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Original poster

German Corner

627 replies

finknottle · 15/02/2008 09:58

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

OP posts:
berolina · 22/02/2008 09:52

sorry the grin was at the 'mum you're pathetic' - not tastelessly at the sad subject of windows.

dh is (was! not now I've put my foot down) a lot more casual about ds1 and windows than I am. The sacred and interminable lüften is a bit of a bone of contention here.

Original poster
finknottle · 22/02/2008 09:55

Ds1 (now 11) still kisses me even if I meet him outside school - even if there are others around. I hold back in case but, bless him, he still does it - I may well howl the day he stops

OP posts:
finknottle · 22/02/2008 09:59

This reply has been deleted

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SSSandy2 · 22/02/2008 09:59

boy can dd tell me off though! What a little tartar she is at times. She is always complaining, "mummy you're TOO bossy!" And like you finks, I always have to say "that's my job, mummies have to be bossy about things" but she grumbles and mutters and glowers at me from under her eyebrows.

Nothing of the Untertan in dd

Isn't going to be all that long before she's taller than me either (I'm 5 ft 2) and she already wears size 35 (!) shoes FGS (I wear 37). I don't think I can boss her about for too much longer. Bit of a worrying thought that

Original poster
finknottle · 22/02/2008 10:02

My dd is only 5 and she has recently taken to the glowering eyebrows too. And clenching teeth
Look at my link. Weinfeste

OP posts:
admylin · 22/02/2008 10:03

Ds is already stronger than me too. How can that be SSSandy have you seen any signs of hormonal strops yet? Dd is 8 and sometimes you'd think she had PMT or something and she goes marching off in a strop and I have to laugh which makes her even madder.

SSSandy2 · 22/02/2008 10:03

Is that your neck of the woods, finks? Looks pretty, on the border to France. I used to work with a woman who came from Landau. She had a hard time getting adjusted to Berlin, she'd come in bursting with tears because people had been so nasty when she'd gone to buy a monthly travel pass and so on. I told her I thought she'd be used to it being German and she said "NO! where I come from people are POLITE" so I had that corner marked out as more my kind of place. She really couldn't cope with Berlin, even worse than me in fact.

SSSandy2 · 22/02/2008 10:07

PMT?! THink dd was born with it. She was a volcano from the word go but I have done a good job tempering it, on the whole I have it in Griff. Do think she's born to be a general though and God have mercy on her husband if she has one!

Isn't it funny though when they turn the tables on you. Like when I say ok, it's bedtime and I get "mummy I'm counting to 3 and then I'm going to start feeling annoyed with you!"

admylin · 22/02/2008 10:11

Looks nice finknottle. Next time my parents visit they've asked me to arrange a holiday within the holiday for us all in a nice part of Germany - they can't believe it's all like the last two places we've lived in so that would be a nice area maybe. I was thinking of the north sea otherwise but I've never been - or deepest Algäu but as we come from one of, if not the most beautifull part of Britain it wouldn't impress them much (except that the cows are brown and have bells on!)

Original poster
finknottle · 22/02/2008 10:11

Yep, pretty, and Landau's round here too and I do have to politely point out that people are (witness this sentence) nicer here

Admylin - have you had a look?
Have a good weekend

OP posts:
admylin · 22/02/2008 10:12

Lol Sandy, I 've thought exactly the same thing about my future son in law, feel sorry for him already!

SSSandy2 · 22/02/2008 10:27

a-ha I have located Ludwigshafen and now see it is on the Bodensee. That should be nice. Thought it was in the north more somewhere near Bremen.. Dh was at a conference near the Bodensee and said it was very nice there. Hopefully we're gone before dd would have to do German geography!

SSSandy2 · 22/02/2008 10:32

"on the Bodensee" dear-o dear

admylin · 22/02/2008 10:37

German geography - starts in year 4 here in Berlin,and comes in the Sachkunde lessons- they have to learn all the Bezirke in Berlin first and then the states and capital city names - we managed that but I'm dreading when they start on rivers, imagine all the names and where they start and finish.

SSSandy2 · 22/02/2008 10:45

Ludwigshafen looks more like it , see more of a chance of you and the dc being happy there really admylin. Is there no hope of dh gettign a good job in his field back home though? I think dh has dug himself into a pit by becoming too specialised in German corporate law and fighting the EU or whatever it is he does all day. I don't know how easy it would realistically be for him to upsticks professionally now.

I do keep making suggestions you know - guesthouse in Kenya (although going off that one with the current tragic messed up situation there) etc etc He says I don't live in the real world!

Kindersurpise · 22/02/2008 13:22

Mahlzeit!

They say that in Franken too.

A friend of mine moved to a village near Heidelberg (close to the SAP HQ) and loves it there. She is in a little village and says that the quality of life is very good there. And the people are very friendly.

I did not know that the Berliners were so unfriendly. We loved Würzburg, the Franken are a bit slow at making friends but once you have made friends then they are friends for life.

Hannover was dreadful. We lived there for 2 years and made NO friends at all.

This area (Rheinland) is the complete opposite, very friendly and welcoming.

Weinfests are great, especially the new wine, what is it called again?

emkana · 22/02/2008 17:56

federweisser?

Kindersurpise · 22/02/2008 18:06

Yes, Federweisser. Had a total memory block there. Thanks

crapmomonMN · 25/02/2008 07:28

FAO: Trockodile

The lady selling the shoes is contactable on [email protected] if you dop her a line she will be able to tell you if she will be selling in your area.

admylin · 25/02/2008 09:18

News from Berlin...dh got an interview in Hannover! Anyone know what Hannover is like? He has to go in a couple of weeks and give a talk/presentation but the subject is really his thing so he knows what he's talking about - not like the disaster of an interview he gave for New Zealand. Fingers crossed or should I be dreading it, is it going to be better than Berlin? At the moment I want to go and sit it all out in my UK hometown - I'm homesick again.

SSSandy2 · 25/02/2008 09:52

Never been to Hannover admylin. I think, if you can, try and keep calm. Even if he gets a job offer, it doesn't mean he has to take it. Plenty of time to investigate and think it all through. Hope the interview goes well for dh

Did you enjoy the sun a bit yesterday?

Been thinking about what emkana said about struggling with dc and luggage at the airport whilst 2 young men stood watching and didn't offer to help. THink we (and the men) lost a lot with the loss of chivalry these days. Think it is a generation thing. I know my dad would have automatically walked up and helped and he would have felt good doing it, my brother would help if asked to but I'm not sure if he would do it as a matter of course. Sometimes I think young men these days feel they lose something, a bit of their essence if they help someone or even hold a door open for the person behind. It's like they fear they'll shrink a bit as a result.

admylin · 25/02/2008 10:04

It's a 3 year contract if he is accepted for it. I had a feeling he'd be invited because the person offering the job knew his old professor and he has a good reference from him (written before he died).

No we didn't do anything yesterday, just tried to get the dc to do some maths and dd to do some English practise but they weren't motivated so I didn't force it, we went out to a Mexican restaurant in the evening. Later I asked dd to write a small text about what she had done at the weekend in german and she wrote Restorang for Restaurant - her spelling is still very phonic!

SSSandy2 · 25/02/2008 10:31

Love reading the things dc write. They are so original, aren't they?

Mind you the other day on the way to school dd says, "Mummy your brain is like a bog, mine is like a newspaper" "Is that right? Please elaborate". So she tells me that information gets swallowed up in my brain and can't get dug out again whereas she can just flick a page in her mind and there's all the informaton ready to read!

Ah yes, ok

Your dh seems to be applying a lot these days so that must be a positive thing for you seeing him putting so much energy into it.

admylin · 25/02/2008 10:52

Grrr, he's just come back from his office to get some papers and told me his boss says he is going to announce that dh will be Privat Dozent next year (take it you have to officially announce that here) - I'm doomed.

admylin · 25/02/2008 10:54

Lol at your dd's version of her and your brain! My two think I'm not with it if I don't here their half Germnan half English mumbles the first time, treat me like a deaf old lady.

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