**German Chat**everyone welcome* - macht es euch gemütlich

[ZZZen]

reden wir weiter...

Must be hard on your little one Schulte. Can you darken the windows by blocking them with sheets or something temporarily till you can send dh off to get blinds? Maybe an electric fan if it is not blasting straight onto the baby?

Speaking ofbabies, how and where is Frosch these days?

Cambodia maninadirndl? Hmm dunno, lots of temples and gentle buddhists. Don't know much about it. Mum and Dad went there and liked it. Have that song "It's a holiday in Cambodia, where people dress in black..." going through my head though. Not too enticing. Bet the landscape is impressive. Don't even know if Costa Rica has mountains. How ignorant is that?

OK Gracelo I have you down for the Kamchutka trip. Maps are so deceptive I know. It all looks so cosily near but then the country is just huge. I read there are around 25 volcanoes on the peninsula.

We call Aeroflot Aeroschrot in our house. I remember flying with them once. (Once was enough). Plane creaked and leaked some fluid from the roof the whole time. First time I have been aware in a plane that I am in fact high up in the air with nothing but A flimsy metal frame between me and death.

Scarey. HUGE (relieved) clapping all round when we landed though.

Might have improved these days. This was a long time ago.

Ever flown one of tgheir Tupolevs ZZZ? I flew home UB-Beijing-Almaty-Gatwick and shit mself en route to Almaty on a Tupo. Horrible planes.

Zzzen, I'm in. I bring the gas masks (if you want to get that close to a volcano, I certainly do) and the bear spray.

I just realized that I have gone native. I played apology tennis with my pharmacist. I rang to apologize for running off without paying for my prescription (a habit from being exempted because of having a baby, I suppose), so I apologize, then he apologizes for not reminding me, I apologize again, "no, no" he says "my fault entirely", "no, no" I say "not at all, I should have remembered" and so it went on for a while. Wouldn't happen in Germany that way.

ah yes "the perfume of Rotorua" as they call it in NZ I remember.

I rmeember going to Naples and seeing Pompei then going to see the exciting life volcano. I was so knackered after walking around Pompei I didn't much feel like it but I was shamed into it after watching a handful of Italian girls, all apparently called Maria, allowing themselves good-naturedly to be dragged up a steep winding dirt track in high heels and pencil skirts. When we got to the top and looked over we saw a faint wisp of smoke rising and I have to admit I suspected the Italian tourist board of paying a few people to just in there and have a fag during opening hours. That's all it looked like.

always make so many tipos. But too lazy to ever check before posting, sorry!

I sort of like the smell, mainly because I have such great memories of Rotorua and other geothermal areas. I do remember though being in the back country in Yellowstone on some extremely brittle ground over very very hot soil and water, thinking "what am I doing here, surrounded by bears, cougars (not that you ever see a cougar), mooses, snakes, bison, trying not to fall through to the boiling springs beneath me?" We always hoped that should something happen it would be Harrison Ford piloting the rescue helicopter. He lives (or maybe lived) in Paradise Valley and participated in the helicopter rescue service. NZ geothermal areas are lot more civilized with their walkways and fences and cafes.

Frosch likes cool, damp, dark places. So does Baby Frosch. This heatwave is driving us bonkers! It's tempting to go back to Wales for a bit (parents live on the coast) and get cool again but I can't face the long drive from Birmingham airport to the middle of flippin' nowhwere; it takes five and a half hours.

Mr Frosch is flitting here and there and I am watching Wimbledon and tucking into a box of biscotti he brought back yesterday from Florence. Yum yum yum!

Am loving people's travel stories; if I won the lottery, I would blow it all on travel, starting with Deutschland 'cos I've only seen Leverkusen, the Hockenheimring and the Nurburgring.

I know where I'd like to go but what country would you lot heartily recommend NOT visiting and why?!

well last week we filled up the swimming pool at the inlaws place in the mountains. Looks like we didnt need to - I've got a huge flood pool in my garden!

Anyone else been a tad "surprised" at the amount of rain we've had recently?

very odd summer this year, but then I say that every year! Weird old bat that I am.

Been pondering it Frosch but actually everywhere I've been had some redeeming graces, there isn't anywhere I'd tell people on no account to visit. I have felt a bit let down by cities generally though. They don't match up to my expectations fed by films/literature etc. Especially Paris. I thought Paris is always built up so much and yet when I was there, I wondered about thinking: "hmm ok so this is Paris and so what?" really. Ditto Madrid but I expected less of Madrid I suppose.

Maybe you need more time with towns, have to spend about 3 months or more there in order that they slowly unfurl and reveal little wonders here and there I don't know.

Only towns I took to straight away were Budapest and Prague because the architecture in the old parts is so "quaint" I suppose.

I wAndered about ...

ZZZ there's a marketing campaign inthe city I used to live in "München liebt dich" which after 2 years of being shouted at by its residents was for me definitely not the case. B3 kids we used to go to Czech often - my mother in law was brought up in a castle on the border - and Prague is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen.

had some nice black beer in Prague. Hear you have to watch your step there these days though, so much pick-pocketing. If your MIL was brought up in a castle there, must have been before the iron curtain I take it. Have you seen the castle, is it still standing?

München liebt dich. Ha ha ha. I'm imagining the berlin version, incomplete without the Schnauze though sort of : "Berlin liebt dich - haste was dagegen oder wat?!"

Yes we've visited the castle a few times. It was a ruin for long time then sold and renovated into a golf hotel. The tower where my wife used to sleep when she spent her summer holidays is all there. My MiL's sister lives right next to the castle so we've visited a few times. She tells interesting tales about during the war how her family lived self sufficient, baking bread, growing veg and having chickens etc.

My wife owns a small piece of the forest there and we went up a few years ago with my trailer and cut up a fallen tree for fun.

So by the Berlin Schnauze you mean as in anschnauzen? I heard the East Germans are even less friendly than the Westerners.

well East Germans will tell you something different since they think the West Germans are all up themselves and rude and have no sense of community etc

Berliner Schnauze is the (they think) endearing habit of being gobsmackingly rude and unpleasant for no reason at all. They think it shows they are quick-witted city folk never short of a retort. I am not so keen on it.

East Germans seem to me (warning: more glaring generalisations) ofthe ilk: "wir sind die kleinen Leute und wir sind stolz darauf" they feel they are hard done by and they compensate for it by being overtly and openly racist and xenophobic. And in addition to that they look down on and are jealous of the West Germans

Hard to say which attitude is the easiest to deal with

Ah but the West Germans look down on the East Germans too Maybe if they stopped speaking with such silly accents...

I spoke with an East German at a barbcue a while back and she told me how women had equal status under communism, and that childcare was excellent for all families under the old system. Communism may have spawned some of the ugliest architecture from Dresden to Ulan Bator but it did have a good side, as everyone was catered for.

Ever seen the film "Good Bye Lenin"? I thought it was a fascinating humorous insight into their old life. Not everything became wonderful when they were "freed" from the old ways.

If that lack of community is a criticism from the East of the West then I can say I agree. I see little sense of that here, its very tribal and family oriented.

in truth all people look down on everyone else, don't they? And if they look up to some other group, in reality it means they are just looking down on themselves and their own group

move over Freud

I don't know hwat kind of sense of community it was when wives were spying on their dh's for the stasi and all the rest of it but they always bring that up so something must have noticably changed for the worse

yes I have seen that film maninadirndl. Give us an example of tribal Bavaria

I'm not so convinced about this equal status for women in the East Block thing. Maybe East Germany did have some tank driving women generals and that kind of thing, I don't know but any East German women I have met (whatever their profession/training) seem very much the little woman behind the man.

I don't know how to put it but they seem more overtly feminine in mannerism, choice of dress and the way they style themselves, make up and also in the way they speak and act towards men. I thought when I first went to Germany that (West) German women are very much like men in the way they speak and deal with things (certainly cf to say Britain). I don't mean they are unattractive or manly but there is a kind of strength expressed and a tougher directer way of dealing with people which is more like the way men act.

So I always thought West German women were more equal to their men than East German women to theirs. Just from my outsider's viewpoint.

Excellent film too. Oh of course some things were better way back when. The DDR has recently been glorified in some books and movies though. Also it seems that all recent successful novels had something to do with the DDR or the wall coming down - well at least they have moved on from the Holocaust topic

By tribal I mean the Germans tend to stick to their own long term friends who they've know almost since birth.

To give you an example I cite the Church here as a positive influence. Many Germans develop friendships through the Church youth groups which last for years. my wife has hada mate since the age of 5. This is something we don't have in UK, witness the surge of Friends Reunited - we lose touch too easily. My inlaws are always going annually to "Treffen" of various kinds - school bank whatever.

Ah ZZZen. Interesting you should say that. I have never met as many girly 'girls' (read: women) in Germany as I do here.

Dirndl man, sure it's not a rural area vs. town thing?

That's true for Berlin too maninadirndl, despite it being a big town, people do seem to still be in touch with friends from kiga etc and the family ties seem generally a lot closer than in the UK with people seeing their mothers every weekend - and also wanting to.

Do you think Germans (west at least) are more church-going than Britons? I know berlin is considered a hot-bed of iniquity and atheism yet I have never met so many church-going people as I met there.