completely disowned us when I was pregnant and we very politely told them that they could no longer smoke around us (or our child when she arrived)

• we actually made a rather cool presentation about the dangers of cigarette smoke & even included nicorette for each of them & fancy made-by-me squeezy stress beanbags with the most recent baby scan pressed onto the fabric to help remind them why not smoking was actually a positive thing.

This Christmas will be 2 years since we had any contact with them - although we do get to hear the horrible lies they tell about us from the Hubby's extended family - luckily no one believes them.

Anyhoo, as my parents are in Canada we've been looking into a "Leihoma" (Rent-a-Granny) so the munchkin will have a substitute Oma here - anyone ever tried this?

*Man, from my last couple of posts it sounds like my life here is pretty crappy...it's really, really not and I'm absolutely thrilled to have joined such an amazing group of women (even if it is online). I just wish I had more time to keep up with all of the posts here!

I promise my next message will be a positive one! - although I do hope my tale of the doggie poop brought more laughter than tears! =O)

My MIL smokes Awsome - she didn't speak to us (well DH, I barely spoke any German at the time and we still lived in the UK) for weeks after we visited with DD and DD cried every time she held her, and DH told MIL it was probably because she smelt of cigarette smoke! It hasn't bothered the boys as babies though and she is convinced she will immediately get immensely fat if she stops - she even had cancer when DH was a teenager (not a directly smoking related one but still) and apparently stopped for a year or so then but went back to it after getting the all clear and smokes as much as ever now. She has never smoked indoors and doesn't smoke near the kids but of course it hangs on her clothes. DD and DS1 tell her from time to time that it will make her die and is the reason her teeth are yellow but she just agrees with them! I don't think she's going to stop now!

We had to do some in-law management when we first moved here and MIL seemed to think she was going to get her chance to get her own back in some warped way for the fact her own mother seems to have been a bit of a monster and treated her a bit like Cinderella! Took about 2 months to get her to see how things stood and stop her treating our house as her own and me as the very inadequate nanny/ housekeeper in need of constant criticism - I just told DH I didn't want her at ours any more, and as we have the only grandchild and I was almost 9 months pregnant with the 2nd things soon righted themselves! :) She has always been great with the kids though, as has FIL, and they are vastly more hands on helpful with the kids than my own parents would ever be - I much prefer to live near the in-laws than my own parents to be honest!

Ploom your childhood sounds hard :( Glad you've survived the holidays :) I'm not looking forward to going back to fighting with DD over getting homework done!

On holiday DD and DS1 made friends with German boy/ girl twins and an English boy on some kind of grand tour of Europe with his parents - DD and DS1 translated everything so all 5 could play together, was quite cool (until the English boy turned out to be a bit of a horror and thumped the German boy! Ooops! They turned out to be a bit of a funny family!)

Going back to catch up properly now.

Sorry, forgot to say earlier welcome back English!

cheas I haven't bought anything from Vertbaudet myself, but have heard their sizing is small. Sorry, can't be of any more specific help!

english that's good to know about the DiBa, didn't know the cash machines were free for other banks. Dh's bank berater phoned him yesterday to apologise an dput his dispokredit up to 5k! He didn't even want that much but he was so mad at them the other day they just did it to calm him down.
Hope you had a nice holiday and abit of a rest atleast.

cheaspicks from years ago the Verbaudet stuff was always slightly on the small side. They have really nice clothes don't they?

linzer well done on re-starting jogging. We're supposed to be starting 'getting fit' but still waiting for dh to gettime (and money) to go with us and get some running shoes. Dd needs some new ones and we don't even own a pair between us!

ploom glad the fighting has stopped, what's the prize if they get enough stars? My 2 have stopped fighting but seem to show complete disgust if they have to speak to each other! Ds usually sneers at anything dd says and she snarls if he even opens his mouth! As long as they're avoid each other it's fine by me.

nutella I used to do exactly the same thing on my bike! But I also noticed alot of bike riders used to shout at me when I first came to Germany as I didn't realise they had right of way on paths that were shared foot paths/bike paths. Recently an adult rang his bell and shuted at me to get me to step aside on a pavement on a quiet street and stupid me did step aside. Actually I should have shouted at him to get on the road with his bike.

awsome I've also thought of a leihoma. Have you found any organisations that arrange it or how do you go about finding one? Advertise maybe?

cakehope all is well with your visiters. Have they atleast told you how long they are planning on staying? And good that they're helping out and giving you a break from work.

world nice that our thread helped your friend! I was recently at a turkish household and they were telling me how difficult it was when the father came to Germany 40 years ago. They're so friendly but only have Turkish friends so don't speak very good German.

My parents don't bother to visit so can't complain about them I guess! Last time we went there they didn't seem to like ds very much but worshiped dd so it was uncomfortable. Dh's family is lovely towards the dc but all too far away. It's funny, ds is 14 and if he wanted to go abroad alone - say next summer - I would happily send him to MIL in India or uncle in Texas but not to the UK.

Wow think we've all got family issues. Agree that smoking round young dc is a definite no-no - even if they say they do it outside its still in their breath and on their clothes. Yuck.

englishwoman - yeah I did have a crap childhood but if you met me you'd never guess. I'm remarkably well balanced despite not having any therapy!! Just have an absolute determination that my dc will have a much better childhood than I did .
So cute about your dc making that little group of friends on holiday. How was your holiday (apart from ds2 not sleeping!)?

linzer - I'm already making this face about the afternoon activities. I've now got ds1 playing tennis from 4-5 on a friday and ds2 playing football in a different place a 20 min drive away from 5.30 - 7! I think someone can bring him home tho so I wont need to be there every friday. Ds1 also wants to play handball - I really want them to have all these opportunities but the driving about is so boring.

cheaspicks - never ordered from them. Sorry. Have looked often enough tho - they've got some really lovely clothes.

admilyn - we've put an ad up on this site: www.ahano.de/leihoma/ & have also sent a few messages to some of the "Omas" that looked interesting but have yet to get a response.

There's also betreut.de but they want a weekly/monthly fee for their service (which they tell you after you sign up) - you can't contact any of the Omas until you pay the fee & your inbox will be packed with junk until you either a) pay the fee or b) send them 4+ e-mails demanding to be removed from their site

We have met a nice grandmotherly type lady at the swimming pool and are hoping that might develop into a nice relationship

Ploom exactly right about the smoking! It's just so incredibly sad that hubby's folks decided that they'd rather end the relationship with their only child & never even meet their granddaughter instead of simply not smoking when they were at our home.

awesome that is sad that your inlaws seem more attached to their cigarettes than their family :(

ploom yes my mother is a free spirit (some friends think she sounds fantastic (they don't realise how lucky they are that she isn't their mother) and the good friends roll their eyes at her latest antics) but she is very excited to be a grandma again. I think it's different (and I'm lucky) because I'm the only daughter. We speak most weeks - when we have time- and see each other two or three times a year and that works for us.

English Welcome back from your holidays! The adventuring family sound odd... but great that the DCs had a nice time and made friends.

I need a nap! Soo tired this week! Have lovely days everyone!

awsome hope you find someone. It's even better if the person is really close to where you live for spontaneous visits. Are you staying in Köpenick?

I wonder how wanting is doing? Maybe stuck in the middle of moving house.