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.

Good to know you're still with us World :)

Linzer - no way so selfish of MN :o

Well admylin?? Did you find out anything about your ds & the girl??

admylin how exciting! Dnephew (16) just changed his relationship status on fb to "in a relationship" - we have all been getting very excited and doing a lot of fb stalking.

world glad to hear you're staying. I don't suppose there are many Germans living in Germany who read Mumsnet and even fewer who post, but that doesn't mean you aren't welcome here! You'll just have to put up with us rabbiting on about the small details of our dcs' lives, though, as that's what we mostly talk about.

Any more information, admylin? We're all on tenterhooks! (Plus it takes my mind off the pile of washing I have to do as DS's bed was soaking wet for the second day running - aargh. We've realised that it must have been that early evening cup of tea. Tea does not, in fact, solve everything - it creates its own problems. )

It's amazing how quickly they grow up, isn't it? I ran past DS's class on my run this morning and he waved quite happily at me. It probably won't be too long before he's dying of embarrassment and refusing to acknowledge me in front of his classmates!

Hey cheas, I also cannot imagine there being too many out there of my sorts
Well, I at least got confirmation that the breed is indeed called German Shepard as I have tried during my time in Scotland to convince people of that and I was corrected to it being called Alsatian and a breed such as the German Shepard does not exist

Not found out anything yet, but ds was in a very chirpy good mood yesterday! Hmm, I'll slip a question or two into the conversation maybe today!

Last night the dc were asking how old I would be today, I said I don't know I stopped counting! So they started guessing, ds's first guess was 28, then he figured seeing as he is 14 - maybe not!

Dd said are you 30?
Nope.
Are you 35?
Nope.
I know, you're 40!
Ds then said in German So was sagt mann nicht! As if 40 is an insult and too cheeky to say to your mother!

admylin that's actually cute, shows how sensible your boy is

at you being a 14 year old mum, admylin! Unfortunately the DC know exactly how old I am (it's easy to work out as I'm 30 years older than DD1) and don't hesitate to inform other people of my age either.

Happy birthday (again), by the way!

Nutella I would say "yes way", but fear I may be showing my age again.

Alles Gute, Liebe und ganz viel Gesundheit und Glück zum Geburtstag. Mögen all Deine Wünsche in Erfüllung gehen. Ein tolles erfolgreiches Lebensjahr wünsche ich Dir unbekannterweise aus dem schönen Hamburg, und einen Strauß Blumen bekommst Du auch gleich mit zugeschickt .

Thanks linzer! It'll be a great and memorable birthday - I have to go and sit through a collective parents' meeting for dd's class tonight. Although I have bought myself a nice bottle of wine to drink when I get back.

at your dc informing other people how old you are! They don't get that it's no big thing to be the oldest in a group after a certain age!! I Remember being the envy of my classmates as I was always one of the oldest in my class, first to turn 10 (wow double numbers) and first to be a teenager, first to be 18 (oh joy) but not a thing to boast about nowadays!

Danke world!

Oh yes, the excitement of hitting double figures! I was the oldest of my school friends too but now also have friends a couple of years older than me so haven't been the first to reach those "milestone birthdays", which is quite good in a way!

Sounds like you've found the perfect way to celebrate. Could you actually find a way of smuggling the wine into the actual parents' evening for added bearability? A friend of mine actually did so; she's a teacher herself and I wasn't sure whether to be or (a few of them shared it, apparently). Needless to say, that didn't happen in Austria!

Happy birthday admylin!! at having to go to a parents eve on your birthday but at the wine after! Did you get any nice pressies? Disappointed that you've no further news about your ds . You have to interrogate him later.

world - it always amuses me on my birthday when my IL's congratulate me and tell me their wünschen on my special day - I never know when they're going to stop - Gesundheit, freude, erfolg & maybe Gesundheit again - I'm sure I've said Danke before they've finished before . Its a very German thing to say as opposed to our British short and to the point "happy birthday"!

linzer - grrrr to wet bedding. I dread when ds2 wets the bed (thankfully only seldom happens) so I'm obsessive about him drinking after 6pm. Tickled at your ds having a cup of tea - none of mine ever drink it despite me drinking at least 2 cups a day.

cheas - in a relationship at 16 - oh I am dreading the future. Wish I could also forget how obsessed I was with boys at that age cause that adds to the worry!

Ploom ha ha ha well there is also simply 'Herzlichen Glückwunsch', but if one wants to put more thought into it, then one might add as much as wanted.
And the Gesundheit part I only started to add this lately as people left and right are starting to be between 40 and 50 and it seems the first ailments are truly wished to be as far away as possible

Ploom I am sure you'll agree with me, that birthday cards in English are simply awesome, or actually all sorts of cards are great. I can hardly find all these funny, witty and well-written cards in Germany.
In the U.S. I turned into a fan of buying and sending out cards for that reason.
And in the UK I have bought so many cards, simply as a keepsake.

Happy birthday, admylin! Hope the parents' evening is short so you can celebrate with your family this evening.

ploom yy, I always start rudely trying to pull my hand back when MIL is reciting her happy birthday speech . And I end up saying danke about six times!

Does anyone know Handa's Surprise and Handa's Hen? They are children's picture books and I'm wondering about using one or the other in my kiga English lessons. I've been using the Very Hungry Caterpillar, which goes down well with the kids, but it means trying to teach them the days of the week and they obviously have no real understanding of the concept.

Handa's Surprise would mean focussing on "like" and "like best", which would be good, but some of the fruit mentioned is very exotic - guava, passionfruit. Handa's Hen has the numbers 1-10, but I don't have a copy, so I can't gauge how difficult the rest of the language might be.

Any thoughts or ideas?

Very hungry caterpillar is such a classic Makes me think of my childhood as well.

Never heard of those books cheas - sorry. Will have a think of any of our books that would be good for teaching English.

world - I'm not a fan of cards with witty words on them so find German cards ok - just a bit expensive. Had a nightmare trying to find a sympathy card to send back to the UK without any German words on - difficult to find a sad looking card. But think it would be too morbid to stock up in them the next time I'm over .

ha ha ha Ploom on the morbidity scale, well probably would be high up

I remember standing in an M&S store in front of the card shelf and looking and reading...actually in Edinburgh the one on Princess Street...and I couldn't stop laughing it was soooo funny.

Speaking of these M&S stores. I am so in love with their food department, I find myself so drawn to all the stuff they have there.
I am wondering if that kind of supermarket is something special or fairly normal in the UK?
I've eaten food from there, I hardly even knew it exist before

cheas We had Handa's Surprise, but the DC never really took to it so I can't remember much about it as I didn't read it to them very often. I do remember some of the fruit being very exotic, though. I don't know Handa's Hen, I'm afraid.
Days of the week are difficult to teach when the children don't understand the concept. DS likes and I did sing it with DD2's class, but it's not particularly exciting and doesn't exactly teach the concept either. An English teacher friend of mine recommended the about days of the week, but I think it's probably aimed at a slightly older age group; two of the 2. Klassen sang it at the leavers' assembly last year.

world I do stock up on birthday cards etc. when I'm back in the UK, but only because they're much cheaper. I would usually avoid anything with much more than "Happy birthday" in it as the texts tend to be a bit cringeworthy!

Ploom at you thanking your ILs before the end of their speech!
DS is the only one who drinks tea - well, DD1 drinks fruit tea but that doesn't count! - and was converted in the summer when we were at my parents'. He doesn't drink a huge amount and only asks for it if he sees DH and me drinking it, but we often have a cup when DH gets home from work - which is obviously too late in the day for DS!

x posts Ploom and world. I also wondered how morbid it would be to stock up on sympathy cards as it's so difficult to find decent ones here (I find them all horribly morbid!); I think I ended up sending a plain (i.e. no text) one in the end when I was looking for one last year.

world M&S is fairly upmarket; I'm not sure how many people would (be able to afford to) do their weekly shop there. They do have nice food, but not as much choice as in the bigger (and cheaper) supermarkets; their ready meals are supposed to be very good, but I've never tried them.

Yes, they have this great ready food, special soups and stews and al sorts of Asian and oriental food, I didn't even know what all of that is. And wonderful desserts, and all this sandwich selection was wonderful.
I miss something like that. The salmon and potatoe salad, but not with mayo, I think it was oil and vinegar, but it tasted much better then what I can get here, all the shop bought Nudel and Kartoffelsalat makes want to p...here.

Oh yes, M&S sandwiches are great. Unfortunately, they don't have them in the food hall in Bratislava and the ones in the cafe are definitely Slovakian rather than British made (bread tastes like cardboard, etc.).

That Minimonsters song is brilliant, Linzer. i'd have to adapt it a bit, but my kids woud know most of the actions already. I'd previously done a drawing task where they had to draw a picture of an activity for each day of the week, but they almost all struggled for ideas (and clearly had no idea what day they went to the music school/football/swimming, etc). Just wish I had a piano in the classroom .