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.

Think of their poor stomachs, English! It will probably cause them to catch a cold too. It's never good to give a child an ice cream if they have a cold either, don't forget. (While I don't give the DC drinks straight from the fridge - because DD1 just drinks tap water and the other two are very Austrian and like to have everything gespritzt - they do have milk on their cereals that comes straight from the fridge, which is another no-no.)

Sympathies on annoying visiting children who peer at the screen and ask what you're doing while you're trying to MN in peace. I usually tell them that I'm working.

Linzer yes working that sounds good

She's only 8 and 100% Bavarian, she wouldn't have understood a word! I just told her I was answering emails in English.

Why does the Getränkemarkt have a selection of soft drinks and beers in the fridge by the till? Is it for rebellious thrill seekers who get a thrill from risking life and limb for a cold drink? :o

English this is all nothing in comparison to cold/icy drinks in the U.S., especially then also served in icy-cold air-conditioned restaurants

Agree, world; I don't mind cold drinks, but am not particularly keen on watery ones where you get a mouthful of ice cubes every time you try to take a sip!

English None of the nosey visiting children (there are only a couple, but they want to know absolutely everything I'm doing) would be able to understand what I'm writing either, but I find it very offputting!

linzer yy and then can hardly hold the glass, cause it is so huge and freezing bloddy cold anyway, and yes mouth full of ice-cubes or by the time I am getting closer to finish midway it's already all watery

But here is the opposite, Germans always want their coffee really, really hot when served. apparently that's what they're known for when they are somewhere outside of Germany and apparently also on the top 3 list of typical German complaints

Coffee not hot enough
Food not hot enough (temp wise)
Beer not cold enough and where is the foam, the Schaumkrone

Ha ha world - my (German) DH doesn't understand why British beer drinkers complain about too much foam on their beers!

English Glad the party was a success. Hope the nosey visitor goes back to playing soon.

Linzer I had no idea about the drinks straight from the fridge thing. I'll try it on DNiece next time I see her (preferably with her parents present so I can see their reactions too). Is it a general Germanic issue or just an Austrian thing?

DH is at the Oktoberfest and DS was in bed by 6pm (shock!) so am drinking a lovely hot cup of tea and wondering what on earth to do with myself this evening.

I think I must be a secret German then world as coffee not being hot enough is one of my major complaints! I can't understand how people can spend ??? on coffee-makers that only produce lukewarm coffee and being brought a cup of lukewarm coffee in a cafe is always a huge disappointment.

Linzer this must be new thing with this luke-warm coffee. Maybe a change of coffeemakers?
Seriously, I have started to not buy much coffee outside anymore. I feel the prices have sharply risen and the quality is getting worse.
The best coffee I have had, is at home or friends' house, boil the water and do a handbrew with those filters you put on top of a mug.

Antique yes the beer and its temp and the foam, that's quite something to get a German lad angry, if not served to his liking

All this talk of coffee has made me want one! (A hot one, of course...) :)

Antique I suspect it's a Germanic thing - I've only ever experienced it in Austria, but probably because I didn't have children when I lived in Germany. Enjoy your tea - early bedtimes are great, aren't they?

world Well, it's not lukewarm everywhere - and I've even had the odd lukewarm cup at cafes that are normally quite reliable. It took me ages to work out what to drink here though, as most Austrian coffee is too strong for me, but cafe latte is often too cold . Our ?25 coffeemaker does the job much better IMO than some machines that have cost several hundred euros (a friend of mine has a ?1000 machine but it does at least produce hot coffee).

1000? That's outrageous, but each to their own

After my time in the U.S. I hardly enjoy regular coffee here, it is also too strong now for my liking.
And I am not drinking those other ones anymore, stopped drinking milk as I usually don't do well with milk, so since I stopped a few months ago, I feel so much better.
Stopped having sugar/syrup in coffee and tea in the past 6 weeks, and feel also soooooo much better. Lost 4 kg and almost all cellulite just doing that.

I mean not just, it was so hard, but I am going to keep up with it.

How long were you in the US for, world? Is the coffee very different?

Linzer at ?1000 for a coffee machine! I bought a Senseo a few years ago and I'm really happy with it. It's not for connoisseurs but it makes a nice, hot cup and means I don't end up making a whole pot just for one cup.

I'm celebrating DS' early bedtime with a Jammie Wagon Wheel but am a little scared that early bedtime = stupidly early morning.

Almost a decade, all of the Bush years....

and coffee is fine, Germans tend to call it dishwasher coffee

Lol at dishwasher coffee :)

How did life in the US compare to life in Germany, world?

Enjoy your evening to yourself Antique I got the big 2 to bed and brought the toddler down to settle him, which is our current routine since the boys moved in together, but toddler is on manic setting after a 2 hour nap while I was out supervising DD's party (DH has a soporific effect where I seem to send him into overdrive even though I am very dull :o) and 5 minutes ago DC2 came down claiming a bad dream... DH is hiding in the attic playing computer games, after the hard work of having 2 of the 3 DC by himself for 3 hours this aft (1 of whom slept and the other of whom he allowed to play endless computer games )

I share Linzer 's strong dislike of luke warm "hot" drinks. I don't like very strong coffee though, but I loathe weak tea - won't drink tea outside the house in Germany, as to me it just isn't tea, I need a good, strong cup of Yorkshire tea or PG tips, with milk, piping hot. I always think of my mother's taste in tea as dirty dishwater - wave a teabag in the general direction of some hot water for about 2 seconds, then add a dash of cold water to cool it down and some lemon juice... makes me cringe and feel all wrong just to make it - and it's a waste of a tea bag so I have taken to re-using mine, as all she wants it to do is discolour the water slightly! :o

Here's a random question - do most nationalities have the tradition of drinking coffee after meals, or is it a British thing? My parents have always done it, but I've come to think of drinking coffee after about 3pm as a bit mad, and no longer "get" my parents having a couple of several large glasses of wine with their evening meal then a coffee after, I know it is normal in some circles, so is it widespread and just me who thinks it is actually rather a strange thing to do - drinking coffee at 8 or 9pm after dinner?

Here's another random question - how do you express in German the concept of somebody "living in a bubble" in the metaphorical sense, meaning getting on with their own thing oblivious to all else?

Antique I will try to answer that one though for now I can say very different and I always thought of the UK as a middle ground between Germany and North America but maybe I am being unrealistic. I am not so much suffering from reverse culture shock, but still find it difficult to settle and be the old me after all these years on the other side of the ocean. But will write more later.

English maybe others here have better ideas. I heard the bubble thing for the first time in the U.S. as apparently the city I lived in also were in some sort of bubble...

I'd say in German you would probably say

'leben in einer anderen Welt' or 'leben in einem Luftschloss' depending on what you would like to express, the latter one has something of a slight ridicule about it.

English do you mean like the strong milked tea they drink here up North. Like the Friesentee?

I've never been to northern Germany world just Bavaria (and holidays in Austria), but DH has a friend from Saxony and he says the friend's parents have afternoon tea every day (though they've lived in Bayern 30 years) and it is more like English tea :)

The bubble context is about my DD and her friend so I don't want to ridicule them The moment has passed now, but yesterday morning I was chatting outside Kindergarten to several mums who also have children in 2nd class with my dd; we were talking about the new WTP teacher at school, and the fact loads of parents complained about her at school as she frightened their kids, who came home complaining she was too strict etc. My dd (who is usually incredibly chatty and also very nosey interested in people - had said nothing except that the teacher was new and young, and and they made 2 cool hedgehogs in her class :) another mum said her dd, who is a friend of my dd's, had said exactly the same, apparently unlike every other child in the class! I just wanted to comment that the 2 girls must have been in their own hedgehog making craft bubble, but realised I just couldn't say it in German - I hate having no idea at all how to convey something, but I guess sometimes what I want to say would sound too bizarre to a German anyway!

Yes, in the North, especially the coastal regions have tea traditions and you can find lots of tea stores here as well.

world Hmm, not sure about the accent - I know what you mean, but I don't like standing out because I have a different accent from everyone else. I really used to wonder about the Americans' ability to place accents as so many Americans thought that DH was Australian (despite his very Germanic accent) simply because they confused it with Austria. I was also told by an American that he loved my Welsh accent. (I don't have one.)

English I don't normally drink coffee later than early afternoon (my parents wouldn't either) and I don't think I know many people who do, but as we rarely socialise in the evenings I couldn't say for sure. The last time we were invited out for dinner with friends, I was the only one who accepted their offer of coffee afterwards it must have been all the wine I'd had beforehand.

Oh, and I drink weak tea and regularly hear the "wave a teabag" / "like drinking dishwater" comments from my family!

Antique We moved from Germany to the USA and all I can say is - customer service! It was almost a shock to discover how friendly Americans were in an OTT, surely they can't really mean it, kind of way, but even though I knew it was all really very superficial, I quite liked it. On the downside, there was the health care - not the care itself, but the costs (e.g. paed prescribed reflux medicine for DD1, we went to the chemist's, and were to have to fork out over ?70 for a small bottle), the fact that you had to drive everywhere (but the driving itself was far more of a pleasant experience), seeing guns for sale at the supermarket, etc. But I can only really compare one or two areas of Germany with one state in the USA, so it's hard to generalise.

I also feel, with every visit, that the UK is becoming more and more of a foreign country to me - as much as it will always be "home".