Is there still a German Thread?

[BeatrixBurgund]

We've moved back to Germany after 8 years in Switzerland and Scotland, and with the kids in school, I just know I'm going to have lots of questions about the Bavarian education system.

And I'd love to catch up with all the folk I used to chat with (even if I can't remember their usernames!). I'm on a namechange - it's MmeLindor here!

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a great Carnival. My lovely neighbour came over and offered me garden tools today after watching me struggle cutting back Wisteria, when I returned the tools I was asked in and offered home made Apple Schnapps absolutely delicious, absolutely love my neighbours.

My stepdad is now in rehab after his heart attack and taking some experimental drugs, he is very lucky to be alive.

Hello, back again! Sorry for the absence, and many thanks for your help welshcake, we are due to spend 2 weeks at the end of March in Bad Homburg for a "getting to know the area" period, where we'll be helped by essentially a relocation specialist to find a kindergarten and somewhere to live. We've been doing our homework online reading through the profiles and ethos of the kindergärtens, but notice that there is no OFSTED like rating. Is that normal? How do people judge a good from great kindergarten in Germany?

Also for the meantime we have been impressed with houses which are in Planung, but that means about a years' worth of waiting. Have any of you gone for such houses or ready built ones?

There is no OFSTED or similar here and you basically go by word of mouth for kindergartens. They do have open days and you can visit them ad how as well but they all follow one of the main eduactional methods. There is an online application system for state/church run kindergarten where you can apply for up to five different places then hope you get one of them! Unless you're going to go to one of the private ones you are likely to be looking at a bit of a wait for a place tbh as demand is definitely greater than supply here. Feel free to PM me which ones you're interested in as between my friends and I we have a lot of them covered!

Exciting that you're coming over for a visit soon, hope you like it!

goodie that's great news about your stepdad, so glad to hear he is making a recovery.

MrsDraper how are things going for you and your family! Not long til you move now.

I went home for a week in February with my DDs and since we got back we have all been ill one after the other and now 10month old DD is poorly again :( 40 degree fever and a terrible cough. Back to the doc tomorrow...I really hope the weather is going to cheer up soon, it's like being back in Wales with all this rain

Thanks Welshcake, i'll pm you soon with some of our selection.

in the last week or so we've been reminding ourselves of the goodies that Germany has to offer, such as:
Grillen!
Wuerstchen
Real summers
Real winters (not so really my thing, more DH's)
Skiing (I like snow, but not the cold)
Berry picking in the wild
Draughtproof houses (DH!)
Ferrero Rochers on tap (my driving force for getting over there asap)

what are all your favourites from Deutschland/Austria/ Switzerland?

sorry to hear about the feverish nights with your DD too welshcake, it's awful when they have fevers and are unwell and there is so little that you can do to eliminate the symptoms. Do you have Calpol or the like that you can get from the Apoteke until the Doctors appointment?

Tea - you do realize that Ferrero Rocher have a 'season' in Germany - often not around in the summer - same goes for Kinder eggs - they have kinder Joy I the summer as the eggs melt. Always makes me laugh to hear the adds running on the radio when the FR are coming back in store!!

Thanks for the info about the Kinder Joy Dorado I did wonder why we couldn't get Kinder eggs last summer, one unhappy son who doesn't like Kinder joy, although my daughter loves them.

Nooooooooo doradoo I had no idea that they were seasonal! I could eat them year round . My MIL always buys them at easter and sends my mum those pistachio and almond (?) ones. My mum tries to save them for prosperity, but I scoff the orange ones in the box and leave the nasty pineapple ones for my little DSiS.

I'm eating a dark chocolate hazelnut Ritter Sport as I write this (my secret Christmas left over stash).

Doradoo do you know what else they make during the year? Nutella is by Ferrero, anything else that I might like while they ramp down Ferrero production?

The rafaello ones are the summer ones. Apparently it gets too hot here for the normal choc Hahahaha , at least certainly not here in Essen! Fear not though, Nutella is available pretty much 24/7 - which is a good thing as DD lives on precious little else.

This link tells you which ones have a 'sommerpause' www.ferrero.de/produkte/ (i hope)

Hi sorry to wade in but can anyone please tell me where to buy presents online for preschoolers in Germany? Just a small gift. Would feel a bit dull going with amazon.de. Thank you!

Hello everyone, I'm new to Mumsnet but found this thread - can I join in? We've just had confirmation that we will be moving to Germany over the summer - my husband is starting a new job in Munich. He's German, I'm British but speak German, we have kids - 6 & 3 - who don't speak German (yet). Neither of us knows Munich. I haven't read through all 12 pages of this but have noticed that some of you are on similar adventures!

Hi Nellie - how exciting! And so useful to speak the language. I love Munich, though only been a few times. Very beautiful.

I've recently found a useful Blog called Settle in Berlin - it's written by an American who settled in errr Berlin, and his experiences and tips on opening a bank account/renting/getting about.

I'm off to Aachen at the weekend to hopefully open a bank account in readiness for september! I'm driving but staying outside the city, as i haven't got a Grun Plackett (?) for my emissions - and it's something we are not told about in UK. Anyone know how to get one for my car when I'm over there?

ptumbi

You can get them from the TÜV workshops, but also other places - I just googled it for Aachen and got this, which says you can order them online as well:

www.aachen.de/DE/stadt_buerger/umwelt/luft-stadtklima/luftreinhalteplan_umweltzone/umweltzone/fragen-antworten/einzelfragen_antworten/frage_03.html

Hi everyone, can I join too?

Not new to Mumsnet, spent the last 7 years lurking and occasionally posting but have looked at the overseas topic with interest as we've also had confirmation we're moving to Germany in the summer with DH's job. Much like you Nellie! Waves

DH is almost fluent as he grew up in Frankfurt and has been travelling there for work a lot recently. I have no German whatsoever as I learnt Spanish in school! Looking forward to learning though.

So we will be bringing our 6, 5 and almost 2 year old to Munich in the summer and we're very excited. Still at it's early planning stage but the relocation team are working on it

Hello Schlobbob, Waves back!

We will be pretty much on the same timings in terms of relocation then! Do you mind me asking whether you are using a relocation agency or is your relocation team through the job? My husband is starting a new job not relocating with his current one so I’m not too sure yet how much help we will get. I’m beginning to think we might use a relocation agency so if you would recommend the one your using that would be good to know!

I’ve been in touch with the Rathaus education team re schools and they were very friendly and helpful - and re-assuring. I thought we would miss the deadline for registering for school start for our 6 year old as we’d seen it was the 5th April between 2 and 7pm (!) but she re-assured me we would get a school place at the catchment school for our address once we’ve found somewhere to live and registered.

Do you have any ideas on areas to live yet?

Hello Nellie and schlob welcome to the thread!

We are (sort of) in the Munich area (within commuting distance) but I know from experience I will not be any help with relocating questions as we gave almost everything away on freecycle and DH and his dad then drove the bare essentials over in a small lorry :o Our relocation agent was PIL noticing a small ad in a local newspaper, they live about 60km from us, and we had no internet connection when we first moved (ten years ago, Telekom took ages to connect our broadband and we didn't have smartphones then) so found stuff out by asking people in the village playground :o ...

Welcome to the area!

Hi again!

We are getting help through DH's work, they manage everything for us which will be very helpful! It was only all confirmed over a week ago, he's not signed anything yet but he has a contact within Global Moves. It's a big company! Initially a 2 year contract and we re-assess afterwards. Must be scary going alone!

I've started de junking the house so packing seems like less of a daunting task!

No idea where we will live, have you? We want to be in a reasonable commuting distance for DH so he's home more. Thats good to know re schools, eldest is currently year 2 so will go to second year in Germany. 5 year old will be going to Kindergarten which could be a good thing to help him learn the language.

Glad there's a few people in Munich! We visited in February and I loved it

5more wow a proper DIY move!

Packing up is really not going to be the fun part!

The weather is amazing at the moment in the Hessen region! We came over at just the right time last week methinks! DH has fallen in love already with his Vaterland.

Some of you have been in the Dach region for a while, do you think that you "dress" like those regions too? A lady approached us at the park yesterday and referenced that she could tell I was "from a western country" due to my dress sense! Ha ha! My SIL has stated in the past that the Brits have a very colourful sense of dress. Do you find that you dress more Germanic now?

I don't dress German, where I live that would mean jeans or dark trousers and dark tops, no skirts or dresses for adult women, I find it very dreary in winter people don't tend to dress up when they go out either, WICH I find sad who wants to wear the same thing every day.

I don't think that the Bavarians dress soberly particularly! There was an odd moment at a kids football tournament last summer where somebody pointed out that all the mothers manning the coffee stall (and the ones gossiping to them - I think there were 6 of us) were wearing cerise pink tops totally by coincidence (including me although its not a colour I usually wear at all I have one top I really love the cut and material of in that colour).

Winter coats are all boringly black or brown, but I think that is the same in the UK for most people. I tried to buy a red spring coat in a high street store the other week but they didn't have it in my size

Maybe I've been here too long - and certainly I haven't seen much of Germany outside Bavaria and one trip to Berlin... Bavaria is so big all on its own... but I don't agree that the colours are muted any more than in the UK...

There are certainly kids at DD's secondary school with rainbow hair :o DS's mittagsbetreung supervisor has pillar box red hair too...

Maybe less dresses unless its traditional dress or church though yes. I'm on board with not "getting dressed up" to go out in the evening tbh...

I agree 5more children do seem to be brightly attired, especially coats and bags, I'm assuming so that they are seen in the winter months when walking to school.

My only impressions are either very dated from when I used to work here or subjective based on my SIL; there are two dress senses, smart (dark colours, office attire), or practical ( jeans, waterproof jackets etc).

However I quite like that ladies are often seen in white jeans or trousers in Germany, which isn't an everyday go to in the UK.

I must admit, I may miss the jogging bottoms to the supermarket "look" that I've been abusing. That won't go down well at Rewe!

Yep Tea my youngest's winter coat was bright neon green - Aldi's finest ski wear, bought right here, several of his friends have the same one :o We've also had bright neon orange coats in the past - nobody who has actually been to Germany in the last decade could accuse children of wearing drab clothes! Even the black coats the boys have for spring/ summer have built in reflective strips and neon yellow highlights. DD has a purple coat with reflective strips which are well designed so you don't notice them except when they are serving their purpose and reflecting a car head light in poor light - acceptable even for an early secondary age child, and lots of her friends have the same affordable but practical brand (NorthCape).

In fact I think there is probably more colour in children's clothing here by a long way, given the absence of dreadful gray, dark blue, black and navy polyester school uniforms. School children in England insanely have to wear black or plain, dark coloured coats in winter to a lot of schools, making them invisible to cars if they actually walk to school given that they don't have proper school backpacks with integrated reflectors either - why anyone tolerates that is beyond me now, living here!