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Living overseas

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Original poster

** German Chat ** Alle sind willkommen. ** Frühling läßt sein blaues Band ...

768 replies

MmeLindt · 10/03/2009 13:11

...
Wieder flattern durch die Lüfte
Süße, wohlbekannte Düfte
Streifen ahnungsvoll das Land
Veilchen träumen schon,
Wollen balde kommen
Horch, von fern ein leiser Harfenton!
Frühling, ja du bist's!
Dich hab ich vernommen!

*

Für Deutsche und nicht-Deutsche, Goethe-fans und Gottschalk-fans, für Herzschmerz, Heimweh und Heimatgefühle.

Alle sind willkommen.

OP posts:
Original poster
MmeLindt · 15/03/2009 20:29

Hey, Gabster. Good to hear from you. When do you get the keys for the new house?

Admylin
Sounds like the kind of thing that I would do, get the date wrong.

Had a good weekend, quiet but relaxing.

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abroadandmisunderstood · 15/03/2009 21:36

Gabster, you left already? I wish I was not a lurker recently. Hope the accommodation pans out, if a bit mucky at first. I'm sure it will take a short time to get everything as you would like it to be but at least you can do it in your mother tongue!

Wishing you all the best and quite jealous.

taipo · 16/03/2009 07:28

Hi Gabster. Good to hear you arrived safely. What a pain that you've got a flu bug though. Hope you feel better soon and that you can get the house sorted.

Not warm here yet. Milder than it has been but still pretty wintery. The sun is trying to shine today though so maybe spring is on its way at last.

Original poster
MmeLindt · 16/03/2009 08:13

Great excitement today in our sleepy village as several police cars, sirens wailing and blue lights flashing went whizzing by our house this morning. The DC were at the door and DH even phoned from the bus to find out what was going on as he had seen more police cars on the other road too.

When I took the DC to school we discovered that the village Post Office had been held up. I don't know that details yet but a neighbour told me that it was not the first time that they have been burgled, the last time was 2 years ago and the Post Master was so traumatised by the beating that he received that he only recently returned to work.

It is family run, the wee girl goes to school with DS and quite frightening to think that she might have witnessed the robbers. There was a petition sent around last week protesting at the closure of the post office, and I guess that this latest burglary might indeed be the nail in the coffin.

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admylin · 16/03/2009 08:14

Also feeling jealous here, I'd gladly swap our smart flat for a dirty cottage in England! Are you going to have to paint then? When we move I always feel as if I have to disinfect the bathrooms and kitchen how ever clean they are though. Good job you don't have to move all your stuf fin straight away.

When we moved here I had to clean around all our boxes and stuff before I could put all teh shelving and beds together again. Hopefully you will get help and good luck with settling in to your new life.

My h has invited 2 colleagues to dinner tomorrow - he's planned what they get to eat, I take it he'll be helping to cook it all too but he left me 20 Euro to get fish, Bandnudeln, gorgonzola, cream, fresh herbs and white wine. Wonder if I'll manage to get change

Original poster
MmeLindt · 16/03/2009 08:15

On the bright side this morning, DS was telling me that when everyone asks if he has been to the hairdresser then he will reply, "Non, mon Papa il ça" which DD then corrected, saying he should say, "Non, mon Papa coupé mon cheveux" (apologies if I have spelt that wrong, it is how I remember it)

Their first sentences in French

The weather is fab again today. I am going into town later to find a doggy hairdresser and someone to tune in our sat dish as we cannot watch BBC at the moment. Strangely enough, we can watch BBC1 Midlands but not the rest of the channels.

OP posts:
admylin · 16/03/2009 08:15

Ooh, excitement in village life mmelindt. Hope no one was hurt though.

Original poster
MmeLindt · 16/03/2009 08:16

Admylin
I think you will have to head for Aldi adn get a box of Liebfraumilch for 1.99eu

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admylin · 16/03/2009 08:16

Wonder if my homesickness would be better if I had a sat dish?

Original poster
MmeLindt · 16/03/2009 08:18

No, as far as I heard noone was hurt.

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Original poster
MmeLindt · 16/03/2009 08:19

Could go either way, Admylin. Either it helps or you decide you cannot stay a moment longer as you miss Tescos and M&S too much.

I do get the odd pang of homesickness when the M&S adverts come on. Not just homesickness, M&S homesickness

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admylin · 16/03/2009 08:20

Lol at Liebfraumilch! I remember that back in my teens along with Lambrusco!!

Actually, h is a total snob when it comes to wine. He likes to go in a shop and buy an expensive bottle of wine even though he doesn't have a clue about wine. They usually taste awful too! When my parents were here we just bought a box of 6 bottles of Chardonnay white wine fairly cheap as they like to drink white wine at each meal and it tasted really good but he wouldn't have it, no cheap wine is rubbish so he went out and bought 'expensive' chardonnay, which as usual tasted awful! Maybe that's why he left 20 Euro as he's accepted that cheap wine is OK?

taipo · 16/03/2009 08:32

Sounds very dramatic ML! I hope the little girl is OK and didn't see the whole thing.

Admylin, buy a bottle of cheap plonk and decant it into a bottle of more expensive stuff and see if your h notices the difference.

We drink quite a lot of wine but rarely pay more than 5 euros for a bottle. I find German white wine very reasonably priced and often very good. I'm a big fan of Riesling.

Oh god, I probably sound like a right wino now

admylin · 16/03/2009 08:36

I like Riesling too - infact I should buy more wine as it really is cheap, a decent bottle of wine for 3 or 4 Euros is hard to come by in UK! Should make the most of the good things here even if I find them few and far between!

Original poster
MmeLindt · 16/03/2009 09:06

I bought a lot of Riesling too in Germany. We drank Frankenwein when we lived in Würzburg, there were some younger winzers who made fresher fruitier wines than the typical drydrydry wines that Franken is famous for.

This group of winemakers is great, and have won international awards. We will be filling the car with some bottles when we go to Germany. The Secco is fabulous.

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taipo · 16/03/2009 10:13

It's strange that German wine still has quite a bad reputation in the UK. My parents are still a bit about drinking it. Was looking for some in their local Waitrose and I think there was one bottle from Germany in amongst all the French/Italian/Spanish/New World stuff. Do they keep all the good stuff for themselves?

Original poster
MmeLindt · 16/03/2009 10:54

I don't know why the german wines are not as popular. I suspect it may be because there are not many large wineries capable of supplying one or more of the uk supermarkets. Certainly none as humungous as Gallo wines etc. Or because they market their wines towards the domestic market.

Having coffee in the Godiva coffee but resisting the chocs.

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admylin · 16/03/2009 11:16

Well I'm off soon to do a BIG shop for h's dinner party with his 20 Euro! What a joke eh. Do you all usually do an evening meal for the family or do they all eat in cantines and just snack in the evening?

I'm got some great ideas from the recipe threads here - but I must admit I hate cooking for my lot as they are all so fussy, well dd isn't , she's a dream and will try anything. At the weekend I made Steak pie - no curry for once but h liked it. I think if someone invented a pill to take once a day to substutute fod I would go for it and stop cooking altogether. I think I spend too much time in the kitchen.

Anyway I will report back on what I managed to get, he mentioned salmon as the fish he wants but he could end up with something else.

Original poster
MmeLindt · 16/03/2009 12:18

Oh, I do hope you are going to Aldi or Lidl then, as they do quite reasonable fish. The salmon was good last time I had it.

Back home in the garden with a cuppa and some digestives. I can get McVities here

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Original poster
MmeLindt · 16/03/2009 12:19

I like cooking. I made asparagus yesterday and there is plenty left for a salad for tonight so we are having that with BBQ beef and pork, if I can buy gas for the BBQ somewhere. Not sure where to try.

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admylin · 16/03/2009 12:51

Well, I got 2 bottles of wine, some fish and cream in Lidl and have 9 Euro left for Bandnudeln and dill and Gorgonzola should be knapp because I have to get all that in the 'proper' shop as Lidl don't have it!

Original poster
MmeLindt · 16/03/2009 12:58

Aldi should have bandnudeln, Admylin. I doubt they will have gorgonzola though.

I am impressed with your budgetting skills.

The cost of living is much higher here in Switzerland, I do miss Aldi. I would have paid about 15 - 20 chf for the fish I think, and about 8 or 9chf for the wine. That would be the 20eu gone.

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admylin · 16/03/2009 14:09

I'm getting quite good at budgeting - I've been trying to save to go to England and last month I managed spend 200 less than usual but it isn't enough to go home. Atleast I know I will make it for summer even if h still thinks the dc don't deserve it if they don't get 1's all the time.

admylin · 16/03/2009 14:11

By the way the rest of the stuff cost 6Euro so I got the dc a cake at the bakery too!

admylin · 17/03/2009 10:34

New problem: My parents got back from the far east last night and are expecting us to visit - they know how much we all want to and they have said to just book and they'll help out when we get there but somehow I feel awful about it. I can scrape the money for flight there together but the cost has gone up since I last looked - they would have to pay nearly 300 to get us back (and might only have flights the first day back at school which I hate but could I tell them we missed the plane so had to get next day flight?)