2013 ist schon da! A new Kaffeeklatsch thread for the New Year - living in Germany and Austria

[LinzerTorte]

All welcome - whether you're living in Germany or Austria, have questions about life in those countries or just want to chat.

Previous thread here.

Oh that's good I have had a little look on websites etc but with my extremely limited German I'm not coming up with much apart from very generic agency ads. I'm thinking it will probably be easier to find something when I'm over there but that scares me a bit too! DP is going to ask around nearer to the time.

How did you find the CELTA? I'm utterly drained at the moment. I'm doing the 10 week version so not as intense as the 4 week, but with working 2 days per week too (and having to beg for my required 16 hours which I need or I stop getting tax credit help with childcare...) and effectively being a single parent I'm finding I don't really have time to eat or sleep.

The milk drunk smile is the most utterly gorgeous thing about tiny babies :)

Agree with the milk drunk smile - really miss that! Hope he sleeps really Nutella.

The CELTA sounds really interesting Bertie. I wish I'd done that before I taught English in Germany as it would have made it a lot easier, but it was 1996 in Dresden so there was a lot of work around then. I hope you find a job easily!

I hope cheas and Linzer's health insurance gets sorted out to a reasonable amount. It seems crazy that they could charge you more than you earn, but it is the same here and that's why there are so many uninsured Americans.

Glad the afternoon went well outnumbered and your boys are being so sweet. I can't believe you don't get any help because of a sniffle! Venting online is really beneficial, especially when you have so much on your plate.

Hupa, I thought my back was doing really well till I went to the physio this afternoon and he hurt my shoulder again, which he thinks is the cause of most of my problems. A couple more appointments and I should be right though. Will probably have to pay it out of my deductible, unfortunately.

Right, sorry to run, but Supernatural is starting and Samuel is named after the lead character Hoping all children feel better, sleep properly and kindles were played with!

bertie I had no problems finding English teaching work over here even without any qualifications. I just walked into the Berlitz school and they gave me work . Places like Berlitz, Inlingua and EuroSchulen have very high turnover of staff, so they are constantly hiring. You could try cold-applying from the UK, but if you can survive for a few months without work at first over here, you will probably have better chances applying from here. There's also the Volkshochschule, but you would probably need to make first enquiries there in German. Bear in mind that the people I know who earn a lot from teaching English started off at badly-paid language schools and moved gradually from that to teaching privately/freelance for a lot more.

mrtumbles I don't feel picked on . Actually, I agree with you that healthy scepticism is needed when looking at these rather extreme parenting philosophies and I was trying to poke fun at myself for being rather obsessed with Katy currently. I obviously didn't explain what I meant very well in the last post, though: Katy's study and research as a biomechanist has led her to believe that our Western lifestyle of sitting up to 10 hours a day and our culturally-defined (bad) postural habits cause us to load our joints and ligaments incorrectly, resulting in all the aches and pains, pelvic floor problems and even hip and knee replacements which we tend to accept as bad luck/normal part of getting older. The main aim of her blog (other than to drum up custom for her alignment course) is to get across her message of "sit less and walk 4-5 miles a day". She had to fit rearing a baby into that philosophy, so I guess it was to be expected for her to look at what hunter-gatherers do.

I didn't mean to imply that I thought that her ds was proof that all the non-sling carrying and baby gymnastics would make a child walk at 9 months. I should have added a "fwiw" that he at least didn't disprove the theory that children in hunter-gatherer tribes walk at 9 months on average because their parents do the same. I don't suppose you think your dd disproves the theory either, despite you not intentionally following the HG baby training programme . If you tell me that your dd spent her first 9 months predominantly strapped into her car seat, however, then it might be worth telling Katy about it .

Right, if anyone's still reading, Katy posted a photo of fb this morning of her bf her 30lb toddler while walking along an idyllic country path. I liked it, so you may be able to see it if you go on my profile, assuming it didn't pop up in your news feeds.

Just popped on to catch up and now there is grizzling coming from upstairs.

Hope everyone is well! Will try and catch up properly later.

My new Kindle has arrived and I love it! I've switched to the UK store and have already downloaded one free book, bought another five for 20p each and have splashed out 79p on The Sunne in Splendour. It's almost paid for itself already. Now just have to work out properly how to use it... I may have to bring it along tomorrow, platanos!

making dinner but....how did you switch it to the UK store? . I am definitely bringing mine along tomorrow...the children can run riot while we behave like geeks with our kindles. Btw, I started my real book last night - font is too small and the book is too heavy ...I did not realise I was that much of a kindlekonvert (think that deserves a whole new word!).

Kindles I want one - no I need one! I would save the money that I would otherwise need for reading glasses! Dd will want one even more now if you can switch to the UK store.
Have fun with your new toys!
Hope everyone is well and all the ill dc are recovering nicely.

platanos Go to Mein Kindle at the bottom right of the Amazon homepage, click on Ländereinstellungen and then you can change the country. You do need a UK address, though; I already had my parents' address registered as an additional delivery address so switched to that, or you can enter a new one. Do you have a relative's address in the UK that you could use? I've just checked and it hasn't affected my Amazon account otherwise; my address here is still my default delivery address and DH's (Austrian) credit card is still the default payment method. From googling, it seems that you can switch back and forth between countries - although I'm not sure I'd want to risk it too often; I think I'll stick with the UK Kindle store as I only mainly read in English.

admylin I wasn't convinced I wanted/needed one either, but have been converted after just a few hours!

la la la

Glad the kindles are proving fun! I have the rival version in America and I like it too. Are you able to flick back and forth to the family tree in the Sunne in Splendour Linzer? I had to keep doing that (and use the one in Josephine Tey's the Daughter of Time as it's slightly differently organised) to keep track of who's related to whom. Let us know if you have the same reaction to Dickon that Weissdorn and I did! could have ripped my bodice any day

Must plan my German lesson for tonight. On family trees do they stick the letter v for verheiratet in or just an equals sign?

I worked for Inlingua too cheas, was never very impressed with their materials, but then they just teach people to speak really and not to write much.

Have a good Thursday!

admylin you may really find it much more comfortable reading with a Kindle than normal books. My mum had massive problems with her vision, after cancer had spread to her brain and she had had several brain ops. she used her Kindle both for books as well as reading the newspaper. old fashioned books and newspapers would not have been possible for her to read!

glad you like it linzer

Thanks Linzer - thought that might have been it. I might be able to use my Granny's address in the UK, but will check it out first. I don't want to land a nearly 99 year old in prison for fraud. Not that amazon has any claim to a moral high ground.

jenny ripped your bodice?! sounds like an interesting book!

outnumbered wish I had thought of that. My dad was unable to read for the last 10 weeks or so of his life. It really upset him. But "luckily" he went quite quickly and quietly and before we really had time to think of long term plans like kindles.

off to get ready to go to meet Linzer . have a nice day all...

Enjoy your meet-up, platanos and linzer!

I must say the fact you can switch a Kindle to the UK store makes it even more appealing, but I'm still annoyed about the fact I haven't simply inherited DH's old one - Amazon won't repair it because it was bought at Tesco and of course we binned the receipt so Tesco won't deal with it either.

jenny I worked for Berlitz, not Inlingua, but I imagine it's much the same. A friend worked at Inlingua for a while, too, and seemed to have to do far more lesson preparation than I did, but that may be a reflection of my laziness rather than the quality of the materials. Berlitz rewrote their teaching manual twice in the six years or so that I worked for them - wonder how many times it's been redone since?

bertie I'd also be interested in the answer to your question. I usually say "front bottom" to dd when I'm washing her, but it's too vague to use generally. I agree that most terms are either cllinical, twee or too porny (or too Mumsnet - fanjo?) I've heard a couple of German children's words for penis, but have no idea what people say for vagina. outnumbered?

Hope children slept well last night and that poorly ones are feeling better/back at kiga today.

weissdorn I feel the same about Fasching, yawn. I can see it's nice for the kids to decorate the rooms at kiga and to have a day when they are allowed to go in in fancy dress (dd has been asking for weeks when she will be allowed to wear her fairy wings to kiga and saying "but I want to fasch NOW" when I tell her not yet), but the amount of effort put in by some adults is slightly frightening! I haven't noticed the build up quite so much this year, though, and realise I don't even know when the procession is. You have to pay to watch it here and there's nowhere to park, so hopefully DH won't insist on going.

wiessdorn aren't you near Köln? I know in that area they are extra Karneval mad. But no I don't get it at all. The first time I found out about it I was walking with DP into Nürnberg town centre and there were all these crowds standing around watching a procession of people in sort of dog costumes and all sorts I was and asked DP what on earth was going on. I guess it just never crossed his mind that there was nothing like it in England
The one thing I did like about fasching/Karneval In Nürnberg was the local bakeries had loads of different kinds of Krapfen I was so sad when they all disappeared again.

Linzer I got an email from money saving expert recently which had a tool for helping you find all the 20p or free books... I'll have a look got it later and post the link. hopefully i will have some both hands free time...

DS is slowly working out that he can't smile and feed. He is so cute. I've also found that if you tickle him under his chin you get a smile and happy noises. Last night we managed all on our own. DP is in Nürnberg until this eve. Fortunately a friend came over in the evening and entertained DS so I could have dinner.

X-post cheas I want to fasching now made me laugh! How cute.

nutella well, it ends in -ing, so it must be an English word, right?

I think I'm going to suggest a krapfen party to DH this weekend, thanks for reminding me that they'll disappear soon. I'm back to trying to not eat added sugar duriing the week, but only just resisted the doughnuts in the bakery on Tues - think they had about 3 different sorts, yum yum.

I think you probably have to have grown up here to get Fasching. We don't even have the excitement of different types of Krapfen; the shops are full of them, but just the normal sort (floury, with apricot jam) - which, unlike the majority of Austrians, I don't consider a particularly exciting delicacy.

Nutella That tool sounds good. I just clicked on the bestselling books that I liked the look of and bought any that only cost 20p , and also went through the top 100 free books list, but wasn't tempted by most of them.

Weissdorn Even as "just" a native English speaker (without any teaching qualifications), it seems fairly easy to find work teaching English here. The pay seems to vary wildly, however.

cheas A couple of friends of mine have worn "old lady" wigs to the Fasching procession, which I found extremely frightening! Almost like seeing what they'd look like in 30 years' time...

platanos Great to see you, but maybe we should get the men to look after the DC next time? Mine are quiet at last, probably worn out from the exhaustion of trying to kill each other...

Jenny Will let you know what I think of The Sunne in Splendour! platanos and I finally managed to work out how to bookmark the family tree (it took me about 10 minutes just to find it), although the font is so small that we decided it would be easier to find it on the Internet somewhere and print it out.

I'm utterly exhausted after five days at home with the DC - Monday can't come soon enough! I should have found another room to tile so that the Fliesenleger could have come and entertained them again. We're off to my ILs this weekend; DH is planning to take the DC skiing and I'm planning a trip to the cinema (with DH) - we'll probably watch Quartet, as DH doesn't seem overly keen on going to see Les Miserables.

Hi All
Occasional lurker here, just on a fly-by!

I just wanted to say that your kindles should all work across .de/.co.uk/.com amazon variants. I get books from all 3 and don't swap any settings in between for del address/ payment. If you are interested in picking up freebies, then www.ereaderIQ.com sends a daily email that will point you to the latest ones. Beware, some of it is self-published, uneditted dross and not worth the trouble.

News from us- we bought a house in Traiskirchen, AT last Nov. Most weekends now spent at OBI/ IKEA/ Lutz/ Reiter getting various things sorted. DD hitting the screeching toddler phase now though so wishing patience for myself as a priority for the next months.

Best Wishes, Caroline

Hi C4ro, good to see you again! You're only a few km down the road from us now; let me know if you're ever in BN and we can meet for a coffee. How do you manage to get books from all the Kindle stores? Now that I've switched to the UK store, I get the message "Bei Amazon.de sind keine Kindle-Titel für Ihr Land erhältlich" if I look up e-books on the German site (and I used to get a similar message for the UK site before I switched).

Can the map be set so that it's private, Weissdorn? It would be fine by me; I must admit that my geography of Germany and, to only a very slightly lesser extent, Austria is pretty hopeless! I do know Traiskirchen as it's virtually the next town to us - would never have expected to find another MNer there!

Yes, I'm from mid-Wales; I'll add Here Be Dragons to my ever-increasing to-read list! I've only seen/read (sort of) the first page of The Sunne in Splendour while I was trying to find the family tree, but it looks good. And you can't really go wrong for 79p. If it's any consolation, I'd need a magnifying glass to be able to read the family tree and map!