Anyone fancy a brand new living in Germany in the time of Covid-19 thread?

[poolsofsunshine]

It strikes me that the experience of living, homeschooling, working, and everything else is very country specific atm.

The view the boards give of life in the UK is quite alien to me now, even though I am British by birth and lived most of my life in England until I was in my early 30s.

I cannot believe all the NHS and Major Tom jingoism, the fact there is still so little testing done and people apparently just guess whether they have Covid-19 or not and act accordingly in the UK atm...

My experience of this time in Bavaria is both quieter (I'm so glad there's no communal pot banging for the Krankenkasse although as someone working in a Pflegeberuf I found the radio "Danke" adverts smarmy and annoying), more efficient but also more uncompromising, intense and demanding - exams are not cancelled and the demands from school remain heavy.

I wonder how other immigrants and expats on here are experiencing this time?

Maybe say which state you're in and roughly how old your children, if you have any, are, as I think this makes a huge difference to experiences at the moment.

Germany always varies to an astonishing level by state, but this is all obviously going to be totally different for people with toddlers compared to children in 3-4 Klasse, or children with Abi or Realschulabschluss or the Abschlussprüfung from a long intense Ausbildung looming, or parents of students back during lockdown etc.

I'm in Bavaria and my children are in 3rd, 6th and 9th class. We've been here over 10 years.

I'm not actually in Germany (or indeed the UK), but just bumping this one with interest as my daughter and her family live there and I was a frequent visitor before lockdown.

It is very interesting to see how things are tackled differently across the regions - which makes an awful lot of sense. I am in France and we live in the middle of nowhere, so it is a very different experience from the major cities.

thejollygargler thanks for bumping.

Which state is your daughter in? Does she have small or school age children? What's she saying to you about her experiences?

How are you finding this experience in rural France? Is your lockdown tighter? Are your non food shops opening or still closed?

Our non food shops have been open since Monday and our exam years (so year 9 in Mittelschule, year 10 in Realschule, year 12 in gymnasium and also technical and vocational college exam years) are back at school. Masks are compulsory in public buildings and on public transport. Unfortunately my experience so far is that it's turned a lot of people into total idiots who have decided to take their children to the shops as an outing and generally use shopping to socialise so doubtless the number of cases will rise again in a week or so.

They are in Berlin. 3.5yr old is in Kita (well not at the moment obviously!) and the one year old starts in August.

My daughter had just gone back to work and my son-in-law had just started his paternity leave. So this is not quite what they had planned but they are coping.

I think Berlin originally said no to masks for shopping but they have changed this now. It's certainly less strict than here.

We can go to the supermarket, baker, pharmacy or the doctor. Only one person in a car unless you are assisting someone vulnerable. A few "garden centre" type places are open but nothing else at the moment.

Excercise can be walking, running or cycling but you must stay within 1km of home and can only be out for an hour. You need a new form/qcode for every time you leave the house and it has to say what time you left so no cheating! We are in week 7 I think!

All being well things will start to ease up in 10 days but that depends on people continuing to be sensible. Shops will open but not bars or restaurants (apart from take-away).

Hoping to get to see the family at some point this year but I'm not holding my breath

We're in Hessen and DS is 3. I teach at a private school so still do lots of online videoconference sessions with my class. Workload is heavier than normal and I've had just about enough now.
Apart from that, I don't find it to be that difficult. We need masks to go into shops now and to use public transport. DH does emergency care every so often. We are starting to get ready to have some of the kids come back into school. Our fourth graders were meant to be back last week but thay go cancelled at the last minute, which was a right pain because everything had been ready and taken ages to sort.
We go for walks with DS and cycling when the weather is nice. We also have a big garden, so getting outside is no issue. Our builders turn up every day and get on with the building work in our house (they are on a separate floor with separate entrance).

DS is starting to miss his friends from nursery. He doesn't realise that he'll move nurseries in the summer because I'm moving jobs. Museums, zoos and playgrounds will reopen on Monday, which is something to look forward to and I hope to be able to have a socially distant meet up at some point. Once I'm back at school, he'll spend some time in emergency care. Social distancing doesn't apply for KITA kids in emergency care.

Reading about the hype this seems to be producing in the UK feels very alien. No grand gestures, no clapping or whatever going on here. People just go about their lives, mostly, even if they stay a bit further apart.

I live in NRW, I am very happy shops have opened as my DS 8 has grown and needed new shoes and clothes. I am happy not to be in the UK as my daughter started counselling just after lockdown and that would have not continued in the UK. I found with my sons school we have hardly heard anything and have just been sent links to websites for work, as he has finished his arbeits plans for german and Maths before the school holidays, finished I am not very impressed as surely his teacher could send him new arbeits plans. My Dd 12 teachers send work every couple of weeks which keep her going mainly, but I have had to find work for them to do and gave them both projects to do.

I have three doctors appointments next week, my Lung Arzts is normally full of patients at least 30 people waiting so I will be interested to see how that works, there is no information on their web site talking about Covid.

I live in Rheinhessen, so the Land is Rheinland-Pfalz, but am often in Frankfurt.
Cannot say that I noticed much at first as I would normally be working Mondays and Fridays at home anyway. I did notice how quiet everything suddenly went (live in small village on the main through road), which was lovely.
Shopping was a bit of a bore at first and took twice as long as normal. For some reason there was a complete lack of loo paper and flour during the actual period of lockdown, but this is fine now :-)
My contract finished just after Easter, so I have been lazing around doing nothing much since then, apart from trips to Frankfurt every month or so, which was strange at first, but doesn't impact too much now, although I did notice that most of the people in the city centre were not German native speakers.
The weirdest things I have noticed have been the differences in approach between the Länder and the interpretation of local rules within the regions.
Rheinland-Pfalz, for example, being quite rural, has a rather more relaxed attitude than Hessen. However, in Hessen, when staying in hotels, there are wild variances. One place will have its indoor pool open, but its spa treatment area closed, another place or similar status just up the road, is offering spa treatments but its pool is closed for the foreseeable future.
Haven't been to the doctor's for years, but had no difficulty making appointments at my dentist's.
It's my birthday this weekend and I was thinking about going to Frankfurt for the weekend or possibly to a nice hotel near Speyer as a treat, but cannot decide. One very noticeable thing has been restaurants - proper ones, not chains. I have been to several of my favourite regulars and was terribly disappointed each time as the quality of the food has taken a nose-dive in 90% of cases.