Wind, Obst, Wein und Spaß - living in Germany and Austria: the autumn edition

[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 (particularly as the previous thread has been so quiet recently).

The thread title comes from this song btw - they're not the first four autumnal German words that popped into my head. (It could have been worse; I did briefly consider "Nüsse auf den Teller, Birnen in den Keller".)

of course you can ptumbi (learn German in Freiburg) - that's what I did so many years ago..... I very much recommend it

I don't see the problem with ID cards either. I use my driving license in situations where a German would use their ID card as a "Pfand" here, but that doesn't work of course on those online things where they say "you can apply online with a chipped ID card and get this thing done instantly, or do it by post if you haven't and wait about a million years for it to arrive". Not that I'm bitter or anything

Lovely day here, spent mostly lying in the sunshine while the DDs ran around like lunatics trying to keep a kite flying on a very un-windy day. Bless! One beer and now I'm really quite sleepy.... Rockin' and Rollin' on a Friday night!

Hi everyone - can I sneak in here for some shopping advice please?

I am living in Germany and am looking for new sofas. I suppose I want quite an English looking sofa and not one of these Germanic humungous all lying / loafing /round the corner / needing a 50m2 living room monstrosities. I have been perusing IKEA, Moebelum, Maison du Monde and Scanlife - can anyone think of any other makes or furniture chains I should look at? I would quite like a Laura Ashley-ish style.

Thanks for your help!

Would this be a good place to ask about the German secondary school system?

I have a child in the 1st year of Grundschule, so I don't really have to think about it just yet. But on the other hand I like to plan ahead, and don't know much about it.

I know that in 3 years we'll have to move on to secondary school, and that the teacher will recommend what sort of school would be best. I know that we can go against the teacher's recommendation (but that it might not be a good idea.)

In the town where we live, there is a Gymnasium and a combined Haupt-and Realschule, both a bus ride away.

Do we have to apply to one of these?

In the next town - actually a slightly shorter bus ride from our house - there is a Gesamtschule and a combined Berufsschule and Berufsgymnasium (I don't actually even know what that means! Does anyone know?) Can we apply for these if we live in a different town?

And does anyone have experience of sending their children to the different types of schools?

We only speak English at home, though DC picking up German and managing fine at school so far - I worry about helping with homework at secondary level, to the extent that I wonder whether we should be intending to return to the UK at the end of Grundschule.

Hi wool and Apple, I'm in Austria so can't help much with your questions, but hopefully someone in Germany will be along before too long.

Apple I don't have any experience of the German school system, but I think it's hard to generalise about how much you'll need to be involved in homework etc. once your DC are at secondary. I have DCs at two different secondary schools, one of whom has always needed extra help (from DH), while the other just gets on with it. Having said that, it's not unheard of for parents to spend hours helping their DC to revise for tests and just on schoolwork in general; DD2 said that one of her friends has to do extra work with her mother until 5pm after school every day. I was quite surprised by how involved parents are in secondary school homework here, but it could all be quite different in Germany so none of that may be much help!

Heinous I don't think we have chipped ID cards here, but I finally got round to applying for a mobile phone signature so that I could send my dental hygiene bill to the Krankenkasse online - much easier than writing them a letter (I couldn't find a form to fill in) and sending it by post. Of course, now I'll find that they don't actually cover hygienist visits.

ptumbi Glad you got your DS's ID sorted in the end. I've just discovered that you can get Citizen Cards here too - well, they call them citizen cards, but it's basically just your e-card (health insurance card) in a card reader device, and I wouldn't have a clue where to get a card reader from. I think it only gives you access to online public services rather than being an ID card, however (which I suppose most people wouldn't need, anyway).

This week is starting to seem very long... I'm not used to five-day weeks any more! The two after this will be three-day weeks and then it's less than a month till the DC break up; where is the time going?

hallo hallo ihr alle!

any other Wien people enjoying the mercurial weather?
starting to really like this city :)
and I am so impressed with how efficient going to the GP is....and prescription costs too! and of course the cheese aisle im Spar. so fab.

Hi velour, good to see you again. Not sure that "enjoy" is the first word that springs to mind wrt the weather - it's only just stopped pouring down with rain here.

Glad you're settling in well in Vienna. Hope you're getting on ok with the German. Yes, the health care system is excellent. Do prescriptions cost much more in England than in Vienna? It's been so long since I lived in England that I'm not up to date at all... The last prescription I got in the UK was for DS last year and we didn't have to pay anything as that was in Wales (felt rather guilty, but the doctors' surgery did know that we live abroad). Had to pay €30 for DD1's prescription last week, although at least all her medical supplies are free.

I am not impressed with Spar as none of the Spars in my area stock McVities chocolate digestives. Luckily suenan (hello if you're lurking!) brought me a few boxes last week, which should keep me going for a few days weeks.

gosh you do have a good memory :) hello again to you too!

thanks, yeah, Vienna's lovely - before Easter I wasn't liking it at all, then I went back to France for two weeks and gave Paris the proper goodbye it should have got before I left for Austria - somehow that sorted everything out. Found my Stammcafé and Stammkino and Irish pub so have the essentials sorted. Except for looming exams. I swear standards are crazy here compared to my uni in the UK. My academic German is def getting kicked into shape, my young-people small talk skills still get me all twisted around!

Well in England last time I had one they were over 8 pounds! Here it was around 5 euro so, what, 3 pounds? and EHIC accepted no problem, unlike snobby Paris docs who hadn't even heard of it.
hope your DD's ok, 30 euros sounds loads.

oh dear! conundrum indeed. Mine does but they're in these ridiculous tiny cardboard boxes like it's luxury goods. Glad you've got your fix sorted out ;)

looks like chilly greyness today, I think English weather gets such an unfair rap, it's much more changing here

Linzer is there not a special scheme for any supplies needed for DD's diabetes to be covered by your health insurance? I'd be surprised if there isn't some form of entitlement for a permanent health "issue" like that. I know that diabetics in the UK get everything for free not that means the Dr will prescribe everything you want or need, it is the NHS after all

And hello everyone else, I am lurking and following occasionally

Nutella We get DD1's medical supplies for free - we had a huge box from the Krankenkasse when she came out of hospital containing enough lancets, test strips and needles for the next three months - but need to pay for her insulin. It will probably come to around €11-€12 every couple of months, so it isn't too bad, plus I'm sure there must be help with prescription charges if you're on a low income. We also get extra 50% extra child benefit for her so really can't complain.

All this had made me appreciate the health care system here rather than complaining about how much I'm paying in. DD1 is desperate to have a pump as she's finding the injections really painful; the consultant has already told us she can have one at any time, whereas from what I've heard it can be a huge struggle to get the NHS to fund one.

velour Finding a Stammcafe is definitely a sign that you're settling in! I also found standards much higher at the university in Germany I went to on my year abroad; mind you, I'm amazed at the standard of English that DD2 is learning at 10 - her class is probably at about the same level in English as my class was in German at GCSE.

Ah yes, 8 pounds must be about double what we pay here - the nearly €30 was for five items, so €5.80ish IIRC? Having said that, everything seems like a bargain compared to what we paid for prescriptions in the USA; the worst was $80 for a bottle of reflux medicine for DD1 that I'm not sure even made any difference...

What do you mean, chocolate digestives aren't luxury goods? No, the packaging does make me laugh - especially "most loved British biscuits".

I blame all these bank holiday weekends for the dreary weather. I'm sure that when I first moved to Austria the summers were reliably hotter and the winters snowier (not that that's necessarily a good thing). DH was blaming the Eisheiligen for the cold weather; he is a completely non-woo scientist, but sometimes being Austrian just gets the better of him.

Linzer ok. That all sounds very reasonable!
Bigger supermarkets here are also carrying a permanent stock of digestive biscuits, hurrah!
All I need now is easier access to Branston pickle and I'm mostly sorted

Hello all! I've not had any Branston in a long long time , but I did get a 500k pot of marmite this week, and have been eating marmite toast at every opportunity. Then Asparagus for tea, get the best of all cultures :-)

Hi Apple - DD1 is grade 5, so for many Bundesländer would be into senior school... but not in Berlin. FWIW though, she has quite a few study periods built into her school day (ganztag, which I'm guessing might be different from where you are?) so she mostly does her homework then, and on her own or in a little group of swots friends. If she has a presentation or something like that, she'll practise at home on us. That would be harder if you don't have German I guess, but maybe your DC would do it with her friends or their parents? But by that time your own German might well be up to it (sorry, I'm guessing from what you've said that you don't think it would be now, if that's not the case I don't want to offend!).

As to the Berufsschule thing, a friend of ours who has an older daughter did think she was going to leave to do her Abitur at one, but actually when she went for the open day decided it really wasn't for her. However, in theory, if you are planning on going into a "practical" sort of job rather than the academic route, it sounds a very good idea. She was switching at 16 though, so had a much clearer idea of what she was likely to do - aged 9/10 seems a little early. I think you'd have to ask how that worked and if it's possible to switch later on if you have a rethink. And how different it really is in practice of course. And how well resourced the schools are, happiness of teachers etc etc. So many things to take into account! IME though, the Grundschule teachers (before we moved here DD1 was in her final year at GS in BW) are very happy to talk things through with you and obviously have a lot of experience to be able to tell how your DC is likely to fare. Where we were, there was a lot of choice of different schools and the teachers gave a lot of help. SO, maybe don'g fret too much just yet!

That was a long way of saying "don't worry" I don't think you "have" to consider going back to the UK just on those grounds. Personally, I think the German school system is pretty good.

Hallo zusammen und Guten Abend

Could any of you be lovely to isabellaoffrance over at Shorthaul?
She is looking for advice on Center Parcs in Germany or equivalents.
Whilst I do live in Germany I have not been to Center Parcs here.
Thanks in advance
Kindle X

Just popped in to say a quick hello! I've been lurking but haven't had chance to post in a while. Non-sleeping DD is having a nap on me & I actually have my phone within reach for once, so here I am.

Big wave to everyone, hope everyone is well & enjoying the nice weather, although it's cooled down a bit here. Fingers crossed it will warm up again soon - if for no other reason than to stop all the local Omas discussing whether DD is wrapped up warmly enough for the Arctic 18c temperatures

Hello again! I posted on here a while back but now it looks like we will definitely be moving to Trier next year. Scary stuff!

Thanks Heinous that's helpful. Yes I suppose it's true that I have another year to get my German better to help DD with her homework! Her school isn't all day - some children do stay in the afternoon, but you can't get a place unless both parents work, and I don't.

DH says from talking to the other parents they all seem a bit marks and Gymnasium obsessed already, and we are only in the 1st class, so I assume they would all be a bit biased about how terrible the other sorts of school are, so I am put off discussing it with them. I feel DD would be better with less pressure, but I don't want to make poorly-informed choices for her. But yes, probably the teachers will be a bit more knowledgeable about things, so we can talk to them when the time comes.

Our experience in BW was that of DD1's class (20) it was about half and half Gymnasium and Realschule. Talking to her friends, the choice was very much on the basis of thinking that they wanted to go to university and therefore plumped for the Gymnasium, or would want to get an apprenticeship and therefore Realschule. But even then, there was the local Gymnasium and the bigger one in the city, and several Realschulen, so there was quite a lot of discussion about what would be best - but (rather healthily I thought) best for the child and their aspirations, rather than just the best academically. I hope by the time your DC get to the stage of choosing, the parents have calmed down a bit and are thinking more in terms of what their child needs! And there were no grades in the first or second year at their school anyway.

No, we don't have marks here either, to the horror of many of the parents

Are you allowed to go as far afield as you want for secondary school then? It doesn't have to be the nearest available school(s)?

Not there (though of course the education system varies from Land to Land). I was amazed, coming from the UK where it's so stressful getting into schools! But no, when I asked "well don't they fill up? And don't the nearest children get first choice?" in my typically British way, the teacher looked kind of mystified and said "no of course not, it's your choice what school you go to", like I was a bit mad! This is probably why I was so impressed by the German system, cos at home it's a nightmare!

Ello ello, where is everyone? Gone very quiet over here.

If I can share my language fail of the day. It's the Papa-Kind-Tag at kindergarten today. They stuck a note up on Wednesday, I knew DH wouldn't do any more pick ups/drop offs so I took a quick picture of it and tried to remember to let him know. It said: "Sollte es um 13.30 regnen, treffen Wir uns um 14.00 Uhr im Kindergarten!"

I dutifully translated this as "It should (is likely to) rain at 13.30, so meet at kindergarten instead of the Oberwald."

Turns out I missed that tiny word order and, of course, it means "Should it (in the event of) rain at 13.30, we will meet at kindergarten instead"

Aaaaaaargh. So now DH is all miffed at me and to make it worse this information was in the original letter anyway, so I hadn't needed to copy it down and make mistakes with it.

Edeka seem to carry the chocolate digestives too. The packaging makes me laugh as well! And I bought some PJs from primark with custard creams on them and realised how much I miss crappy cheap biscuits. A biscuit does not, in any way, need to be an event. It's a biccie.

Hi Bertie! I think the word order of German is my main problem (along with all the verbs/long words that I don't understand!) Things that have lots of 'sich' and 'mich' and 'Ihr/e/en' - in fact anything with Ihr/e/er/en in I don't really understand. Why does the language sometimes mean She or they or them or .... And as for Sie - she? You? They? Dunno.

Good luck StuntNun - Trier is on my list! Let me know what you think - I like the City as a visitor (V interesting) but as a resident will be different I know.

It's something to do with aktiv and dativ but I can't work it out either. I'm 25% fluent according to Duolingo but I don't get the difference.

Anyway we ended up going to the big Real for the first time in our car (we finally have a car!!) so we spent ages choosing huge crates of drinks and buying random stuff that we'd never have carted home on the trams before.

Actually - I think I finally understand Dativ and Accusativ (A bit) - ds2 told me that the dative endings go MRMEN, as in (m)-em, (f) -er, (n) -em, (pl) -en. So I can get that, if the dative is after prepositions Aus, Bei, mit, Nach, Zeit, Von, Zu or Gegenber (had to recite those in german ).

Accusative - not so easy, has it's own prepositions (mnemonic is FUDGEBO but I only know Fur, Uber, Durch, and Ober - anyone know what the others are?) but it's only the (m) that changes anyway, to -en. It's also accusativ if the second object in the sentence is masc; it'll change to -en. (no I dunno either ) I find it hard to beleive that Germans hold all this in their heads as a complete sentence before they start to speak. id have to write it down, and still wouldn't be right...

I'm on Duolingo - how do you find out how 'fluent' you are?

Enjoy your car!

Sorry ptumbi, I've read your post five times but I still have no idea what it says

It's something like the difference between active and passive in English, isn't it? Like "Tom kicked the ball" and "The ball was kicked by Tom". But I have no idea how that translates to German.

It seems to be a recent change on the website version of Duo - instead of a level it gives you a percentage score. You can also do flashcards to quickly bring a subject up to full strength if you've let them slip, which is useful.

ptumbi I consider myself pretty fluent in German but have also had to read your post several times.

I haven't heard of either of those mnemonics before. FUDGEBO - hmm... G would be gegen, but am not sure about E, B and O (Ober is only a noun, not a preposition). Am sure I learned them at school many moons ago, though!

Am also a little about it being accusative if the second object in the sentence is masculine; can you ask your DS for an example? A noun would be in the accusative if it's the direct object of a sentence whatever gender it is, although it does only change its form if it's masculine - is that what he means?

And it's not just holding in your head what cases prepositions take; it's remembering what gender the nouns that follow the prepositions are too. But I think the more fluent you become, the more it comes naturally and you don't really have to think about it - just like native German speakers would do. "Bei das", "durch dem", etc. would just sound wrong, for example.

To complicate matters even further I've just remembered that there's a third class of prepositions that take either the accusative or dative, depending on whether or not movement is involved. For example, "ich sitze auf dem Stuhl" (no movement - I'm sitting - so dative) but "ich setze mich auf den Stuhl" (movement - I'm sitting down - so accusative).

I do like a good grammar discussion.