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.

English I think most people don't, but I do or would. I also would drink one or two or three glasses of wine with my meal and then drink coffee or espresso afterwards even at 10pm if on a weekend and the night is still long...

world Pennsylvania - in a really friendly small town, quite international, very safe (people would leave their doors unlocked when they went out), and probably not really typical of the USA (is anywhere?)! Whereabouts were you?

Eve'nin all :)

EnglishI can't drink coffee after late mid afternoon.... Not if I want to sleep! Although espresso seems common here after family meals... Which I don't get either. It seems a very strong taste to have at the end of a good meal

world I've always found Americans rubbish at placing accents, especially in California, I used to come up with a different country every time I was asked.

I'm also not keen n lukewarm coffee Linzer but there is a place here I have found where they do a hand filter thing (was becoming the latest "craze" in London when I left) and they have an amazing coffee selection from around the globe.
It also really bugs me that they do a cafetier of coffee but insist on calling it a Fench Press why is it that so many foodie things in America have the country in their title? What's wrong with just naming it waffles? Why is it a Belgian Waffle? Don't know why it bugs me actually... But it does :)
Is it wrong that I also think Americans should stop thinking that they speak English? :o they speak American! :o
must be my bedtime! Night

Linzer what I mean is sometimes the filtered coffee isn't the hottest but is just the right temperature for drinking. I don't like burning myself on a boiling cappuccino that surprises me from under the foam!

One last thing: the most common complaint I hear from Germans is that English food doesn't have enough salt in it. But I don't know any non German person who hasn't been surprised that the only spice known to Germans appears to be salt

Nutella that is funny

Handfilter thing a craze in London, who would have predicted that???

Nutella at the salt thing!

FIL loves to moan about how awful English food is, apart from fried breakfasts and fish & chips. They've been to the UK at least once a year for the past 30 years, but his point of reference is still one awful pub meal he had in the 60s

world I'd never really thought about it but Germans are always evil in Hollywood films, aren't they. How strange!

Linzer I'm another one who hates when people pick up on my accent (when speaking German). No idea why but it bothers me so I really try hard to not stand out (even though I'll happily walk around as the only person in our entre city not wearing all black/brown/navy blue in the winter.)

English That's really cute - your DD and her friend in their own little hedgehog bubble!

DS' lovely early bedtime did turn into an early morning in the end. He's been zooming around since 5am and I've just broken and put cartoons on the TV. He's 1, has no idea what's going on in the cartoons and is probably far too young to be plonked in front of the TV but is sitting under the dinig table watching with interest. I'm telling myself it's a one off and not the start of a slippery slope...
Actually he's just crawled off to harrass the vacuum cleaner instead.

Nutella I don't think my MIL flavours savoury dishes with anything other than salt and, no matter how many times I tell her that I rarely add it to food, she'll keep on apologising that there won't be enough salt in the dinner, urging us to add extra salt, etc.

I just googled Belgian waffle to find out what's Belgian about it and the first sentence on Wikipedia starts "The Belgian waffle is a North American type of waffle ..." And what about French fries - are chips a particularly French delicacy? They were renamed freedom fries when we were in the USA (when France protested about the United States invading Iraq), which a lot of people we knew there thought was very silly.

world Ann Arbor sounds lovely. We were also in a university town, which I think makes a big difference to a place and how accepting they are of incomers. We were definitely living in a bubble there, though ; I think it was even ranked the safest small town in the USA at one point.

My PIL are arriving for a visit later on today, either with or without DH's niece and nephew. As usual, they were all supposed to be coming, as usual we've booked a table for everyone (we're going out for lunch) and as usual, someone has decided they may not be able to come after all (DH's niece may be too busy getting ready for university, as she leaves next Sunday). Not that two less will make much of a difference, but it's just so typical.

EnglishWoman my parents also drink coffee after every meal (well, with breakfast). I'm sure they didn't use to when I was growing up, or at least they switched from instant to 'real' coffee around the time I was doing A levels. I wonder if it's a perceived class thing - somehow more upper middle continental. Certainly 'posher' restaurants here always offer coffee after dinner, which makes me think there must be some perceived association with fine dining.

antique dd watched an awful lot of tv when she was 1 and prone to getting up at 5am (up to 2 hrs a day). I wasn't very happy about it, but so tired that I coudn't face the alternative of getting up and actively playing with her. Fortunately she only watches a bit at weekends and at PILs now. I think the "no tv before 3" rule is virtually unenforceable, but otoh I'd rather she didn't get into the habit of watching regularly now.

world Ann Arbor sounds lovely.

nutella yy to the salt thing. I'm pretty sure Salzstangen are not designed for toddlers . When I was pg I couldn't eat anything MIL made, or anything in a restaurant. My taste buds have obviously adjusted again though now, I actually enjoyed her cooked-in-stock spaghetti yesterday .

world I could never understand why people were so horrified by the idea of a fried breakfast, until I realised that they thought English people eat a full English breakfast at 7am every single morning!

That's it antique. But the thing is, when people regardless where they are and what it is about, feel they can blurt out stuff they have no clue about.
Seriously, the day I will get instant positive response for holidaying in the UK, will be marked in my diary
People have no clue how well one can eat in the UK, I have spend my best eating days there, and this is no exaggeration.

The only immediate positive response to UK travel plans is usually when mentioning London OR Scotland. The pure mention of Scotland makes me look into an envy face, usually ha

Just a quick break from my ILs (they're lovely really!) while I make some coffee. The table is booked for 11.30 am but we're just about to have some Biskuitroulade to keep us going until lunch.

Antique I was also amazed to discover that most Germans and Austrians think we have a full cooked breakfast every morning!

world That's true, I hadn't thought about the German word for chips actually being French. And yes, it's fairly common to call potatoes Erdäpfel here; you do hear Kartoffeln as well, but my ILs would use Erdäpfel. I hadn't heard of the tradition of having Schnaps after a heavy meal until I met DH (although he doesn't do so regularly!); I really can't see how it helps, although I would struggle to drink it at all...

I've stayed in youth hostels in Scotland where I was the only non-German.

Linzer that is hilarious . The Scots (and also the Irish and Welsh) are lucky, they get the other kind of German visiting their home country, unlike the Mallorca/Magaluf/Ibiza folks

Yes, full breakfast every morning. This is how misconceptions get constantly carried on from one generations to the next. But you tell differently and then they turn around the corner and rather keep going on about the myth

Yes, we only call it Kartoffel. Know some old folks call it sometimes Erdapfel, but I bet many here wouldn't even know what an Erdapfel is.

cheaspicks thank you very helpful. I have just managed to open a bank account from here, no fees, one of the things that's generally better in the UK. Have had my account details posted, didn't even know about iTANs until a separate letter arrived. Seems a secure system, or at least as secure as I can imagine. So much has changed in Germany since I last lived there, it will be a huge culture shock, I'm sure.

The Schnaps thing is a tradition that seems to be on the wane but it does help with digesting the traditionally heavy food. More spirit made from grain in the North (Korn), fruit brandy (Kirschwasser, Zwetschgenwasser, Himbeergeist, etc) in the South. Using local produce really. And Erdapfel for Kartoffel is still used in the Southwest, too, but I will never stoop to that and will continue to pronounce my "pf" rather than just saying "p" [shudder and defiant emoticons]

Are you German, bienchen?

I'd always thought that pommes frites were invented by the Belgians .

^ I am; no idea which nation invented them. But grew up with them called something like "Pomfritt" and my friends in the North calling then "Pommess". But surely the Belgians have refined the art of cokking them and serving them with mayo

cooking even, doh!

cheaspics I think your parents and mine might get on :) Mine are the same on the coffee - used to be instant nescafe, but at some point after i left home they acquired a very fancy coffee machine, and now they are huge coffee snobs. A lot of their food and drink habits have gone the same way - my mum used to serve up corn beef fritters and tinned tomato soup (not together) but now she wrinkles up her face and makes unpleasant "ew" comments if I put tinned soup in front of her (because she has said she'd be happy with what the kids usually have for lunch, and that and dried pasta with a simple tomato and basil sauce are our lunch staples).

Morning all! Wow you lot were chatty on a Saturday night while I was being bored by German TV.

Cant reply to everyone - too much to remember. Just wanted to say my IL's would say a schnapps is the cure for everything - if you feel nauseous they give you one - probably the thing to make me more nauseous!! But they regularly have one after a heavy meal & 14 years later still offer me one despite them knowing I dont like schnapps.

antique - think a bit of tv this morning will have done your ds no harm at all. He looks adorable in the photos - amazing how quickly a year goes by.

english - glad the parties went well.

linzer - enjoy your family lunch

We've had a bit of a quiet weekend - its dh's only weekend off in 4 weeks and he feels a bit fluey. So I'm just doing stuff with the dc without him.
The kinderarzt was more than useless. Told me to put really good moisturiser once a day on the dc's feet warts then shave them off with something that i'd use on my dry skin - like one of those grater things . Worked ok on dd but ds2 was hysterical. Will try it for a few weeks then go to the Hausarzt the next time. He also said he didnt think ds1 was unreasonably tall. I bought clothes for him yesterday - he'll be 8 in 3 weeks (so still 7) & the clothes were size 146/152! For 11-12 year olds. Felt the KA just dismissed my concerns & told me to bring him back in the spring if I was still worried. I very rarely go to this KA and now I remember why. I know they can do a test where they measure a specific bone in the hand & this can then accurately predict how tall a child will be - not quite sure why ds1 cant have this done since surely it would be good to know if he was going to be 7 foot tall.

Anyway moan over! Have a good sunday .

Ploom how annoying about the Kinderartz. Your DS does sound tall, though of course he may just have had earlier growth spurts and all his friends may catch up (that's what happened to me - I was the tallest in my class for years at primary school, but only ended up 5 ft 6/ 1 meter 68! - however I think this happens more often with girls as we stop growing earlier). Is there another Kinderartz in your area you could try? Sounds worth having a second opinion as there are things that can be done to control growth if its an actual health issue (hormonal?) rather than genetics - my sister had an incredibly tall friend at primary school and she did have a condition that was putting her growth into overdrive, and it was successfully controlled somehow, though I don't know the details as I was a child too obviously at the time!

cheapstics and Antique I meant to say (before I was interupted by my children :) ) that all my kids have had phases of watching too much TV in the hours around dawn as small toddlers, and I don't think it has done any harm (who knows maybe they'd be perfect if they hadn't ) DD especialyl got up between 5am and 5.30am every morning of her life til she was about 4, and she also totally dropped all daytime napping at 18months, so when she was 1.5 - 2 and I was pregnant with DS1 I just couldn't get through the 5am-8pm days if I attempted to be in full on active parenting mode from 5am, so I used to snooze on the sofa from 5am to 6 or .30am with programmes recorded from cbeebies on for DD - Something Special, Boogie Beebies and Tikabila possibly saved me from having a breakdown during my first months in a new country where I barely spoke the language, was slightly at war with MIL, DH worked long hours and travelled in that job a lot, and I was pregnant and had a small non sleeping toddler! Thank goodness for kids TV, it is not the root of all evil at all in my opinion :)

On the kids and "screen time" topic one of the millions of things decreed by DD's teacher at parents eve last week was that the children should not have more than an hour a day of computer and TV time combined, otherwise it would be "catastrophic" apparently Some days my older 2 are literally outside playing with friends all day, they can be outside in the playground, the field behind it, our and friends gardens and the village green type area 8am to 6pm on a weekend or holiday day easily, only coming in (with hangers on) for food and drinks, but in winter or on rainy days they can also watch far more than an hour's TV and be allowed to play on the cbeebies webiste and starfall.com ... I actually don't believe that a moderate amount of "good" TV and computer use does do any harm, and I very much believe that what children watch is relevant - I am sure that Tree Fu Tom for example, where DS1 joins in very actively with the programme, doing the exercises (magic moves), or Show Me Show Me etc. is a world apart from the fast moving animations full of flashes of colour and light and no real plot aside from good v evil fight scenes which kids sit in front of drooling :o which can't be good for their brains. Does anyone know if there is any actual balanced research out there that looks at what children watch or use the computer for, rather than just a sample of 20 children who watch 4 hours of unspecified TV a day doing worse at school than a sample of children who watch no tv, for example.