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

Oh was it!! Ha ha I must have pregnancy brain!

No worries cake, happy it worked for you guys, I think it makes the menfolk happy to be able to do something that we can't :)
Gosh I have terrible preggo brain and have to write everything down! I have a little black notebook that I usually carry with me and I managed to hide it under some papers for the last 2 days... I looked everywhere! But I'm confident the brain fog and bad sleep will all be over sometime in the next 18 years...

Pops by, misreads nutella's post thinking she is expecting bad sleep to be over in 18 months, and laughs hollowly, then re-reads, 18 years, yes hopefully :) Maybe 8 years - I'm happy with the way my year old sleeps, still waiting for on the younger to sleep past 5.30am in the 5 year old's case, and through the night in the 17 month old's! Mind you I never found pregnancy affected my sleep, so may you get one or the other and if your baby keeps you awake in pregnancy he will sleep beautifully in his cot...

happy with the way my 7* year old sleeps :) Missed the 7!

18 months indeed .... If only eh?!

I'm having problems getting comfy, then often when I'm awake the baby wakes and then I can't sleep or get back to sleep . At the moment lack of sleep is making me poorl; I always get a sore throat when I'm a bit in down.... Plus it might be making me slightly more emotional -poor DP I might have had a little bit of a meltdown today

Think it's in there doing an exercise DVD tonight

Excercise DVD ha ha ha ha this is hilarious

Morning all,

Hope everyone had a good weekend. It was lovely and sunny here on Saturday so we spent most of the day out in the garden, and then it poured with rain all day yesterday. We went on a tour of a local(ish - actually about an hour's drive away) bakery, which was quite interesting and we also got to make our own Flesserl (plaited bread rolls), which I was hopeless at but they looked better once they'd been baked.

I was quite excited this morning to discover that I can now book appointments with my dermatologist online. Apart from the fact that I hate using the phone anyway, I'm always ridiculously indecisive and come off the phone wishing that I'd taken the other option they'd given me/gone for an earlier or late appointment. As it was, I spent five minutes poring over the appointments available. Now, I'm just worried that I selected allergy testing rather than check-up. And if I did select check-up, did I select the right length (long rather than short)? (I'm not only indecisive, I'm also a worrier. )

Linzer The bakery tour sounds interesting.
I´d love to be able to make appointments online. I always put off appointments for as long as possible because I hate phoning.

We went to see Madagascar 3 at the cinema yesterday. The dc loved it, but I thought it was really disappointing compared to the first 2 films.

Cheddar I don´t know if you´re still reading, but I forgot to answer your question about schooling in Hessen. Most children start school at 6. It´s only those children whose birthdays fall between the cut off date of 30th June and the start of the school year, usually in August, who are 7 when they start.

hupa I thought about going to see Madagascar 3 with DD2 yesterday afternoon, but am glad I didn't now (wasn't sure it would be my kind of film anyway). Our neighbour was taking her elder two and DD2 really wanted to go as well; she said she would take her too, but we decided in the end that the screening was a bit too late.

I'm feeling a bit verunsichert after a conversation I had with two of our neighbours this morning. We were complaining about the new lamp post as there's a nice traditional looking one on the other side of the street, where there's a 1970s style block of flats, whereas our side of the street - where all the villas are* - has a horrible concrete one and I said "es passt überhaupt nicht dazu", at which they both burst out laughing. He has a particularly loud hyena-like laugh, which made it all the more unsettling! I can't work out what I said wrong - apart from the fact that I should have used sie rather than es (I struggle to use er or sie if there's an inanimate object involved), but surely that wouldn't have made it hysterically funny?

*not a stealth boast - we live in a terraced house

Linzer I can´t see what was wrong with what you said. Maybe they´ve both got an unusaul sense of humour, although I can´t see anything funny in what you said.

I´ve just been to the Optiker to order a new pair of glasses. My last pair broke about 3 months ago and I´ve been putting off going because I wasn´t sure what the system was for getting a new pair. I surprised myself by choosing a new pair within 5 minutes - I usually dither around for ages. Hopefully, I´ll still like them when I go to pick them up.

Hello Linzer I wouldn't say er oder sie and rather use das in case of an inanimate objetct. Das passt überhaupt....

What makes you think you said something wrong??? Maybe you were spot-on and in the context and tone of the entire conversation it was witty OR sometimes they wholeheartedly agree with you and you said it in a dry witty way which included (not intended by you) a snobbish/smug undertone. This makes people feel agreeing with you and yet it is something said which possibly remains unspoken usually. Against all general opinion, yes the German language has lots of Feinheiten and various tones of how to be rude, clumsy, brash, refined, witty, stupid, diplomatic, critical, nice, friendly, etc....the list is long which might remain hidden forever to the non-native speaker.

Don't worry. It would be last thing on my mind. The worrying might also be an Anglo-Germanic cultural difference.
MN is a good training ground for this. Would I have taken all the bullying or smug and rude responses here seriously, 'dann hätte ich mir auch schon längst die Kugel geben müssen..'

Linzer I'm also stymied as to why your neighbours fell about laughing at that comment. Maybe world can shed some light?

hupa films like Madagascar are definitely not my thing. Am now dreading dd reaching the age where I have to take her to that kind of stuff!

admylin and linzer glad it's not just me who prefers to google and buy books rather than actually do anything productive . Although it's not actually a great trait to have...

ploom that my casually referring to recording studios came across as impressive and/or exciting! Two rooms in a semi-renovated cellar with ancient carpet pinned to the walls in lieu of sound-proofing and no ventilation (hence the headache) is hardly glamorous!!! We were recording a backing track to a short promotional film - the client had brought a spacey-sounding hip hop track with bursts of operatic singing and we somehow managed to recreate a similar mood using a keyboard preset drum beat and an arrangement of Nessun Dorma for violin (!) and piano .

I hope your dd gets a chance to play in an orchestra at some point. I think the youth orchestra provision in the UK is better than here, although I guess it varies a lot depending on the size of the Musikschule (or school) as to whether they can put together a large ensemble.

cake well done for making Discussions of the Day with your thread! I think you might change your mind about the Mummy Mitts, or "Buggy Muff" as they are known here if it's as cold this winter as it was last year .

Hope everyone else had a good weekend.

X-posted, world. It's strange how much adjustment is needed to make things read like you intend them, isn't it? I mean, we are all exposed to so much writing, whether humorous or advisary or factual or whatever, and are capable of finely gauging tone when having a conversation, and yet actually conveying tone in what we write is so difficult.

Hi cheas yy I find it incredibly difficult. I remember when I was post-grad in the U.S. and worked there, how much email training we have received and how much they wanted us to rather meet and verbalise in person what we would like to get across.
There is so much research which I am sure is very interesting to linguists. I am happy when they break it down to me in the end and present the end-results

This reminds me of the translator discussion some of you had here. I do believe that there is a market in cross-cultural communication training.

world you may be on to something here. "In a second" usually means a minute or so in te UK, "in a moment/minute" means you can go for lunch and "later" often is the next day and "some time" could easily stratch to never. The Germans of course take it literally (me included, for the first few weeks in the UK) but you have to take it all with a (massive) "pinch of salt".

linzer no idea why the neigbours found it funny but maybe they agreed and were relieved that someone thought along their lines.

will try to catch up later, lunch reak over...

Stretch not stratch, doh!

Sorry; sleep deprived moaning.... totally selfish of me I know but I need to moan...

DP, FIL and BIL tried wallpapering the corner on saturday (I was given serious assurances by DP that BIL and FIL knew what they were doing, sadly FIL believes he knows what he is doing; but was actually doing a shit (sorry for language but it really made me ) job) in what will be our baby corner...

Anyway... I was supposed to be resting and long story short I was the only one with any clue on how to paper... and ended up being asked by DP, while FIL was out on an errand, to help

This room is three walls 2.5m x 2.5m x 3m ish and the ceiling .... nothing tooo fancy... we managed to get the ceiling done (between 9am and 2pm), they put one piece on the wall and I was so unhappy with everything they were doing - which DP could tell- DP sent them home and said we would continue another day...

Yesterday we met some friends for coffee and cake and one friend's family business is essentially renovating houses or building them... and she rang her brother moaned at him and discussed with him and her brother in law and another guy should be round later in the week to do the job I love my friend, beyond words right now... I really really really hope they can do it!!!

Ah well, it looks like it shall remain a mystery and I shall never know why I caused the neighbours so much amusement. (I bumped into one of them again later and was quite tempted to ask her, but was worried it might sound a bit mad. ) Thanks anyway to everyone for your input. I think I'll just assume it was the tone in which I said it that made it so hysterically funny, as I have no other explanation. A career as a stand-up comedian awaits.

cheas I've come to the conclusion that children's films (the ones you see in the cinema here at least, and particularly animated ones) aren't my thing full stop. Without exception, I've been counting the minutes every time I've been to the cinema with the DC. DH, in all his wisdom, has just ordered Mr Bean's complete works for them. OTOH I've quite enjoyed watching Fawlty Towers with them, although I'd forgotten quite how dated it was (well, it probably wasn't when I first watched it!).

Nutella sounds like a good offer from your friend, hope they can help you. We had to paper a box room when we moved in here as it had been painted over about 20 times by the look of it. I had to pay someone to do it but got a very good price (100? for papering and painting white) on MyHammer.de!

Linzer I'm pleased that you atleast have a jolly laughing neighbour even if you don't get why he was laughing! Better than grumpy moaners!
Is your Heurigenabend sorted yet?

hupa did you need new strengths in your lenses too or just a new frame? I think I am in need of stronger ones soon otherwise alot of books have started printing in really small letters!

Just brought dd back from having a tooth out (milk tooth) to start her braces treatment next week. Seems so strange taking a healthy tooth out but the new tooth was coming up behind it so it wasn't getting pushed out by anything. She's feeling uncomfortable now as the injection pricks are starting to hurt.

admylin Yes, jolly is definitely a good word to describe him; you can hear him laughing from miles away (he does seem to laugh at things quite easily!). I did wonder initially whether they might be laughing at me using an Austrianism (Austrians seem to use passen/passt much more than Germans do), but they've been here longer than I have so it seems unlikely.

The Heurigenabend is slowly coming together; all the Austrian families have replied now and we have 25 coming altogether, which is quite a good number. Much better than the 60-odd it would have been if everyone and their parents had been able to turn up (it would have been even more with brothers and sisters, of course).

Both DDs have had milk teeth out because the new teeth came up too far behind to push them out, but both said it didn't hurt at all (the injections or even afterwards, I think). Things have obviously moved on since my day, as I remember even the injections being horribly painful and then my jaw would be numb and painful for ages afterwards.

Well dd is asleep now, completely hidden under her bed covers so I hop eit doesn't hurt anymore when she wakes up. They've both had teeth out before (in Berlin) with no pain just alot of blood.

25 taking part sounds like a good number. Shame some of the class will miss out. Does your dd have friends in the class? Are they atleast coming?

Ds has just announced that he has 4 Klassenarbeiten next week. I'm sure I read that they aren't meant to have so many in 1 week. I mean how are they supposed to revise for 4?

Off to drive ds to table tennis. Have a nice Feierabend everyone!

She knows about a third of the class from primary school, but I don't know whether I'd class any of them as close friends - and of those, only two (twins) are coming on Friday. The rest of those coming are boys (none from her old class); one is the half-British one, so it will be interesting to meet his parents. I was disproportionately excited when a car with Union Jack and Scottish flag stickers (and a local numberplate) on it drove past me earlier today; thank goodness we didn't end up in Vienna, as I'm not sure I could cope with the excitement of so much multiculturalism.

Four Klassenarbeiten does sound like a lot; what subjects are they in? DD1 has her first Schularbeit (in maths) next week, which I assume is the same thing. She got a 1 in her English test last week, which she was really proud about; all that spelling practice definitely paid off. One of her mistakes I didn't really class as a mistake anyway, as she'd written "hundred" instead of "a hundred"; I'd been more focused on getting her to write hundred correctly rather than hunderd so I hadn't bothered insisting on the a. Was also quite today when she told me that one of her English teachers had told her to spell purple "burble".

Hello, sounds like there were some nice relaxing weekends, apart from the decorating - that sounds horrendous. I don't think I could paper properly either. I'm far too cack-handed.

I love the crisp weather at this time of year. Just perfect for walking. We went to the Fall festival downtown this weekend. The kids got to paint pumpkins, which is always nice.

I couldn't work out what you had said wrong either Linzer. Mind, I had once nearly caused offence at the dentist when saying sie haben was falsches gemacht as Sie and sie are impossible to distinguish! Glad the Heurigerabend is coming together.

It's taken me ages to write this much. Apologies to anyone I have missed. Must get on and do something useful with the boys!

Ja Bienchen das sind wirklich gute Beispiele, die nicht typischerweise in Büchern oder Kapiteln zum Thema interkulturelle Kommunikation zu finden sind. Ich finde die Kommunikation hier, wie Ignorieren oder einen auf "Doofmachen" bzw. Leute sehr unterschiedlich behandeln was die Freundlichkeit und Zurückhaltung der Kritik betrifft, sehr auffällig.
Solange ich mich im Land des Anderen aufhalte, bin ich sehr interessiert zu lernen und mich anzupassen ohne meine eigene Persönlichkeit dabei aufzugeben, aber sein eigene verklärte Sichtweise der Dinge überall mit sich herumzuschleppen, nennt man auch ethnozentrisch. Ein sehr wichtiges Thema in der IK.
Das ist auch der Grund warum ich schon längst erkannt habe, dass dieses Forum (genauso with Toytown), jedenfalls für mich, nichts ist. Es ist ja auch nicht für Leute wie mich gedacht, und das ist auch gut so