German Corner

[finknottle]

Deutsch or English
Native speakers, expats, anyone
From Brezeln to Bier

Please don't ask if you join in, everyone is welcome

For discussion of schools see separate thread

Ooh, enjoy Taipo. lol @ "50 or so cakes"

Oh, family gatherings. Mittag on the dot of 12. Kaffee und Kuchen on the dot of 3. Drinking eröffnet after Kaffee. Bier, later Schnaps. Abendbrot and more drinking on the dot of 7. In dh's family's defence, they all seem to get on well and genuinely enjoy it. They're a nice bunch on the whole. I haven't been to one for ages though (also because smoking is not abstained from when children are around ).

Lol at the set times for coffee and drinking! I've never had to suffer that as dh isn't German! I always wanted to marry into a really big family and I did, dh is one of 14 brothers and sisters but they are all scattered over the world so no family gatherings on a regular basis. Trouble is - when there is one they are over the top, loads of aunties, cousins, half cousins and who knows who else smothering the dc!

Yep, that all sounds very familiar berolina, except that we have to make do without the alcohol, well apart from a glass of schnaps if we're lucky.

Mil gets really nervous if the food is not on the table at 12 on the dot and the success of any kind of family gathering or celebration is measured solely by whether everything went exactly according to plan. Sadly I will never see eye to eye with mil on this one and I just spend the whole time biting my tongue.

In her world people are divided into Frühaufsteher (i.e. the decent ones) and Langschläfer (of which I am one, given half the chance) who are completely beyond the pale. She makes comments about the neighbours' blinds being unopened at 9am on a Sunday.

Hoho, Taipo I think your MIL would get on well with my FIL.

When he says that lunch is at 12 o'clock then everything is finished 15 mins earlier. And woe betide anyone who comes to late for a meal.

My Mum always says that there is Greenwich Mean Time, Central European Time and Siegfried Time.

We just spent the day searching the Eifel for snow. None, nowhere, nothing. Not a flake. We were even going to splash out and buy a sledge.

Lol, Ks, at Siegfried time.

No snow here either. I think it is forcast to snow tomorrow and Monday though so maybe we'll get some use out of the snow boots and sledge yet.

Who bought new snow boots and snow suits this year? We got away with itz last year as the winter was so mild so saved a fortune but this year I thought it can't be as mild as last winter so out we went and bought sturdy winter boots for teh dc - they've hardly had them on!

I'm still on a quest to find ds some decent trainer/shoes in his size, that he likes and that are affordable - I'm asking a bit much there I think. Wonder if I'll get some nice ones in Texas this summer?

The DCs have worn their winter boots a lot, but they are not the really warm furry lined ones.

We buy Geox ones from the outlet shop in Wertheim (on the way to MILS) as they are often really reasonably priced. DS's winter boots were only 45euros.

I could have saved myself the skisuit that I bought for DD. She has hardly had it on. The one from the year before was ok so DS inherited that but he only had it on for the Martinszug.

I bought a pair of winter boots in October for myself too from Tamaris. I'd been told that they have good shoes, well the sole came off the rest of the shoe last week so I had to get them repaired - puts me off going there again. Geox are supposed to be good, from the price- I would hope so!

good morning and happy easter everybody. Can I officially come and join you in the German corner? I may not be able to be too regular, as mainly on ante natal board atm, and in the throes of movig to Feldkirchen, in 4 or 5 weeks, so pretty busy, but I might have to keep popping up with VERY IMPORTANT questions, like getting sky tv, and .. can you get shreddies or cheerios on Germany?

Looking forward to getting to know you - already recognise quite a few names.

Hello Ernest. You can get Toppas (from Kellogs) which are a bit like shreddies with a raisin inside - no other added sugar if that's an issue. Also come in other flavours - sugar-coated mostly.

I should be on the antenatal board, but I'm not When are you due? I'm due mid-May.

Good morning and hello Ernest.

We has snow this morning, and made the most of it by going to a local castle and having a walk around the grounds. It was lovely. There was a garden market going on so I bought myslef a new rose. I could not resist, it was called

Hi everyone. Well we spent Easter at home and I was mostly in a bad mood because I didn't get over to the UK again and was sure everyone would be having a great time but after speaking to family - found out they didn't do much either so didn't miss much! Friends from south Germany are coming up to Berlin tonight for a few days so should make up for the quiet few days we've just had!

Evening and welcome Ernest. Good luck with your move!

Well, we're back from mil and it was wasn't quite so bad as I'd anticipated, possibly due to the fact that we downed a bottle of wine at lunch and then started on the schnapps. Due to a minor disaster in the kitchen lunch was served late - at 12:15. Oh the horror! The cakes are still sitting heavily in my stomach, but they were delicious, in particular a poppy seed one.

Re cereals, does anyone know if you can get rice crispies or anything similar? I want to make marshmallow crispies with the dc - I've thought of using cornflakes but don't think it would be quite right somehow.

Good morning, hope you´ve all recovered from the chocolate excess of the last few days.

We had a really relaxing Easter. Dh and dd even managed to go skiing yesterday. We´ve got one hill near us that has the grand total of 2 lifts and each run is only about 400m if that, but dd had a great time.

Taipo you can definitely get rice krispies here. Sometimes you have to shop around because not every supermarket has them.

You know, it never occured to me that we don't get rice krispies here.

My mum used to use cornflakes, and raisins. Yummy.

Talking of breakfast cereals, any of you müsli eaters? We bought müsli from these guys recently. You can make up your own müsli with the ingredients that you prefer. Great for DD with her nut allergies.

you can get rice crispies here - how do you make marsh mallow crispies? yum

Oh good, I'll have to hunt around for some. Our local supermarket doesn't have them.

Marshmallow Cripies:
100g toffee
100g butter
100g marshmallows
100g rice crispies

Basically you heat up the toffee, butter and marshmallows until they all melt, then stir in the rice crispies and put mixture into a tin to set. They are very naughty but nice!

KS, that muesli looks interesting, although choosing out of 70 different ingredients would give me a bit of a headache (I'm very indecisive by nature). Dh bought some amaranth muesli recently which was very tasty.

Hmm, they sound delicious.

Don't tempt me though, I am trying to lose weight again.

My DB is getting married next year and after seeing the kind of dresses that my future SIL is thinking about having, I really need to slim down a bit. I feel a bit mean actually, because I am not particularly excited about being a bridesmaid. I do think that I am a bit old now.

Morning Welcome Ernest to the wrong side of the Weißwurstäquator!

I have an anecdote/experience to zum Besten geben. I took dses to the botanical garden yesterday after kiga pickup, as I often do. We wwere at the pond and I was talking to ds1 about the ducks and birds when an old lady sitting on a bench nearby reading Bild said 'you should be speaking German to him, he won't learn proper German if you keep speaking foreign to him, we're in Germany here'. I was too to answer for a moment, at which point she must hasve thought I didn't understand her, as she started repeating herself loudly and slowly . I said, politely but rather coldly, that what I spoke to my children was really no business of hers and anyway, my child was being raised bilingually, at which point she started again about how that wasn't enough, because surely my husband was at work and would never see the children to speak to, nd how I was disadvantaging my child and 'in Deutschland spricht man deutsch' . I then asked her, again very politely, to not concern herself with my Familienverhältnisse, at which point she said 'all I hear these days is foreigners talking' - at which point I lost it very slightly and told her to go and join the NPD if she wanted to make racist comments and moved away. Another old lady asked me what all the fuss was about, and when I explained it to her she told me to be careful with calling people racist if I didn't want them to hit me and then started in much the same vein as Old Lady No. 1, until I mentioned dh being German and she said 'oh, that's alright then' . Then she saw ds2 under my babywearing coat in the sling and went into paroxysms of delight, talking about her new great-hrandchild so of course after that I was her favourite person. Nowt so odd as Germans folk, eh?

That's berolina. Well done though for standing up to her, I especially like the NPD comment. I probably would have just spluttered with incandescent rage and thought of loads of clever things to say later.

That is shocking, Berolina.

I have thankfully never been subjected to any kind of racism here in Germany although I have been offended by friends and colleages comments about foreigners. Quickly followed by, oh, we don't mean you, KS, we mean real foreigners.

Bugger, I am not even a real Ausländer.

Lol KS, I get that too.

Don't you just love the way old ladies (and occasionally old men) don't mince their words/stick their oar in here. Usually it's something relatively harmless like telling you your dc are not dressed appropriately for winter but just sometimes you get a real shocker.

I'm sure there are plenty of old bats dears who would think such things in the UK but not many would actually say it.

Oh, I am always being told that my DC should have hats/tights/gloves on. We live in an area where it does not snow. It rarely goes below zero. They do not need tights.

I love it that when it is a wee bit cold, all the German kids have suddenly got their snow suits on to go to the backers in the morning.

Mine are still not even wearing hats.

Oh, and my neighbour put his DS's coat, boots, scarf and hat on him (and tied the hat on) for going across the courtyard to their house.