Lieber Frühling, komm doch bald. A new Kaffeeklatsch thread for Spring - living in Austria and Germany

[Ploom]

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

Nutella hope the cough is better soon. When mine had it we used to sit in the kitchen with a pan of water boiling to make the room steamy and also the doctor said to always have damp cloths on the radiators with a drop or two of peppermint oil or tea tree oil on. I used Vicks. It's a good sign if there is no fever though.
Our Lidl had loads of British week stuff left on Saturday night so you might be lucky!
Off to a school meeting now about the next Klassenfahrt. We'll be getting our shopping list of all the things they need.

Dd is fed up as she went down to the cellar to get her old bike out for tomorrow and it's far too small so she won't use it. She has grown alot in the last few months. Tomorrow the whole class are biking it to the swimming pool in the next Stadtteil for school sport class and she's the only one without a bike. I said I'll pick her up behind school and drive her there and pick her up again afterwards but she's very fed up.

Aw, poor DD, admylin. Will she be able to get a new bike soon?
What is your stretchy pizza dough recipe?

Nut, I don't really know about croup. Hope he gets better soon.

I don't think I can call myself a minimalist yet, but I am getting there. I used to have loads of clothes. I donated about 10 suitcase fulls before we left the UK last April. I still have more to get rid of, but am trying to not be too wasteful, so have stored a few things for when current things wear out, rather than having to buy new things. I don't think this is a pure minimalist stance, but we have to be more prudent now DH is trying his own thing. Once I have pared down to a proper capsule wardrobe I will feel better about how much stuff I am carrying around. I used to have lots of lovely furniture too, but offloaded it before we came. I was also a toilettries junkie, and had shelves and shelves of lotions and potions, and various hoards of makeup. I now have a much more basic approach.
I just want to feel freer to just get on a plane with a backpack and have everything we need. The only thing that can't really travel with us without being a hassle is the mattress. DH got rid of all his books, save a few, and has all his reading material on file/Kindle. Same for music and films.
Sorry to hear about the flood. My mother lost a lot of our baby photos in a flood too. We have a few, but most were lost. It is easier these days to have everything backed up, and I do use Facebook for photos as an extra backup.
Before we came here, I chucked out loads of photo albums, just scanning in a select few for posterity. I chucked out all my soft toys that I thought I'd pass on to my child but I since decided they were just old and probably not up to todays's safety requirements anyway. And loads of nick nacks, unused gifts, souvenirs, lava lamps and UFO fibre optic lamps, fairy lights galore, etc!

Oh thank you, makes sense now. Not sure how a Maultaschen frittata will taste but they are on offer in Marktkauf here at the moment so no doubt I'll be giving it a try.

Literally translates as Muzzle bag because it looks like a feed bag for animals. I think they call them slapped cheek too!

Have a great evening ladies. X

Lenti I think my dd may be a toiletries junkie too! When you walk into her room with your eyes shut, you'd think you were ina Lush shop! Only when you open your eyes and se ethe mess you realise...! She uses the floor to hang all her clothes up.

I hope we can find a bike soon for her. Trouble is, ds's bike is also too small (by far) so it'd be abit unfair to just buy one for dd which means we have to find the money for two so it's going to have to be a special offer when one comes up.

Wally hope the Maultaschen frittata works out! Do you like Käsespatzle? That was the other big seller at the Swabian restaurant where I worked.

Well, hay fever has set in here. Is anyone else suffering yet? Must get some tablets and eye drops today or I think I'll scratch my eyes out. Ds is sneezing all the time too.

Ooh I love Käsespätzle, admylin. Will you have to buy a lot for the next school trip?

Hope the Maultaschen work out, Wally. I've never tried them but they sound really good.

Hi Antique, how are things? Is the garden starting to take shape?

We still don't know what to buy for the school trip as the teacher didn't even turn up to the meeting! I was that she didn't even bother to let the Elternsprecher know.

We stayed for 35 minutes and discussed sending some packs of water as the dc all like fizzy water and there is only tap water at the hostel. Ds is OK with tap water though. A couple of parents complained about the state of the school building and then we all went home.

Well, I'm off to taxi dd to her swimming class.

Nutella DS1 has suffered with croup every spring and autumn since he was 1, we have steroid suppositories and a nebuliser to give him if it gets very extreme and he has been admitted to hospital overnight with it before too.

It is very scary the first time but as you get used to handling it it becomes less so. We were told DS1 would grow out of it by age 5, but he had his last attack in March at 5.5 so I don't know yet if he has... We have found that the croup tends to happen when he already has a cold and then exerts himself outdoors (the last bout was the night following a football tournament). However you can't decide to wrap an active child in cotton wool each time they have a cold, and we have just decided to expect it in those circumstances and I sleep in his room ready for it if we are expecting it to happen! We haven't needed the steroids since he was 4 - now calming him down keeps it under control, it gets worse when they panic. I read to DS1 for hours at a time when it happens, and it stops it getting to the point where he needs medication or hospital. However when they are babies like your DS1 it is harder to tackle in that way! Hopefully it will be a one off for you - it sometimes is - but once a child has had it twice it is likely they are prone to it, and you learn to expect it.

Have the hospital given you the suppositories? We got them when he was admitted, and if we give him one we have to take him to the paediatrician the next day for a check up (and a prescription for another as they only give out 2 at a time). The suppositories work within 30 minutes - we were told that in the unlikely even they didn't we were to take him straight to hospital, but luckily we have never had to since the first time.

admylin how annoying about the school trip teacher not turning up! Do you think she just forgot? Have you looked on ebay etc. for 2nd hand bikes? Ebay, local paper, big bike sales of abandoned / stolen recovered and not reclaimed bikes that happen a couple of times a year in most towns/ cities? New bikes are expensive but I'd bet you could source 2 affordable 2nd hand ones? Otherwise look on the internet - DD and DS1 both needed 20 inch bikes at the same time and DH found them on the internet for hugely less than in bike shops. Ebay can also sometimes be a lead to local 2nd hand bike retailers who will have more in stock than they list - we got a Puky Scooter that way for ?20 that would have been ?100 new. I guess it depends whether there is any street cred problem for teens with 2nd hand bikes, but by the sound of it not having one is a bigger social inconvenience! Our kids would also hate to be bikeless as all the kids are out on bikes all summer, so we go the 2nd hand route and get the next size up bike when needed, looking at it as a boarderline essential, if it doesn't co-incide with birthdays (new bikes are birthday presents only).

Oh sorry forgot to say, yes (touch a lot of wood) DS2's sleep continues to be like that of a whole different child! I think it's been a full week now! He's slept between 9pm and 5am every single night, and on a couple of occassions has been asleep before 8pm, and on a couple of mornings slept right through til 6.15am!!!!!! Its just totally unbelievable by contrast to the almost 2 full years of being so hard to get to sleep and waking every couple of hours, sometimes hourly, all night long! Amazing. The change was also so abrupt. I really can't say "yes, we used such and such a technique" or bought some wonder gadget, or radically altered his diet (although I have played around with all those things over the time his sleep has been so bad) unfortunately - I think he was just ready.

The move to his new room may have been linked - although his sleep initially got worse not better, he was in his own room about 10 days before he suddenly started sleeping. I also stopped giving him milk before bed, but he still has it in the day, I just stopped the evening cup, wondering if there might be a mild intolerance leading to tummy ache/ discomfort. I briefly tried soya milk but he absolutely loathed it and had huge tantrums when he took a sip of what he thought was milk and got soya (I dudn't like it da dusgusting milk! Dis one isn't a (DS2's name) milk!" So I just swapped it for water, and continued with regular milk on cereal and regular dairy products in the day, so if it is connected it is literally just the cup he used to have before his bedtime story. The main thing was probably that DH managed one night to get him to sleep without holding his hand - he sat on the chair in his room instead. That was a huge break through, and the next night I tried it too - DS2 complained, but only with words, he didn't cry at all, and I had to put him back to bed 5 or 6 times, but eventually he went to sleep, and after a few nights of that he was sleeping through. We still sit in his room while he falls asleep but no longer have to hold his hand. It does still usually take up to an hour, but 2 nights ago I told him I was going to the toilet after 40 mins, and crept out - usually he would cry or follow me, but he didn't, and when I checked back after 10 mins he was asleep! So I think maybe I can see a time in the not too distant future when we can gradually do that sooner and sooner after putting him to bed and get to the point where we can just say night-night after story, and go downstairs like you do with a normal child :o

That's really good news about your DS2's sleep, MrTumbles. I really like the latest picture on FB of him in the little car

Nutella Sorry to hear about Nutellachen's croup. I have non experience of croup at all, I'm afraid. I hope he isn't suffering too much and that he's better soon.

The garden is coming along slowly, admylin, although the weather has been so nice that we just end up sitting and enjoying the sunshine rather than gardening. How odd that the teacher didn't let anyone know they went coming. I wonder what happened.

They are very delicious - and 4.99 for 24 at Marktkauf if you have a branch nearby - fed the three of us for two meals with the broth and vegetables. I can recommend!

Spatzle is huge in Switzerland and yes I've had the cheesy one, it was the original Macaroni cheese I think as the Pennsylvania Dutch (Deutsch) took it over to the US with most of the staple foods there.

Quite a shared palate I think between the Alsace, Swabian and Swiss in this region.

Enjoy your day ladies!

bis später x

Mmm, am starting to feel quite hungry with all this talk of Spätzle and Pennsylvania Dutch food (they make delicious pies too!). I've never had Maultaschen, though.

I'm still struggling to keep up with the thread in between work and the ridiculous amount that DD1 has to learn for school at the moment. She's just told me that she has an English test on Friday on top of the geography one that we're already spending hours revising for, but at least it shouldn't require quite as much revision now that her spelling has improved a lot.

Thank you whoever it was on here who recommended The Hunger Games. (Linzer, perhaps?) I read it today and absolutely loved it - I think my heart was going at three times it's normal speed throughout the whole book. Now to exercise some self-control and not download the second one straight away.

Antique I can't honestly remember, but it could well have been me as I read it about a year ago and thoroughly enjoyed it (much to my surprise, as it's not the type of book I'd normally read). I've only read the first in the series, but keep meaning to order books 2 and 3. If only the Book People shipped to Austria; they have the whole trilogy for 5 pounds at the moment... I know I could get the second two books for about the same price on my Kindle, but I'd quite like to have the "proper" books.

Could have been me as I've just read book 2 and 3 in English that we got for a quarter of the price of the German versions. Ds read part 1 in German and wanted the next book but it was about 17 or 18? in German for one book so I got both in English for 8 pounds!

I have another tip for anyone looking to kit the dc out in sports gear. Just ordered a lot of sports wear 80% reduced and only 1 pound delivery to Germany from Sportsdirect.com. Jogging trousers for ds for under 4 pounds and sport t-shirts for 3 pounds (Slazenger, Umbro etc).

How is the revision going Linzer? What are the topics in geography? They really go in depth in some subjects don't they? Dd is doing stuff in biology, year 8 that I remember having in my biology O'level exam!

That sounds like a real bargain, admylin. I've looked at Sportdirect before and, while the sportswear itself is very cheap, delivery was extortionate IIRC... have just checked and it's 10 pounds to Austria, which isn't as bad as I thought (I vaguely remembered 30 pounds). But WHY is it so often so much more expensive to have things delivered to Austria than to Germany; surely there should be an EU-wide delivery price?

Geography revision is, well, it's going! She just has so much to learn and, like you say, it's so in-depth that we could spend weeks revising it all. We have to revise the solar system, continents (including main rivers, mountain ranges, etc.), map reading, the globe (longitude and latitude, hemispheres, equator and several other terms that I'd never heard of) and various other topics that escape me at the moment. I suppose there must be 10-11 year olds who are capable of revising it all on their own, but DD1 isn't one of them so it's incredibly time-consuming.

It makes me realise how easy I had it at school and how much more thorough Austrian schooling is. I didn't even start doing geography until I was 13 and I think we spent most of the first year learning about India and crop rotation!

mrtumbles thank you for the croup info! DS at long last likes being in the wrap I have for him (and has slept three solid hours in there while I was trying not to drop food in his ear eating lunch with a friend last week) and i put him in there when we went to the hospital. I think that helped to calm him while we waiting to be seen. Poor little man was exhausted! He hasn't had a repeat since Sunday night (and they didn't give us any medicine for him to take home) but he is still coughing and wheezing.
He had his U4 last week (... Or the week before) and I mentioned asthma to the dr because my dad and one of my older brothers has it (DB was in and out of hospital with it as a child and we had a nebuliser and everything at home for him as well). I have eczema and have noticed a few dry spots on DS that I'm hoping are more likely caused by central heating and the cold weather.

Anyway... Really glad DS2's sleep has improved mrtumbles! That is great news.

Wally when I first moved to Germany DP lived in Nürnberg. It was an interesting time trying new foods :) here in Hannover (where we live now) the speciality is currywurst... Which I don't understand. It is essentially a chopped up sausage in ketchup I do miss the brezeln stands on every corner though. Whenever DP goes to Nürnberg for work he asks what he can bring me, I always say brezeln :) although I don't know why he asks because he goes from the train station to his companies building and then back to the train station and home...

admylin that is annoying that the teacher didn't turn up. But when you do get a list the offer is still there, feel free to borrow whatever you wish!

Lentils the list of stuff you chucked made me :) imagining you in a flat with a ridiculous number of fairy lights and lava lamps.

Linzer perhaps they have to price it higher to make sure it shipped directly to Austria and not via Australia?

DS seems alright in himself (although yesterday a couple of times when he sneezed there was a lot of snot and he looked very surprised and displeased by it) but I can hear he is still croaky when he "talks".
I told a friend that DS is very chatty and they thought I was mad. Until their next visit. I find he needs a little time to warm up when visitors come but when there is lots of talking (particularly laughter) he seems to want to join in.
We are off to visit grandma (my DM) in June when DS will be just 5 months. I spoke to her yesterday and got the impression that I should be giving him solids by then.... Hopefully in amongst the thousand different opinions we will figure it all out for ourselves... Hopefully...

Nutella I hope ds is feeling better soon. Croup is really horrible, especially when they are so small. Ds had it a few times, but had grown out of it by the time he was 3. We also had the steroid suppositories and a nebuliser, like Tumbles. Ds did also have a few patches of eczema when he was young, but they also disappeared after a couple of years.

admylin We also got the bikes out at the weekend and realised we need to get a new one for ds. Friends have got a second hand one, which will hopefully be o.k. When he was small he always had dd´s old bikes and didn´t mind that they were pink with Bibi Blocksberg stickers on, but would die of shame if he had to do that now.

MrTumbles You must be delighted with ds2´s sleep.

linzer That amount of geography to learn at one go sounds like madness.

We´ve got an Elternabend tonight about ds´s Klassenfahrt. Hopefully the teacher will turn up. They´re only going away for one night, so I can´t imagine they need much more than a change of clothes, some pyjamas and a toothbrush.

Yes I am now absolutely addicted to the local Swiss Brezel, or Laugenbrezel too. It's my 6 week treat to have my haircut and then buy a big Brezel mit butter from the store around the corner (and then scoff it before I get home to DH and DS. )

If I go to a Logistics meeting at my head office in Herzogenaurach, they usually have a full plate of them on the desk during the meeting and I find it really hard to concentrate!

I know it will be a reverse craving if I ever return to the UK, along with the Pommes spice you have on your fries in Germany.

I don't really get the Curry wurst thing either, especially the sprinkle of curry powder they put on the top.

I don't cover everything in Aromat though so I'm not completely converted to the "Germanic" way of life.

Hupa shame we're not nearer as I have two almost new mountain bikes (24 Inch) in the cellar! Back when we got them dd was still in her tomboy stage so she chose a black and white mountain bike with suspension etc. I suspect she'd rather have a nice city bike with front shopping basket now!

Nutella did the doctor say you could test ds for asthma? I have asthma and when ds had suffered his 6th or 7th cough one winter we got him tested. He was OK (no asthma) but he had to be brave and give some blood for the test (he was just over 2).

Thanks for the offer for the outdoor stuff. Got the list today and the main thing we're going to have to spend money on is shoes as he will need proper walking boots and a pair of trainers that can get wet. He won't want to wet his 'good' trainers and it'd probably ruin them anyway. Any idea where to get Wanderschuhe at an affordable price in Hannover?

Linzer those are exactly the same topics that dd had in year 5 too. They repeat some of it in year 7 too and we had to get her old work out to work out the longitude and latitude questions!
Sportsdirect didn't used to deliver abroad at all. I ordered there a few times and got it sent to my parents' place. They took off all the plastic bags and labels and posted the stuff on to me. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that it would only cost me 1 pound from now on.

Wally I told dh the Käsespätzle/macaroni cheese story last night and he wouldn't believe me, he said if it's got pasta in it must have been the italians who invented it!

admylin The good thing is that DD2 and DS are often around when DD1 revises for tests, so hopefully some of it is going in and they'll remember a bit when it's their turn! Is the 1 pound postage a special offer or permanent? It said 5 pounds when I looked earlier, which still isn't bad (and half the price of postage to Austria, grr). I have a lot of things sent to my parents' address too; I wanted to buy some tights for DD2 from Mothercare recently, but they would have charged 15 pounds delivery!

Wally I've just had to google Aromat as I'd never heard of it.

hupa Hope the Elternabend goes OK. Is it your DD's first Klassenfahrt?

Nutella I can never remember the guidelines for starting on solids - it used to be 4-6 months when mine were little, then it was 6 months at the earliest... and weaning advice seems to vary from country to country. I wish I'd heard of BLW when DD1 was little as spoon feeding her was a nightmare; it got much easier when I could give her finger foods, but they weren't recommended until around 9-10 months at the time.

DD1 has exchanged phone numbers with a boy at school. She said "we might see us" and was worrying a bit about the logistics as he lives in the next town, although she doesn't seem too desperate to phone him.

How funny, at lunch time every German and Swiss colleague smothers their food in Aromat. I'd never heard of it, perhaps it's more of a regional thing here.

Or maybe it just hasn't made it to Austria along with affordable postage.

Hi all. Sorry I haven't posted for ages. Hopefully I can remember now what everyone's up to.

Welcome, wally. I must say I've never heard of Aromat either, but I'm in the former East, so it may not have made it here yet. Is it like Maggi? Dh's family would be happy for absolutely everything to taste only of Maggi apart from MIL who would like everything to taste sweet and thinks that all non-diabetics must feel the same. I love Maultaschen when I've had them, though. Maybe I should look for ome veggie ones in the supermarket.

linzer ooh, a potential first boyfriend Has she phoned him yet?

admylin it must be annoying having to buy expensive things like walking boots when you know your dc will grow out of them soon enough. We've got the opposite bike problem - dd has a very small Laufrad with no handbrake, but she is adamant that she doesn't need/want a pedal bike yet. Our neighbours have offered to swap the laufrad for a bigger one, but dd won't entertain that idea either. Oh well, it saves us some money, I suppose.

nutella croup sounds scary. I hope it was a one-off for your ds. When to wean seems to be one of these things that really bothers other people, but I think you're right to just follow your instinct. I know one mum who started feeding Gläschen at 16 weeks because it says "Ab 4. Monat" on the label and another who didn't give solids until 9 months because she wanted to stick to raw, local, seasonal produce (no bananas!) which majorly limited what she could think of . As long as you're somewhere in between those extremes you'll be doing fine!

antique I looked at the trilogy of the Hunger Games in a bookshop last weekend and didn't buy it. Am regretting it slightly now you've raved about it, but I suppose I could order it at some point.

lentils I am in awe of your decluttering. I think I go through my wardrobe regularly, but it's still full of stuff I don't wear. One of these days I will finally manage to get rid of those things I keep but don't know why.

I had been meaning to ask you about kale, as I never see it fresh in the supermarket. Do you just sprinkle it on pizza? How else do you use it? We use Dr Oetker pizza base mix when we make our own and usually top with masses of veg - broccoli, sweetcorn, onion, red peppers, pepperdew - and mozzarella of course. Might have pizza tonight, thinking about it!

mrtumbles I'm so pleased for you that your ds2 is finally sleeping well. You must be feeling amazing - if you haven't forgotten how to sleep through yourself by now, of course!

I've had flu the past couple of weeks and have to go and see now if I can play the oboe without collapsing/having a coughing fit. I'm supposed to be playing in a memorial concert on Saturday for a friend of the family who has died, so I really don't want to have to cancel. I'm definitely getting the flu jab next year...

Hope you feel better soon, cheas. Good luck with the oboe & I hope the memorial concert goes well. I have the first Hunger Games book on my Kindle but I think we worked out that you can't lend them to other Kindles with the German Amazon otherwise I'd happily lend it to you.

Wally I've never heard of Aromat either! I'll ask DH tonight whether he's heard of it. Is it like a Swiss version of Maggi?

Linzer Any news on the budding romance? :) How is the revision going?

hupa How did the Elternabend go? Hope it won't be an expensive overnighter.

Nutella I don't really get Currywurst either. It's nice enough...

admylin Any news on Berlin?

I've just started reading The Help, which I think was also recommended by someone on here and I'm really enjoying it.

I took DS to a really nice playground this morning and he had the time of his life, but the other mums there were quite unfriendly which was a bit of a downer. I'm really trying to get to know people here but it's quite an unfriendly city and I'm only really managing to get to know expats, which is nice, but I don't want to be the expat who only mixes with other expats, if that makes sense. A silly worry, I know.

antique I don't think that's a silly worry at all. Expats are much more likely to suddenly move away, or send their dc to some international kiga or school that you don't think is worth the extra travelling time. I think it's reasonable to want to have some friends who are your friends because you're a good fit, not because they're also expats/had their dc the same month as you.

Do you go to that playground regularly? Maybe you need to be there a lot so you start to recognise some of the other regulars and they you. I think sometimes it's very hard to get past saying the obvious but annoying stuff "wow, he's really tall for 18 months" and then people simply don't know what to say next. I don't think it's necessarily unfriendliness.