Any Munich mums out there?

[cheechymunchy]

Me, DH and DS (2) will be moving to Munich in next three months or so. We want to rent a house in a nice area, within about 20 drive of the city. Any suggestions on good/friendly areas to live, plus any other useful information on what it's like in Munich? Don't want to be in the middle of nowhere with the little one, and really want to make friends when we arrive. Thanks!

I studied in Munich but I left in 1994. I really liked it there and if I would consider moving back to Germany Munich is pretty much the only place I would want to go.
I lived in a suburb called Solln which is nice with a lot of green spaces and the Isar isn't far, also one of the best beer gardens (with life Jazz every day during summer) is close, and it has good public transport connections. There are many nice areas to live in Munich.
If you like, I could ask the Munich mums from a German webpage to answer you here. There are quite a few very nice ones.

Gracelo, thank you so much for writing. It would be fantastic if you could forward friends from a German webpage to me here. Maybe I could also start getting to grips with the language too!

Have a great weekend.

Done! Let's see if one of the Munich girls gets in touch.

Thanks, have a good weekend too (rain, sleet and snow for Scotland, bbbbrrrr).

Oh my god, I didn´t write in english language since many years.

I`m living in munich.
It is not that easy to rent houses in munich, and even quite expensiv.

Do you know the place where your husband will work?

Are you new to Mumsnet, ninas? Welcome

Hi dear, I´ m from, Munich too. What do you want to know. If I can I´ll tell you
greetings Jovi

hi SSShakeTheChi, yes Im new to Mumsnet. I came from another forum to answer cheechymunchys post, because I am staying in Munich.

Nice to have you on here, some of us MNers in Germany could do with some advice from time to time! I am not good enough at writing german to be able to join any forums

Yes, I think it's great that jovi and ninas are here too.

Lucky you moving to Munich. We went on holiday there in February and it is such a lovely city. DS1 supports Bayern Munchen and he saw them play in the new arena. We would move there tomorrow!!

SsshaketheChi, completely different question: are you Kiwi, by any chance?
I ask cause I've seen you posting on NZ treads.

I lived there for a while as a child and I'm going there at the end of the year for a bit Gracelo

We are planning an end of the year NZ trip too visiting dd grandparents and our friends.

Dp is Kiwi (well, he is half English, half Kiwi) and I lived there for 5 years. I miss it. Can't wait to go although I'm not looking forward to 24 h on a plane with a travel sick child.

Well I'm dreading the flight with dd too that's for sure and she will be 7 by then. Perhaps we can meet up if? I'll be based in Wellington but I don't plan on staying there the whole time.

Have you tried a magnet bracelet with your dc? (I got one at a sailing/yachting outfitters). Don't know how old your dc is or if it would help but I've heard they can be quite good.

We have those armbands (not magnetic though) and the one time she wore them she fell asleep for the entire journey, so I don't actually know if it worked, but now she won't leave them on. She doesn't like anything on her, no hair ties, clips, hats, shoes, socks, gloves, trousers, clothes...I'm glad when she is wearing a T-shirt and a nappy at home. Any clothes she was worn outside are taken off the moment she steps inside.
I'm constantly told that my child doesn't wear enough clothes when we are in Germany, by complete strangers too.
It would be fun to meet up in NZ, we'll be travelling around quite a bit. Plenty of people to visit, gp are in the Waikato, so that's were we are going to be a lot, but I'm quite determined to make it to the South Island too.

hi cheechymunchy, I live near munich.

what can I say?
all areas are nice by UK standards, there are no really grotty places. Schwabing is posh and fashionable, but public transport is so good that you can get from just about anywhere to anywhere else. Get a place near an SBahn or UBahn station, or on the tram routes. Start thinking in terms of public transport, lol, it is one of the best things about living here!
The small towns round munich on the S Bahn are v nice, also slightly less expensive to rent a house.
Be VERY wary of flats - you expect high standards in Germany and it comes as a rude shock to realise that (a)they use paper to build internal walls and floors and (b) your neighbours will invariably include an elderly lady who informs you as you are moving your furniture in, that she can hear your dd's footsteps in her flat 2 floors below.
A ground floor flat or house is best, but unfortunately everyone else is after them too. Hence the advantage of moving to one of the small satellite towns, just make sure its on the railway!
DONT rent in a town without a private school though, as many foreigners remove their children from the state system for one reason or another. You have a good chance to succeed in the state system as you have only one dd, and she will be going to KG at the start. The open days for KG in September are around now though, and it can be difficult to get a place, you may find yourself phoning round all the ones in the phone book. Be sharp eyed about quality of private KGs.
try toytownmunich for lengthy discussions of these sort of issues in english. it is a fairly opinionated site and not everyones cup of tea, but there is a great deal of information there.

We live in a town about 20 mins north of the city called Unterschleissheim, and are really happy here. It is on the S1 train line toward the airport so very easy to get straight into town even without the car. We moved here 18 months ago and felt at home very quickly. The Bavarian International School is nearby, so there are quite a lot of English speaking families here, and the village has a great High Street with most shops you need. I am now 9 weeks pregnant and the medical care has been fantastic (scans so far at 6 weeks and 8 weeks and more booked for weeks 10 and 12!)

I would certainly recommend living here, but Munich city is also lovely and I think you could be happy there too. It's not like many other cities (MUCH cleaner, friendlier and safer etc).

Also, as already mentioned, check out Toytown website for all sorts of information and ideas: www.toytowngermany.com/munich

Sorry this post has gone on a bit, and good luck with the move! Feel free to send me a message once you're here, we could go for coffee / cake (they do that a lot here, it's tough fitting in, tee hee!)

LucyK, my DH has finally signed contract for Munich job. I'm SO confused - is kindergarten compulsory? I was intending to be a SAHM until primary school age for DS. I've done nothing about KG place because DH has only just signed work contract. Until then I couldn't be certain this woudl all go ahead. I'm freaking out over here that the Education Police will be after me in Munich if DS is not in KG. I'm moving out in July.

Hi
You don't HAVE to send your dc to kindergarten but they are considering making it compulsory (think just one year though) so that non-German dc have some German at least when they start school which seems sensible to me.

What NN was warning you about is that there are not enough kindergarten places for all the preschoolers, so there is quite a lot of competition to get dc into what are seen as better kindergartens. I think I took dd when she was 6 months to get her on a list and she started when she was 2. I didn't want her in a state kindergarten and the one I wanted (church run) is very popular and difficult to get into. (Mind you looking back don't think it was any better than the state ones!).

NN's consideration was that if you do end up staying on and want to go down the German state school system which of course is in German, your dc are small enough to have acquired enough German at kindergarten to be able to successfully do this. Otherwise you're best off going down the international school route. If you are still here, your dc will have to attend school from the August of the year they turn 6. Mine was born late 2000 and started school in August 2006.

Since you don't know where you'll be living yet, I don't really see what you could do about a kindergarten at this stage though.

Cheers SsshakeTheChi, It was a moment of panic setting in last night. In the back of my mind I'm powerless over KG places as I've only just found out we're now going to Munich. I think we'll be only staying 3 years in Germany. I just need to find expat communities and playgroups to attend some mornings. I need to get myself out there when I arrive, and find some friends. I'm losing everyone here and am rather sad about it.

Cheechy, where is your husband going to work? 3 years sounds like a typical research contract. Is he going to work at one of the institutes or universities there? If this is the case, there'll be a community of expats who will be very helpful, in my experience.

well you have us although I know we can be a right bunch of old miseries at times , at least I can.

I think you'll be able to maintain your friendships in the UK if you put in an effort with emails and going to see people when you're back in the UK on holiday. It isn't that far and there are cheap flights so it should be possible for you to do that. Is this your first experience of living overseas?

You'll find there are a lot of English speaking foreigners living in Germany, especially in big towns, so there is bound to be a newwork there, you just need to discover it.

Think I'd consider finding a nice babysitter, maybe a student of English from the university, early on so you and dh can go out at night at least once a week and have a bit of fun. You don't want to be cooped up all day being a housewife with no adult to speak to IYSWIM. That's a fine recipe for feeling depressed and lonely.

I've found Germans on the whole like meeting people they can practice their English with, so you needn't be lonely. Germans (unlike us I think) invite people into their homes readily and are quite open to making new friends. The culture is different enough to be interesting but not so different that you'll be at sea here.

There are things that are great about living here, because as you'll see, Germans just do organise things a lot better. In some ways they seem light years ahead. There are other sides to life which may grate on you (like everywhere really) but I think you have to just be resolved to take those with good humour, if you can. As admylin said you know it isn't forever and so I think it is easier to shrug off things that annoy you and have a good natured laugh about them when you know you won't be dealing with them forever.

Think if you and dh resolve to drive about at the weekends a lot, seeing the place, eating out, going to beer gardens and things, it should be a nice experience for you. Everyone panics a bit at the thought of moving overseas but you need to get into excited mode now and look forward to it as a bit of an adventure, don't you think?

newwork = neTwork, sorry!

Hi there,

Well, I've just resigned this morning. yay!!! I'm really looking forward to moving to Germany - we lived in South Korea for 6 months back in 1997 so nothign can be as tough as that... We're very outgoing people, love exploring (as much as you can with a toddler), going out, eating , drinking etc.

DH has a promotion within his company so it's not a Uni or anything.

My impression at the moment is that Germany is incredibly organised, but probably no more than the UK? We've got friends already vowing to come over and stay and I'll be nipping home pretty regularly.

I sounded panicked as this week is the crunch week, contract signed, I resigned and it's time to put our house on the rental market...

Thanks for all your advice and I'll be no doubt posting a lot on here in the next three months.

Hope the weather's good in Munich!