Der Nebel steigt, es fällt das Laub - a German and Austrian autumn thread

[AntiqueMuppet]

A thread for anyone living in Germany or Austria, or anyone else who fancies a chat.

Previous thread here

Morning!

linzer - glad you got the replies for your Heurigenabend. Sounds like it'll be a fun evening. I puzzled for ages yesterday about what could have been wrong about what you said to the neighbour but like the others couldnt fathom it. Glad its not just me that struggles with using er or sie for inanimate objects - it's something I must improve on.

admylin - wow 4 Klassenarbeiten in 1 week - thats a lot. Will be very difficult for him to do his best in all of them. Can you speak to the teachers about it? How is your dd's mouth this morning?

jenny - I also love autumn/fall - agree its perfect for walking. Have heard that the whole pumpkin picking thing is much more fun in America - well anything is more fun than buying it from Aldi .

nutella - thats too good that the friend can get someone to do your decorating - you really shouldnt be doing that kind of thing at nearly 30 weeks pregnant.

ok cheas - you've ruined the glamour in my mind of a recording studio . But its still more interesting than what I do of a day! Ds1 wants to go next week to see Madagascar 3 for his birthday so I'll not be escaping it (unless I can get dh to take ds1 and his wee friends!). I quite enjoy some of the disney/pixar films (monsters inc especially) but its the obsession with star wars at the moment thats driving me mad.

hupa - very impressed that you found a pair of glasses so quickly - I always dither too long. Are glasses as expensive here as in the UK?

world - I really find it in poor taste to post bitchy comments on a longstanding thread about the posters on that thread. I'm sorry you dont find everyone as friendly as you like but you came on here of your own free will and you are free to leave if you dont like the thread. I have been on this thread for nearly 4 years and have had nothing but support, friendship and fun chat from the other posters and am sure thats how the thread will continue (thankfully!!).

Anyway off to crack on with the housework before going to pick up ds2 at 11.15 (how is that a school day when he's finished so early!!??!!)

Morning! DH had a 7 am flight to catch this morning and I didn't manage to get back to sleep after he'd got up at whatever godforsaken hour it was, so I'm in definite need of a .

Jenny I'm another one who loves autumn (I'm not a great fan of either very hot or very cold weather). I saw some pumpkins in the supermarket yesterday, labelled Jack o'Lanterns - I wonder if Austria has a trade descriptions act (they were normal pumpkins and nothing had been done to them)!

world I'm sorry you feel that way, but I don't think anyone has tried to make anyone else look/feel stupid. Re the ignoring, I think that's a fairly common issue on long-running threads with regular posters; I've been on quite a few and used to find it a little annoying when I'd write a post and the following three or four posters seemed to ignore it while responding to what others had written, but quickly came to realise that it's nothing personal. And I think it's inevitable on a thread like this, which for many of us is our only outlet with fellow expats, that we end up - often lightheartedly - complaining about the German/Austrian way of doing things, but that doesn't mean I automatically assume the British way is always right.

Ploom Oh, tell me about Star Wars - in fact, please don't tell me about it as I hear more than enough from DS and his friends! I've given up trying to tell DS that Anakin isn't actually pronounced Ennikin. Does your DS normally finish at 11.15 or is today an exception? That's not a school day; it's not even a whole morning!

oh linzer - that was way too early a start. Is he off somewhere exciting? By exciting I mean will he bring back something nice?

ha ha about enniken!! I've also given up trying to tell them the right way to say it. My sister bought ds1 a star wars clone wars dvd for his birthday but they only watched it once because it was in English and obviously he's Anikan in English and "errzweidehzwei" is R2D2 so they werent happy. But despite all the star wars conversations in the house I've still never seen a whole film right thro (and plan to keep it that way).

I agree that on other threads a lot of posts get ignored but I really dont find that on this one (which is probably why I only really post on here). And I agree that I've never noticed anyone make anyone feel stupid. Sometimes there are German words that come up that I dont understand but thats no-one's fault but mine. Thankfully I understood every word of world's post although I'm not entirely sure I whether I was supposed to or not!

Frankfurt, so no - nowhere particularly exciting! I don't think there's anything I really miss about Germany that I can't get here, so I'm not expecting any exciting presents.

Oh yes, er-zwo de-zwo is another one; I was having an argument a discussion with DH recently about how much easier it is to say R2D2 in English! Plus DS, for some strange reason, likes to call him erbs-zwo. He even has an R2D2 cuddly toy.

I agree that this is one of the friendliest and most inclusive threads I've been on, which is why it's about the only one I still post on (I didn't flounce from any of the longer-running ones I used to post on, which were all perfectly friendly too; I just can't keep up with more than one!). Ploom About half the German words I use on here are probably Austrian, so incomprehensible to a lot of Germans too; when I was writing about our Heurigenabend the other day, it didn't even cross my mind that most people outside Austria wouldn't know what a Heuriger is.

Morning all.
Linzer your dh is away lots. How long this time? How is the process for getting the money spent on business trips back? Dh has just found out that they've employed a cpompany to do those abrechnungen so it should be better and quicker (still waiting for Portugal pay back).

ploom star wars didn't make it to our house, either wasn't current when ds was at an age to enjoy it or he was into other stuff. I have also never seen a star wars film right through, well except the very first ancient one when I was
a child.

world maybe we come across differently to you but I've never had a problem on here. Sometimes this thread is just nice to pop in and pop back out of for a quick chat in the middle of a busy day, other times some of us won't even have time for a few days.

jenny this is the best season isn't it? Have you got your house decorated?

Hmm, have had a look at the amount of biology that ds has got to revise and it looks like a lot (immune biology) but he says it's not so who am I to know?! Must find out what the other 3 tests are in and then decide on asking the parent rep. what he thinks.

Just until tomorrow, admylin; he's rarely away for more than a couple of days. I think he just hands in his receipts somewhere at work and then gets reimbursed the following month, although the flights and (usually) hotels are paid for from a company account so he doesn't have to fork out for those. Hope your DH gets his money back soon; he has to pay for his flights and accommodation out of his own pocket, doesn't he?

Yes linzer all his trips have to be payed out of his own pocket. This one totals at 1400? which is a big lump to add to other monthly bills that we already have.

Dd made a small fortune for her birthday on Sunday! She is now trying to decide what to spend it on but I think she has everything she needs right down to the soldering set! Anyway, she found a hot glue gun that she has always wanted so that's another thing for her to find room for in her bedroom!

Now I need tips for Friday. She's having a sleep over with movie night - so 3 dvds lined up, popcorn, pizza etc but one of her friends isn't into sleep overs or movies so she's starting the party early straight after school so this other girl can join in until 6pm when she will be picked up.
Dd had thought to do a chocolate making session (one of her hobbies) but I'm thinking they'll get an hour at most out of that and my kitchen will look great afterwards. I think I should try starting a thread for ideas!

world didn't mean us with "hier", surely?

Afternoon :)

World if you want to post in secret to one person it's better to PM than write in a the language of the country most of the posters on the thread live in, I don't know whether writing in German was the equivalent of a stage whisper? I never name check everyone because I am far too disorganised and usually distracted by small children or the fact I really should be doing something else at the same time, I'm not ignoring anyone and often I don't have any direct experience of what one person is saying so would not be able to make a useful comment, whereas others will or already have... It's not ignorant to be a bit wistful about the ways of the country you grew up in when living long term elsewhere, most people of all backgrounds do it IMO...

Linzer DD finishes at 11.20 twice a week too, and she's 2nd class now - would have been once a week if she'd done Instramental but she was given a choice of options and signed herself up for recorder, but more children signed up for singing and dancing so that is running instead and the recorder children are not allowed to change their vote and just have to come home rather than being allowed to join the alternative class . I have just been to see her teacher, not about that but about the hours and hours homework is taking her when we have been told repeatedly it should only be an hour. I wondered if she is slow in class and so having to finish classwork as homework, and also just wanted her teacher's opinion. She was more helpful than I expected and suggested some strategies and things to try, and gave me permission to write in her homework book if it takes her more than 2 hours and she will be allowed to carry the homework over to finish at the weekend without getting into trouble if I do that, which is an exception to the usual. Her main answer though was that Dd is a typical summer born child, and her age in comparison to the class average shows as she is more "Kindlisch" and a day dreamer, which apparently the bright summer born kids who start school at not quite or only just 6 often are... She said hopefully she will catch up over then next year or 2 but it sometimes takes longer ... bit argh as it makes me wish a bit I'd kept her back, but she said a she would have ideally started 6 months later, a year would have been too long - can't really win there but glad we're keeping DC2 back when his time comes...

Nutella the wallpaper fiasco sounds a bit of a drama! I had DC1's room all finished and beautiful at about 30 weeks pregnant - then she didn't arrive til 42 weeks and didn't sleep anywhere but on my chest once she did, so it was just a nappy change room for 5 or 6 months When DC2 was born his room was still undecorated and full of boxes (we'd not long moved and I knew he'd be in with us) and when DC3 arrived he didn't even have a room, just a cot in our "dressingroom" (room you have to walk through to get to our room where our wardrobes and linen are) with some jungle animal wall stickers to brighten his corner up and a picture DD had drawn him with "Welcome baby" written on it :)

BTW Nutella and cake I have started the baby sorting but I have been terribly disorganised with putting stuff from DC away and have all sizes mixed together from newborn to 74cm and I am only part way through, doing 2 boxes as I go along, not sure what to do about bigger items but will work it out - don't either of you go and have your babies early as I'm not ready!! :o

Jenny I like bright autumn days too, not so keen on today though, it's been raining all day so far...

Ploom DS1 likes the idea of Starwars but doesn't actually have the concentration span to watch the films properly (he can watch younger children's films like 'Cars' through but I think Starwars is a bit over his head. He doesn't really know who is who apart from Darth Vader and neither do most of his 4 and 5 year old friends but that doesn't stop him and his friends playing Starwars... Same can actually be said of Spiderman, who they all proclaim themselves fans of but I don't think any of them have seen the films or cartoons...

I think you're all missing the point of taking kids to kids films though, it's an hour and a half to switch your brain off and doze whilst appearing to be a lovely parent who takes their DC to their choice of film... Lovely :) Maybe I can hire myself out to parents to take their kids to the cinema instead of teaching VHS classes :) (Only available to kids who don't need to go to the toilet multiple times during a film though )

admylin - I organised non alcoholic cocktails for dd's last birthday. She found 5 different ones on the internet and I bought the ingredients then left them to make them themselves. My only mistake was not trying them first as some of them werent so tasty. You could also do a treasure hunt in the house with the prize being cheap nail varnish and sweets. I used a great website to make clues - will see if I can find it again.

english - sounds like a nice wee job taking dc to the cinema but since its so bloody expensive I doubt parents would want to pay you anything on top of the entry fee, 3D glasses, sweets etc etc!! Stick to the VHS! My dc have also never seen spiderman but also seem to be fans . Agree star wars is a bit old for a 5 year old - ds2 only watched it at that age as ds1 was watching it. How he got into it, I've no idea. .
From what you've said about your dd before, she sounds like she was definitely academically ready for school last year but it is tricky as to whether she'd have benefited from another 6 months at home (which wasnt an option obviously). Think its good that you spoke to the teacher tho as she'll then know that you've got those concerns and she seems like a reasonable teacher - ds1's teacher would be writing in red in his homework heft if the work wasnt done.

Poor ds1 had diarrhoea over the weekend so I kept him home yesterday. He didnt do anymore all day yesterday so I sent him to school this morning. He's just came home before - immediately a whole load again - twice. I feel bad for sending him to school this morning but he'd been over 24 hours clear - hope he hasnt infected anyone else. He doesnt feel or look unwell so I'm hoping that its not so infectious but no idea why he keeps having it. So its Zwieback for him today and nothing else - thankfully he loves them and would eat them when he's not poorly - I'm not such a fan!

ploom does your ds have tummy ache too? My ds often gets the runs and I can't find out what it's caused by.
That is a great idea, dd would love cocktails and I'd rather they do that than make a mess with melted chocolate! When your dd gets in maybe she can give me her best tasting cocktail tips? The shy girl who is coming won't go near nail varnish and won't eat sweets due to braces - treasure hunt also no good as flat is abit too small but another type of game maybe. If you find a website for me you'd be a life saver.

english that's what I used to enjoy about taking the dc to the cinema too! Have slept through some sort of Eisbär film, Wilde Kerle and a few others! Always came out refreshed and rested!

English Du glaubst doch wohl selbst nicht, dass ich der Meinung bin ihr könntet das nicht verstehen, oder?! Das ist wirklich ein ziemlich blödsinniger Gedanke oder wolltest du mir gerade soviel Dummheit unterstellen

Schön Euch alle kennengelernt zu haben, ich habe unheimlich viel mitgenommen und es hat sich einfach für mich Vieles bestätigt.
Manchmal ist es eben doch einfach besser sich darauf zu einigen, dass man sich uneins ist.

World I was being sarcastic.

Ploom you are right my plan is somewhat flawed there! :) Hope your DS's tummy is better soon - my 5 year old has unexplained diarrhoea sometimes but I think it's because he sometimes eats badly - I don't believe in making a fuss about what the kids eat but serve them healthy food and think insisting/ bribing/ threatening so they clear their plates can be the root of later problems (whether with weight or other food issues) but sometimes he manages to live on meat and carbs which can't be good! Guess it can also be that they are still building up resistance to mild bugs that might not affect the other family members at all.

admylin glad I'm not the only one who enjoys/ed snoozing through kids' cinema trips :)

DD is now happily doing research on forest mice on a lovely website we just found, funny how she's happily doing that even though its not due in til Thursday, but a sheet of maths causes wailing and gnashing of teeth... The teacher did say she's one of the better readers in the class, the problem is really at least 90% with maths, and actually today the approach the teacher suggested of looking at what she's got and assigning her 10 minute tasks to do rather than just looking at the whole of a sheet or subject as one task worked well and she did her maths without a fuss :)

admylin Cocktails sound like a good idea. Have you found out yet what dd plans to do/make with the soldering iron?

English Well done for speaking to the teacher. It sounds like a ridiculous amount of homework. How to turn children off school before they´ve really started.

Jenny Another Autumn lover here. We live in a heavily forested area so the trees look fantastic at this time of year - not up to new England standards, but still very impressive.

So far ds has shown no interest in Star Wars despite his friends being into it. Mind you he then gets annoyed when they want to play Star Wars and he doesn´t know what they´re on about. DD also managed to skip the Hannah Montana phase that most of her friends went through which I was mightly pleased about.

world I think you must be reading a different thread to the rest of us. I´ve always found it very welcoming and supportive here. With so many people on the thread it´s impossible to reply to everyone all the time.

hupa Yes, I was also very glad that DD1 never got into Henneh Montenna; none of DD2's friends seem to be into it, so fingers crossed we've escaped. DS has never seen any of the Star Wars films; he's just got into it through his friends.

English It's good that the teacher has been so helpful. It's a difficult one wrt keeping children back, esp. if a whole year would have been too long for your DD, but from what you've said about her she seems to be quite bright and girls tend to be ahead of boys at that age anyway, so I'm sure she'll catch up soon enough. I do wish we'd kept DD1 back, but it never crossed our minds at the time (she wasn't a summer baby anyway). Oh, and I'll never complain about DS finishing at 11.50 am again; at least it's almost lunchtime!

admylin / Ploom The cocktails sound like a great idea. I'm making a mental note of everything for future birthday parties!

Ploom Hope your DS is on the mend soon. DH always swears by coke and Soletti when he has an upset stomach, although the doctor told him recently that coke isn't great as it has too much sugar in it IIRC.

I'm obviously not sleep-deprived enough to enjoy the cinema! I just find myself sitting there thinking that I could be doing something much more productive with my time. I actually took my MP3 player along once to listen to some podcasts, but the film was too loud.

I remember being taken to a film involving My Little Ponies and evil purple smog as a child. In retrospect, the adult who sat through that with us must have been a saint .

world I can only echo what hupa has written. I have never read (or written, for that matter) anything on this thread intended to belittle or poke fun at another poster.

I've read back and I can't see where any offence was implied or stated. Sorry you feel like that world. Also apologies to all the new members of the thread (or namechangers?) whom I've missed while my dps were here. I'm sure everyone has made you feel very welcome. I can only keep up with a couple of threads at the most, otherwise I find myself getting too sucked in. Yesterday I spent far too long reading a thread about George Osborne. Anyway, we have a whole pile of tomatoes on the dining room table hoping they will ripen and ds2 likes to throw them on the floor. Best go and pick them up. Good Tuesday everyone!

I'm not sure what I have said or done so I am genuinely baffled! If someone could enlighten me I'd be very grateful. I don't know where the PM's come in .

Then again , I have gatecrashed this thread and should have just started a new one for my queries; I purely posted here because it seemed a busy thread hence likely to give me an answer at short notice.

bienchen - will PM you.

jenny - hope you rescued the tomatoes

hupa oh the dreaded hannah montana - very glad that phase is past!

Ds1 has a right dose of the squits . But he's otherwise absolutely fine thankfully. Thanks for the tips linzer but we dont have coca cola at home or any fizzy drinks so will just stick to giving him water and Zwieback. Oh and definitely no school tomorrow.

cheas I can only remember being taken to see one film as a child, ET, and feeling horribly confused by it. I don't think I went again until I was about 16!

jenny I daren't look at active convos, otherwise I end up getting sucked in. Posting on one thread is enough for me (although I do spend more time lurking than I should).

bienchen You haven't done anything at all and there's absolutely no need to apologise for gatecrashing (which you haven't done anyway); everyone's welcome here. Hopefully Ploom will explain.

Ploom I'm not sure whether they were tips as such as I'm a bit about some of DH's ideas about health! I'd far rather have water than coke if I had a stomach upset, although I was a bit by the doctor telling DH coke has too much sugar in it as I thought you were supposed to add sugar and salt to water to make a rehydration drink. Maybe not as much as sugar as is in coke, though!

Thanks Ploom and Linzer, I will not dwell but offer my 2 cents on tummy bugs instead .

Conventional wisdom in my youth was black tea and Zwieback. When my DC had a bout here in the UK the advice was to just feed them whatever. I think the latest is stale lemonade (as it is sugary) but not as aggressive as coca cola which is really acidic. Luckily DC are not prone to the squirts but I offer stale lemonade or boiled water/peppermint tea and dry toast until their stomachs are settled.

Ploom hope the bug is overcome soon as yes to no school until 24 hours after it has cleared up.

My happy experience today was to find an intensive swimming course for DD (4 x 1 hour/week in the afternoon for a couple of weeks). She has been going for over a year here but 30 mins on a Saturday morning just don't cut it for her. Plus she is very tall and cheats by walking along the bottom rather than swimming and the instructors are letting her get away with it. All researched on the internet and then booked over the phone direct with the pool. It may not be rivetting news for you but as she had to wait for her lessons here for about 6 months before they had a vacancy, it might explain my excitement. New course starts at the end of Nov, so she has time to settle in a bit first before getting thrown in at the deep end.

Evening everyone.

This thread has taken a strange turn while I have been busy!

Sorry I'm finding it hard to keep up at the moment, but I AM reading and will try and get back into things.... hope everyone is having a schön Abend :)

Bienchen Yes, the doctor recommended black tea to DH, but not peppermint tea - which I'd always thought was good for digestive problems (I can't remember now what her reasoning was). That makes sense about coke being too acidic. I'm sure I read somewhere that flat coke is good for stomach bugs when I was trying to prove DH wrong, but lemonade does sound better. Great news on the swimming course.

Cake It all went a bit weird here today, but hopefully normal service will be resumed tomorrow!

I let the DC stay up to watch Felix Baumgartner jump through space or whatever it was he was going to do (I was a bit confused by the balloons and what exactly they were doing there) - and then an hour after their theoretical normal bedtime, it was announced that he wasn't going to jump after all. I've given up on the idea of an early night for myself too, but will just have to make sure it's not a very late one; I always potter around unproductively when DH is away, so I have to tempt myself to bed with a good book.

Bienchen intensive swimming courses are definitely the way to get a child swimming in my opinion - my older 2 have both done them, though the 2nd isn't quite there (he can only swim in a pool with the right kind of edge :o

BRAT diet works for my kids when they have tummy bugs - bananas, rice (plain or plain rice cakes) Applesauce/ stewed apple and toast (dry) with plain water.

Flat coke is for dehydration rather than specifically to treat a tummy bug I think - from my year backpacking in Asia almost 20 years ago something about electrolytes rings a vague bell, and if you've not kept anything down for days the sugar is no bad thing (I have vague misty memories of a Malay lady on a coach feeding me flat coke and putting very strong smelling salts under my nose when I had dengue fever, and one or the other perked me up enough to find my way off the coach and to a youth hostel...) Normal mild tummy bugs maybe don't require huge quantities of sugar though :) Don't rehydration sachets contain both sugar and salts?

I got involved in a bun fight on AIBU once about this subject, so I did a lot of bilingual googling (and of course asked DH about it as well) .

When your body becomes dehydrated through illness, then you need to replace fluid and essential minerals (salt/electrolytes), hence the recommendation to add a pinch of salt to a cup of tea. The point of adding a spoonful of sugar as well is merely to make it taste better. Eating zwieback is another way to get salt, so drinking something salty is not essential - DH's view is you should drink anything you fancy as it makes it easier to drink more, and he agrees with English that the energy in sugary drinks is beneficial when you're otherwise not managing to eat.

After all that, I can't remember who is actually suffering with this tummy bug, but get well soon, whoever it is!