Es herbstelt schon! Autumn in Germany and Austria

[LinzerTorte]

A thread for all those living in Germany or Austria or anyone who just wants to chat/ask a question about living in or visiting this part of the world - all welcome.

Previous thread here.

Hi jimey, good luck with your decision! I'm not much help I'm afraid, as we lived in Germany pre-DC. As others have said, estate agent commission can be ridiculously high (we paid three months' rent IIRC) and you'll probably need to factor in the price of a kitchen, although you may be lucky and be able to buy the kitchen from whoever's moving out - we sold our kitchen to the new tenants.

Nutella Good to hear that DS is better now. I must confess that my decision to buy my parents a coffee maker for Christmas several years ago wasn't entirely altruistic.

Ambling The vegan market sounds good. I was quite excited - not to mention amazed - to discover a vegan cooking course here, but it's been cancelled twice now as I was the only person to sign up!

DD2 is off school today as we're going to the open day at DD1's school in about half an hour. DD2 doesn't actually want to go there, she just wants to see where DD1 goes to school (and particularly her classroom). I don't actually mind, although the timing could have been better as I have a deadline early next week. I don't think many of the others from her class will be going; about half the girls from DD1's class went there but the parents in DD2's class are a little more ambitious for their DC, shall we say - one has even banned her DD from going to the open day!

"Cold" is just the rent, but "Warm" doesn't necessarily include heating. (Just to be confusing!)

Most places will have "Cold" and "Warm" rates advertised. You always have to pay the warm rate, but it's best to find out what that covers - it could be heating, water, electricity, cleaning of communal areas, or any combination of those things - it's unlikely to be ALL of your utilities at once. It's just that in apartments it's usual for things like the water, electricity or heating (and sometimes internet) to be shared between several flats so the landlord gets the bill and divides it up between the tenants.

Sometimes just the cold rate is advertised but the utilities are quoted on top. For a 4-room house (places aren't advertised by number of bedrooms, but number of rooms discounting kitchens, hallways and bathrooms) you're probably looking at an average of 200€ on top of the cold rate, but obviously that covers some of the utilities, so isn't all bad.

Linzer have fun at the open day! Is dd1's school like a Realschule in Germany?
I was planning on doing that lentil dish you linked to today but realised I forgot to ask - did you have yeast flakes in yours? Could you mix abit of marmite in maybe instead do you think?

Nutella the vegan market is at Steintor just over the weekend. We were going to go on Sunday but dd is going iceskating with 2 friends so we'll have to fight the shopping crowds and go on Saturday instead. Where was the vegan restaurant that you came across? Good to have an address in case I get offered a meal out! Usually if we go as a family the men want meat so we end up at the Greek place and I have salad!

Bertie very wise to save as much as you can before you move but I really hope you can find a place without commission as that hurts when you hand over that money! Every time we've moved house it's taken us almost 6 months to financially recover from the moving costs. We've had luck with kitchens so far though and have only bought the one we have now (for 800€) from the people moving out.

jimeyrose Stuttgart is very expensive for rent but you can get cheaper flats if you're prepared to live in one of the smaller towns around there. I'd say the cost of living is less in Germany compared to last time I was in the UK. I was surprised at the price of food and transport. Only thing that seemed cheaper in the UK was clothes and shoes and maybe books.

Well, I've ordered the smartphones for the dc for xmas, lets hope they're the right ones and do all the cool stuff that I have no idea about! I've also got the parcel ready to send to my family in the UK but it's still windy and keeps trying to snow so I'm putting off going to the post office.

Bertie that's a good tip - I fell for the Warmmiete trick thinking it included everything but it didn't include warm water. We pay for that with our extra electric bill as there was an electric water heater kind of hidden in the bathroom that I missed when we viewed. We were so desperate to find a place though.
So, when flat/house hunting always check under sinks and in bathroom corners if there's an electric water heater. Cost a fortune to run. we pay 150€ a month just for electricity.

Ambling I made the lentil flan last weekend and it went down well. The recipe calls for marmite instead of stock and said the yeast flakes were optional. I actually used stock instead of marmite as we've just about run out (going back to UK to stock up soon, though) and I managed to get yeast flakes at the supermarket here. I can't say I could taste them particularly and after 30 mins in the oven the b12 will have broken down most likely, so I wouldn't bother buying them extra.

Did the giant Santa survive the storm? We had a blowy night and a bit of snow but definitely escaped the worst.

jimey good luck with the decision. DH had a couple of days in Stuttgart recently and complained how expensive it seemed. I like the city though.

linzer I followed a link from the flan site and came up with a couple more vegan recipes that sound good. We had vegan thai jungle curry last night and I fancy trying this stew which sounds very versatile.

Ambling I didn't use yeast flakes as I didn't have any at the time and didn't have marmite either so, like FrauEnglisch, used stock. I was going to make it again last weekend when we had friends over but then realised I didn't have any leeks; I could have used onions, I suppose, but was worried about ruining the recipe.

DD1's school is the alternative to Gymnasium; they were rebranded a few years ago as middle schools and are supposed to be for all abilities (with extra tuition for gifted children, for example) but as long as we still have Gymnasien, the Einser-Mamas most parents of academically abler children will continue not to send them there.

FrauEnglisch (I don't feel I can abbreviate your NN any further without sounding rude ) That stew looks good, although I might have to leave out the mushrooms for DD2 unless they're no longer detectable. Thai jungle curry sounds interesting as well; was it very spicy?

linzer. DH made the paste with two small hot chillies instead of three as we'd used one from the same packet for a salad dressing and found it overwhelming. Actually the curry wasn't too hot and I would have liked an extra kick to it yesterday, but I was craving something palate-blowing and it was hot enough to make my nose run (sorry if tmi). The lemongrass and ginger are probably more important for a distinctive Thai flavour. I googled other recipes for jungle curry and one had ground coriander in the paste. DH said he wasn't making it if he had to follow two recipes simultaneously though, so we had the herbifit version .

Thanks everyone who has responded. It has been really helpful.

Ambling We would be happy to live in a smaller town as long as there were good transport links. I hate driving in the UK so don't think I would ever cope in Germany. Good to hear you think cost of living is lower in Germany, we manage here so hopefully things would be ok.

Linzer I think if DH got a job we would go. His job here is terrible with no chance of progression so it would be better for him anyway. I am generally happy anywhere. One benefit of growing up in the middle of nowhere is that you are very used to your own company!

Karlsruhe is nice. It's about an hour from Stuttgart by train (I've got on the Stuttgart train by accident before...) and there's a large-ish expat community who are very supportive, almost like a RL version of mumsnet. Main jobs here are IT or technology if that's any use to you.

All quiet on the German front! How is everyone?

FrauEnglisch we buy little green chillis at the Asian shop and sometimes just half a chilli will almost ruin a meal as it's so hot and other times you can't taste them!

Linzer finally got round to making that lentil flan. It was very good and will be making it more often. I added some roast pepper to the mixture before baking too. Just noticed the recipe came from 'The Caring Cook' written by Janet Hunt. My most treasured recipe book is a very old and tattered book of hers '365 Plus 1 Vegetarian Main Meals' that I bought as a teenager to get some vegetarian ideas for meals. Each recipe also has suggestions to serve with such and such a salad or side dish of this or that so you never run out of ideas.

Is everyone done with xmas shopping?
I had a weird day yesterday. Took the parcel to the post office and it was just (but only just) a mm over the line on the scale for the next price up postage and the woman said oh I'll let you off this time and sent it for 8.50€ then I took a prescription into the pharmacy for dh that was actually almost a month out of date and the woman said oh I'll let you have it this one time! That's never happened to me before - must be the xmas spirit or something making everyone so laid back. I'm used to getting told off for less!

I used to have that book when I was a teenager too, Ambling! I'm sure there was a sequel called something like Another 365 Vegetarian Meals, but I can't find it on Amazon... although I did also have The Vegetarian Lunchbox, which I used to use a lot when I was a student. I hadn't recognised the author's name, though.

It's so refreshing when you get unexpectedly nice customer service, isn't it? Lakeland have a reputation for excellent customer service anyway, but I had to phone them recently as one of the hooks on the clothes dryer I'd bought had snapped off and they sent me a whole new dryer! I was only expecting to be sent a replacement hook so felt a bit guilty, as the old one is still perfectly usable, it's just very slightly harder to get the drying net across the top (but DH can probably superglue it back on anyway).

I've hardly started my Christmas shopping, but don't have many people to buy for as DH buys for his family and the DC, DH and I don't exchange presents, and I've agreed with my family (which is only very small) to cut down on Christmas presents this year. I've been so busy with work recently that I haven't even had time to go food shopping, although I've bought one or two things online and have had them sent to my parents' address.

I'll be going to a parents' evening at the Gymnasium that DD2 wants to go to tomorrow. I spoke to the mother who banned her DD from going to look at the NMS, who said that having grown up in this town, there's no way that she'd ever send her DD to the NMS as all the worst pupils used to go there when she was at school and it was a Hauptschule. The Gymasium is the be-all and end-all for so many parents here, although they had to open a new class at the NMS this year for all the pupils who'd failed the first year at Gymnasium.

Linzer the Gymnasium where my dc go now is quite free of Einsermamas (except one in dd's class) but ds was in a Gymnasium where it was over powering (for me) at the parents meetings, all far too pushy and loud and over important bossy types. I was glad when it was over.

I'm starting to try and get my head around the next load of choices that ds has to make. I've no idea how the Abitur works and what I have read so far is beyond me, too many abreviations that I don't understand and I'm hoping that the school will offer some info evening atleast so we know what is going on. I think they have tp pick 3 or 4 main subjects that count mor ethan the other subjects (even though they continue to have lessons in all subjects).

Ds got a 1 in maths on his report but one older boy has told them not to take maths as it gets really hard for abi next year. Dh's student told me the dc should go with the subjects they have had the best grades in, so maths as one subject for ds. Hard to decide when all you have are two opposite opinions.

It's amazing how much the competitiveness differs from class to class, let alone from school to school. DD2's class is the kind where both child and parent seem to feel a failure if grades are less than a 1; she often comes home and tells me that children were crying because they didn't get a very good grade, which I'm sure never happened in DD1's class. The parents themselves are actually very nice and I get on with them better than the parents in DD1's class, but I think I'd probably feel a total failure as a parent if my child only got very "average" grades.

I don't have a clue about Abitur/Matura either - I vaguely remember something about choosing Leistungsfächer, but that's about as far as it goes! I'm pretty sure that you have to do maths here, though, and the maths that DH's niece was doing at 16/17 looked horrendous, way over my head! They also have a lot of oral exams, not just in languages. It all seems very subjective, with the teacher setting and marking the papers, although that is changing v e r y s l o w l y.

Where has the gap between very and slowly gone? I left about 10 spaces!

linzer and ambling I am beyond baffled by virtually everything anyone tells me about German schooling atm. My y10 music student told me he was hoping to work with my y12 nephew on a Seminarfacharbeit which would be worked on over a year or so, but dnephew will be leaving school next summer . And someone else told me that Grundschulen have stopped teaching children how to spell, so they just write down the sounds (phonetic spelling?) and they are supposed to work out the correct spellings over time without being corrected by parents or teachers. I don't understand at all how they learn to read without learning how to spell at the same time, plus this father said his y3 daughter would not be able to sound out cuh-a-tuh cat. Surely all German kids learn to read using phonics? At least the school dd will be going to still uses te Fibel (whatever that is)!

Ah yes, the Fibel - we have it here too, although exactly what it means I've never been quite sure. I was just talking to another mother at school about the new Zentralmatura - well, she was talking (as she has five DC at Gymnasium ) and I was listening - I didn't have much to contribute as I knew very little about the old Matura, let alone the new one. All I could gather was that the teachers no longer know what kind of calculators the pupils are allowed to use in maths!

The teachers here can pick whichever method they want to teach children to learn to read, so it varies from class to class. DD1 started with whole word recognition and found it very difficult. It really seems to depend on the teacher and how close they are to retirement. DS's teacher is the first one under 50 that any of the DC have had at primary school and seems to be a bit more progressive, with Buchstabentage etc.

Oh, and how do they manage to take off to Ireland, Canada or some other English-speaking country for a semester not long before their Matura? Are they just not examined on all the stuff they missed while they were abroad?

Isn't German fairly phonetic anyway though? It seems to me like the direct sound-to-spelling translation would work perfectly with phonics if there was only one sound for each spelling and one spelling for each sound which I think is closer to German than English. I am doing phonics (English) with DS at the moment so have been reading up!

Hello :)
As always, I don't get to comment on everyone's posts :(

ambling I don't know how or if things have changed but it used to be that kids had to choose two subjects as Leistungskurs. I believe the counted 4 times as much as other subjects (ground kruse)?? And then another two subjects as Prüfungskurs. They counted twice as much as Grundkurse. From those Prüfungskurse, one was a schriftlicher, and the other was a mündlicher Prüfungskurs. But that difference only really mattered when it came to the vey final exam. The rest was the same as the Grundkurse.
Pupils can't just choose any subjects they like, but with those four Kurse, all areas must be covered (languages, natural sciences, music and the arts). And there are certain subjects that must be continued until year 13 (like maths, either at Leistungskurs or Grundkurs level, and same with English iirc), and then others until year 12 (I think I second foreign language), and I think either biology, physics or chemistry (or to f them??) had to be taken up to year 12 or even 13.
A bit more complex than taking A'Levels

Also, I can't remembered who asked about Stuttgart? But afaik it's one of the most expensive cities to live in wrt rent and property prices. A close friend of mine lives there. They have a 2 bed flat (though reasonably central) and they pay the same rent as us in a 5 bed detached house. My friends laughed out loud when I told here our house buying budget, as they wouldn't get more than a 1 bed fat for that budget. Not sure how much cheaper it gets a littler further out. But then,although I consider German public transport to be very good, and I have managed well without a car for up to two weeks (due to car problems) I would not want to completely do without a car.

I hope everyone else is keeping well. I can't believe it's nearly Christmas!!

I am a bit of an imposter - am not living in Germany alas. I wonder if you know of any German pharmacies who would post to the UK? I have anxiety and am just coming to the end of a five month supply of Lasea (which is made from lavender oil) it is apparently quite popular in Germany as an alternative to valium and it has worked wonders on me. It is available over the counter. A friend travelling to Berlin picked them up for me and I don't know how to get some more. Is there an online pharmacy (preferably taking paypal) which I could use?

scripsi I've never used an online pharmacy, but I had a quick look on Amazon and this has about the cheapest postage - but still €13 to the UK (unless you're buying direct from Amazon, postage to a country outside Germany tends to be annoyingly extortionate). And Amazon doesn't take paypal, of course. You seem to be able to order a few packets for the same delivery charge, though.

thanks so much LinzerTorte am just having a look (with an online dictionary to hand) can I order this through my amazon uk account somehow? I don't have a credit card, only a debit card so I am wondering how I can make this happen!

scripsi I think you might need to register with Amazon.de to order from there, but can see it might be tricky if you don't speak any/much German. I'm sure I use my Visa debit card on Amazon.de (I definitely use it on the UK site), but will check. If you need any help with the German, just shout!

Actually, I've just checked (by trying it out on Amazon.fr!) and you should be able to log into Amazon.de using your UK account and it will have all your details - addres, card details, etc. - so that should make things a little easier.

And yes, if you can use your debit card to pay on the UK site, you'll be able to use it on the German site too.