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".)

Oh, he is tanned on his arms and face and neck, just under the t-shirt area. It just surprised me how much difference there was between him and other children.

Our air con is 9000 BTU and it isn't really coping with our apartment. It took it down to about 28 yesterday and today it took and kept it down to about 33 but it didn't get any colder. I researched it and it's because this is a "hot room" - I suspect that the roof is badly insulated and so we have the sun beating down directly on us, plus the heat from the other apartments below us. The guy directly below didn't even shut his shutters or close his windows today! I was so annoyed when I noticed that. It's been up to 40 outside.

We have turned it off and opened the windows now but I have already had symptoms of heat exhaustion - there's just nowhere to get away from it. I had to get DH to help me into a cold shower Now I'm sitting with a wet towel on next to a fan but it feels like it's doing nothing. Except it's worse if I turn it off. Ugh.

But should add - although the air con didn't work to make it comfortable, at least it made it bearable. I really dread to think what it would have been like had we not had it at all. I don't know where we would have gone or what we'd have done all day. Too hot to be outside unless in the pool, car doesn't have air con, most places you have to pay to get in.

Speaking of cars, our 20 year old Astra is on its last legs so after talking to a car enthusiast and getting a realistic idea of how much a second hand car would cost, we decided to get a new one. So today we signed the contract on a Suzuki Swift, to be ready end of July. Exciting!! Neither of us have ever owned a new car before. And a few weeks ago DH was talking to a colleague and made the startling discovery that it's likely we'll be able to get a mortgage at 30. Whether we want to is a different story, but I was blown away by that. Would not happen back home. I'm not sure whether to be nervous or delighted that banks are suddenly falling over themselves to give us credit. (Although DH pointed out to me that we basically came of age in the middle of the credit crunch, so it might not have been our ages so much as the fact that everyone was cautious about credit.)

bertie hope you had a better day today. The heat can be draining. Have you got low blood pressure? I do and I have to make sure I drink enough so that I don´t feel really bad. New car sounds great. Enjoy it! As for your son being the palest - unless there are other signs I wouldn`t test mine. Mine are pale too. I have red hair, and though my 50% Spanish genes means I am not paler than milk, I am still the colour of milk. But that is fine. My best buy this summer was a sunproof t-shirt for ds, so no more worrying about creaming him. Now just have to get one for myself as I burnt at the pool last week, in spite of factor 50 and being in the shade.

mrs nutella hope you are feeling better soon. That is a long time to be poorly. I did see the funny side of my mistake, and have laughed since. Schlampfe is great. My mother also used to call suppositories "bonbon por culo" which means pretty much Arsch bonbon, with the same level of bad language. .I tried Popo-Zuckerl with mine, but luckily it never took off as I haven´t had to use many of them.

Spent a couple of hours in a museum today. Nice and cool, and hardly anyone there, they must have been roasting themselves outside.

Dc are clearly affected by the heat. After his shower, DS put on a winter pj, long trousers and long sleeves and socks on . DD2 was walking around in long woolen jumper. She went through a tomboy stage where she only wore boys`clothes, and is slowly beginning to wear clothes from the girls´ section. She wants some dresses, so the long woolen jumper was her practising her new look at home. In 34 degrees.

I think I do have low blood pressure but it's not low enough to register concern. However I've always been nervous at the docs when they have taken it, so that might have pushed it up a little. In pregnancy etc they were all very impressed (this is in England) at how low it was. I think it's seen as more of an issue here but they haven't flagged it up, so we'll see.

Today I walked up a hill and ate a giant pancake with blueberries with a load of work people, which is still making me feel sick and then DS and DH jumped in the stream behind out house. It was too cold for me and the contrast between 39 degree air and direct sunlight and cold water was too much so I didn't get very far in but I did paddle a bit, it was nice. Then I tried to have a micro sleep in the cellar. I feel absolutely wrecked and I know it's because I've barely slept in the past four days. When DS is at kindergarten and DH is at work tomorrow and it's not too hot in the morning, I'm going back to bed for the full four hours.

Hello to all, have been lurking around occasionally, thought Id drop by...had some amazing storms today in Koeln, but still fairly warm.
BertieBotts, we are exactly the same with skin tone...I have Irish roots, and my two kids are easily the palest anywhere we go!
How are the people who were moving to Koeln doing?
MrsMortis? And Kirde? Hope the moves are going well and life is good.
Off to bed to listen to the thunder

Oh I am very jealous of your thunder! I have been obsessively watching this. It's genius!

www.accuweather.com/en/de/karlsruhe/76133/minute-weather-forecast/167218

Hey - Thanks for asking after me efeslight. Things here are moving slowly at the moment as we are waiting for the customer to sign on the dotted line and they have until the 30th. Once that is done we'll be moving fast as my girls have places at Bilingos and term starts on the 13th August! I'm very glad that finding us somewhere to live will be down to global mobility and not me!

I'm one of those pale people too. In fact the lady in Kaufhof laughed at me the other day because I said I needed a darker foundation. I went from the very lightest shade in a brand to precisely one shade darker. But at least I don't look quite so ghostlike...

Long time lurker, mainly with because I am stuck in the UK and would rather live in NRW.

It's my mum's birthday today and I have sent her a special treat, some cooler air straight from the British Isles (Well, I personally get blamed for all the rain coming across, so I thought this time I can at least take the credit for making it a little more bearable for my parents)

OMG I am reading this with horror! 40degrees? I melt when it gets to about 29....

It's bad enough here, at 30C in the day, and humid with it. How am I going to cope with 40?

At least in England we only have to wait a couple of days until the weather changes again

Ha! Well you do get some really good storms to go with it. Currently waiting on a promising one... the thunder is rumbling, but the rain hasn't started yet. Plus, it doesn't get so humid. 30-40% seems typical.

Just make sure you don't get an apartment on the top floor, and you'll be fine! There are also coping tips regarding using the extremely useful Rolladen, making sure you have enough fans, getting a car with air conditioning and planning your days around being in the shade, near water and trees. I've learned all these things now that I never had to know before!

Oh I love a good storm! In fact, while living in Celle I nearly got struck by lightning - i was in the attic of our 4floor house when the bungalow across the road got struck. Took its roof off. Never heard anything so loud

Is anyone else waiting with bated breath the school equipment letter? I'm quite excited. It feels a bit like waiting for the Hogwarts letter

Will your DS be starting school in the autumn, Bertie? DS had his list on the last day of school and the DDs don't get theirs until they go back in September. I'm hoping that I can cobble together most of it from my huge stockpile (I stock up at Aldi whenever they have school stationery on offer) so that I can avoid the scrum at the stationery store in the first week of term (or semester, rather).

Yes he starts in September. Some of the other children from his kindergarten have had theirs already, and from a parent whose daughter started last year, it does come in the summer.

We had lists arrive in the summer the year that the DC started primary school, and it was always quite exciting as we also found out who their teacher would be. Unfortunately the same doesn't apply at secondary school; they get their lists from each individual teacher in the first week or so, which usually means at least two or three trips to the stationery store.

When the DC were all at primary school (or younger) and we used to get the lists on the last day of the school year, I used to wonder who these mad people were who were all leaving their stationery shopping until the first week of September. At least you can start sending your DC round the shop on their own once they get to secondary age!

I found the list quite exciting last year Bertie. I am a bit sad and love buying stationery, so it was great fun filling a basket with crayons and paintboxes and scissors and art folders and things. Admittedly the exercise books and folders weren't quite so exciting.
But the best thing was being given a voucher for a free art box - (sort of like a shoe box, and they use them to keep their art stuff in at school.) We went and picked it up in the stationery shop, and it was full of freebies - things like lots of samples of pens or pencils, little rubbers shaped like animals, mini pritt sticks, money off vouchers for stationery etc.

We haven't broken up yet, so don't have next years list yet, I am quite interested to see it.

We haven't broken up yet either and all the local shops have their back to school specials on already!
linzer I have a stock pile too from the Aldi/lidl offers, so much that I don't have anything to buy for them going back in September!

Wow, that's impressive Ambling! I always end up needing to buy a few bits and pieces that I can't get at Hofer, e.g vocab books with three columns, and for some reason they don't do unlined exercise books.

We're into the second week of the holidays here and it's very quiet with just DD1 and I at home. DH is away in Germany, DD2 is at scout camp and DS is at Hort this week - they're offering holiday childcare for the first time ever. He asked to go and seems to be enjoying it so far. I did wonder whether they would be spending most of the time in the Hort or at the playground like they do during the school year, but they're out and about quite a bit (they've gone to a museum in Vienna today, for example).

OK, I admit dd will probably come with some sort of list for art as she's picked it as an exam subject for Abitur but apart from that I might be lucky!

Counting down the days to end of term now, both of mine are fed up of watching films and having lessons cancelled, they'd much rather have full lessons and learn something. Ds has had two days last week with just one lesson to go in for. They could have had an extra week off!

Hello! I keep name changing and last time I looked at the thread the grammar discussion scared me off! School stationary is more my level

I'm amazed and awed at the people getting the bulk of their stationary at Aldi! I get a few generic items (A 3 art blocks are always ok) but how do you manage not to have the wrong colour homework folder or one incorrectly with/ without elastic, or wrong size of paintbrushes/ pencils / the wrong combination of coloured exercise book covers/ A 5 exercise books with margins when this teacher likes without or with too many or two few pages etc. If I buy in advance it's usually wrong and the teachers insist on exactly the stationary on the list down to the last margin, so I spend €80-110 per school child in the specialist stationary shop (which is eye watering as September is a multiple birthday month for us too). Perhaps the lists will be less pedantic in their level of minute detail that must be adhered to at secondary?

Which reminds me ...

Secondary school bags - any good strong rucksack (I'm assuming no of course not) or the special Schule rucksacks (not, of course, Ranzen)... Did you all she'll out €100+ for a secondary appropriate book carrier? Is it worth it? Do they stop using them after 5/6th klasse and just take a normal bag?

DD is obsessing over which Schule Rucksack to get for Realschüle and has her heart set on a disgusting 80s looking turquoise, white and black checked monstrosity I'm thinking plain black and she'd keep using it longer, but I keep trying to spy on the older kids getting off the bus at lunch time and at this time of year most of them aren't carrying much at all! (We break up on 31st July).

Oh and WhatsApp - do all 5er Klasse kids really have smart phones and keep in touch via WhatsApp? This is an endless debate between dd , her friends and their parents - I've talked to other mothers frequently but the mood keeps changing - 6 months ago most weren't even giving their kids brick phones (the kids from our villages have a 20 km each way bus ride to school so some kind of basic mobile could be argued to be a good idea for missed buses/ requests to go to friends' etc) but now several kids have been given their mums old smart phones following upgrades and others are dithering... This is quite a technophobe area so I was hoping it wouldn't go this way so fast - I'd swear hardly any of the parents even had smart phones 2 years ago and it was a point of pride to complain if group emails for sport weren't sent out a week in advance as people had better things to do than turn on the computer every day :o

Good luck to the new Grundschule starters btw! And Hello to everyone! I'm MrTumble Bavarian Fan base for those who remembered - name changed due to the out of date young toddler implications of the old name :o

Ambling I can't imagine the DC still being at school now; they were ferienreif a month or more ago and it's week 3 of the holidays here now - mind you, I think the fact that you know the holidays are about to start always makes you ferienreif. But they only go out on trips in the last week, so it's hardly taxing.

NurNoch I don't buy things like paintbrushes and pencils at Hofer as I'm not sure about the quality, but I stock up on exercise books and covers, Schnellhefter, Klarsichthüllen, etc. I have Schnellhefter and exercise book covers in a huge array of colours so am rarely caught out when it comes to those, but do need to go to the stationery shop for A5 and/or unlined exercise books, or anything more specialised than lined, squared or lined with margin A4 or Quart. It still really cuts down the amount I need to buy in September, though, and also during the school year - the DDs always seem to be running out of exercise books and need a replacement by the next day, so it saves a special trip to the stationery shop.

Re school bags for secondary, DD2 has this bag from Jako-o and DD1 has a fairly similar bag from the stationery shop, which she'll still be using in her final year of middle school (8. Klasse in Germany, I think).

And yes, WhatsApp use is very widespread here even among children in their first year of secondary school. I know two mothers who were quite against their DC having smartphones but ended up buying them for their DC as they felt they were being left out - the form teacher had set up a WhatsApp group for the class in the first week of school (both DDs' classes have WhatsApp groups too, but set up by the children so not official). WhatsApp has been great for DD2 as her closest friends have all gone to different schools so she uses it to keep in touch with them; she has a PAYG phone, so it's cheaper than phoning (unless she uses Viber) or texting.

DD2 enjoyed the scout camp, especially the hike - they were divided into groups of four or five, given a map and had to walk 12 km to a place where they stayed overnight (they met the scout leaders there) before hiking back to the campsite again the next day. Apparently the other group got lost and had to phone to be picked up (they were given a very basic emergency phone) as they wouldn't have arrived until 2 am otherwise! DS left for his scout camp at the weekend, but we'll have to pick him up on Thursday as we're off on holiday on Friday so he won't be able to stay the whole week.

Nur both my 2 have the JanSport rucksacks that have lasted from year 5 through to year 10 and 11. The alternative seems to be the classic Eastpack rucksack that alot of the kids have. Ours JanSport one is here:
Rucksack and in year 7 dd insisted on getting one of these Bags but she only takes it on light days as they really hurt on the one shoulder.

School supplies get easier as they go into secondary (or atleast mine did) so we only really need one kind of maths book and one lined book for all lessons and everything else is just spiral note books and different coloured files. I remember our first Grundschule was very fussy though with exact lists of types of pencils and makes of crayons - they didn't even allow any of tthe aldi stuff!

YY to Whatsapp. One of my English students had to get a special exception from work to put Whatsapp on her work blackberry to keep in touch with her stepson because it's what they were all using.

Is it really €80-100 at the specialist stationery shops?? Blimey. I was budgeting high for the ridiculous bag but seems I'll have to add some more to that.

DS had his last ever Kindergarten Sommerfest yesterday. It was so charmingly German, I found the whole thing hilarious. It was in a forest and there were various activities set up but none of the children were allowed to touch or explore them until everybody was there. People kept parking in the wrong place and the Erzieherinnen laughed at them and made them drive back down the track which was 30 minutes' walk away. Then when everybody arrived, somebody brought out a guitar and we all sang a song saying "Hallo Bäume" (DH struggled to keep a straight face). Then the activities (exploring the forest with the five senses) could be begun in earnest. It was all very serious. No cheating! Half of them seemed to take implausibly long times so there were queues of children standing with their eyes and ears blocked waiting for their turn. Then there was a little smiley face on a chart if you got everything right. I'm not sure what they would have done if they'd got them wrong I particularly enjoyed one where an Erzieherin hid under a sheet and made various forest noises and DS had to guess what each one was. I did not enjoy the one where we had to sniff film cannisters of various rotting items which went on forever.

One thing I like and am always struck by is how delighted the Erzieherinnen always seem to be about interacting with the children. They just seem to have this endless enthusiasm (even if it is fuelled by laughing hysterically at the parents over nothing at all.)

DS is breathlessly excited about school but melancholy too because one of his best friends from Kindergarten has been away long term sick and is due to return in October, by which time DS will be at school. But his other best friend is starting at the same time he is and is likely to be in the same class, too (whether this is advisable remains to be seen.)

Bertie I didn't pay anything close to 80 eur. At least, I don't think I did! I think it was closer to 50, possibly a bit less.

I got all the stationery in Mueller, and it was pretty cheap. We had to get a specific brand of crayons and paintbox, and there were strict instructions about margins and lines in exercise books, but I think for the other things the description was fairly vague.

Thank you Linzer and Ambling for the bag info - I think the Jako one could be an option. .. I saw the Gymnasium and Realschüle kids getting off the bus when I fetched DS2 and they did all / mostly have massive rucksacks, so maybe something special (sport or trips) was going on last week when a lot seemed to only have small bags...

Thanks for the WhatsApp info too - Argh was hoping to avoid Internet enabled hand held devices until 13 or so! It's so much harder to monitor than accessing the Internet on a PC in the living room as she does now, didn't want cyber bullying and grooming and chat rooms to protect her from at not quite 10!

Bertie I've never spent less than €80 on stationary and over €100 for start of first class. That's not including the €120 up on the Ranzen and included pencil case, sports bag etc and another €20 or so on the Tüte kit and €25 or so on Tüte contents... Thankfully only 1 more dc still to start school (in 2017).