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

[ZZZen]

reden wir weiter...

problem with the apple cakes is they are quite plain, usually just a tray bake or sponge type base with apples cut on top, sometimes some almond or an icing drizzle. Other types are more decorative and more the type of thing that might fit a special occasion. I'm off now but let us know if you need something different.

I thought there might be some scary initiation ceremony .

You're a complete star - many thanks. Will get on the case.

Hassled - custard here tends to be a thin vanilla sauce, not he gloopy stuff we all know and love with a tin you can blow up afterwards. Is this to go with the apple pie? Daft as it seems, it'll may be worth posting one out to him!

I love

love love love that Danish Mathilda Vanillasauce. You get it in an orange carton and I can almost drink that stuff like soup. Delicious.

Yes, Frosch is right they don't do custard but you can buy vanilla sauce everywhere. Don't think you could get the bakery to deliver it with a cake though

Zen, we are settling in fine, thanks. Our self build is finnished, we moved in back in January. We have to do the groundwork including hard landscaping though. I am nearly done! We are flying out to Frankfurt on thursday.

DO YOU KNOW IF WE CAN TAKE HIGH SPEED TRAIN TO PADEBORN? Can any of you recommend any guest houses or b&bs in or near Paderborn?

Re VANILLA SAUCE - CUSTARD.

Try look out for the powdered stuff from Dr Oetker, I am sure they must sell it in germany too. This is in use throughout scandinavia for making a thicker more gloopy vanilla cream. You can mix it with whipped cream too, for an even fluffier texture.

aahh custard - could just go some now!! but will give those vanillasauce things a try in replacement!

frosch - understand how hard it is with a baby in the heat - 2 of mine were summer babies in warm summers in the UK!! they never seem to settle!! but i think it takes kids until they're past 4 to cope with warm nights - or maybe we never adjust!! i hate hot nights!

Still running - well had a week off last week - just too much going on and was supposed to crack back into it this morning but the rain was torrential!! definitely tomorrow morning - am up to runnning 20 mins without stopping - think it'll sound pathetic to runners but i've never ran that long before!!

DD SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!!!!!

Eight whole hours! DH and I woke with a start at 0630, shrieking "is she dead?" then calmed down. Feel so much better after so much sleep!

Canella - it's not pathetic; I started running/walking between lamposts, after five months I was running in a 10K. Getting out of bed is the worst but when you've run and hour and still feel OK, it's the best feeling in the world! I miss it and can't wait to start again. Odd, 'cos I hated sports at school but out on the road, it's just me and my ipod and it is great 'me' time. I'm a fair weather runner, though. There's no point in punishing yourself by running in the rain!

you can get vanilla sauce in every supermarket in Germany I#d say. Powdered stuff you mix up yourself and ready-made. You can even make it from scratch accoridng to my German cook-books by scraping vanilla pods or something. I have never tried. some of the ready made stuff tastes nicer than others. The one we love is the Mathilda one which is from Denmark but you can get it in some supermarkets. It is not so thick and the taste is not so heavy as some of them.

I prefer vanilla sauce to custard really. Custard has quite a strong taste by comparison and can totally overwhelm the taste of whatever you eat it with. Apple pie with custard is yummy though. I have never tried vanilla sauce in my coffee though , apparently (according to the packets) you can though. Wonder how that tastes? Bit weird I think.

Canella are you still jogging?

Don't know Paderborn at all, sorry Quint. You mean the ICE (fast train)? Have a look at Deutsche Bahn online, bound to be in English too.

20 minutes is great stuff canella. Can't believe you still run in the heat. Do you go late at night

and wow ! Frosch's baby slept through! Wahoo. Let's hope it stays that way Frosch.

so excited for you frosch!!!! can you sort out my ds2 who at fast 3 is still not sleeping through!!! need some serious sleep training now!

go out running first thing in the morning zzzen once i've dropped the boys at kiga! too hot otherwise! doing that couch to 5k plan and onto 6 week but last week was just too hot - i'm puce in the face on cold days never mind 22 degrees at 9 am! find the couch to 5k on MN a great support - they really keep you motivated to run!

Hi guys, frosch - am very . dd just started to sleep through about a month ago, and since she had her impfungen last week she's waking up again - I'm knackered.

Went into town to meet dh for lunch. On way back ticket inspectors got on. I produced my stamped ticket, but apparently I've stamped it in the wrong direction, which I've done since I moved here, and despite clealry having made a mistake and clearly having paid the complete bitch gave me a 40 euro fine. I couldn't believe it. What a toal bitch I am so pissed off. How tight is that. It was clealry an honest mistake and I0ve cxlearly paid for my journey both in and out. Surprised the total bitch (can you tell I'm angry) didn't fine me for my journey into town too she just kept banging on it's all in the rules, obviously I'm foreign, couldn't read the rules well enough and did bloody pay. I wouldn't care if I'd bunked my fair but I had clearly bloody well paid 6 stamped, just in the wornd direction apparently

What a cow!! She's obviously one of those people who can't make a judgement call despite the facts staring her in the face, so let us pity her for being such a spineless being. Rise above it, Ernest; you are the better person.

Au weia Ernest - typical ticket inspector behaviour though. It's because they've got such crappy jobs, they must make themselves feel more important by taking it out on innocent people. I got done by a South West trains idiot when about 6 months pregnant, for sitting in first class when there was nowhere else to sit. Can you tell I have still not got over it?

Frosch, well done to the little Kaulquappe for sleeping through!

ah well the RULES, that's Germany in a nutshell though. Took me some time to grasp the concept. I used to go round thinking I could charm reason my way around things and in the beginning I used to think I was making good headway with some beast Beamte, they would nod good-naturedly, I'd even get a laugh on a good day but then when I thought I had it under control, they'd wind up the conversation by going back to the rule and therefore nothing could be done about whatever it was.

It's the way Germany ticks, you have to look suitably chastened and that gives these guys a little thrill or you do the German response whihc is query it in writing in a stroppy letter. Tbh whenever I have done that, I was always given Recht, as they call it. It's a drag on the whole though. Even Germans find it a drag but they think it's like crap weather, you just have to live with it.

so there's no point in appealing? I mean I have clearly bought a ticket costing 11 euros, I have clearly stamped it the correct number of times, I have clearly stamped it at the start of each journey. I thought I had done it al right. I wouldn't dream of travelling without a ticket. I just stamped it back to front. I mean, bloody hell, it's cost mee 11 euros for the ticket, I wasn't avoiding paying they can see that.

SO, do I go to the trouble of appealing? And do I write letter or go into town, or do I simply pay the 40 euros and try to forget about it, and thank my lucky stars it doesn't mean we can't eat this week.

Some good news - our extractor fan nearly feel off the ceiling months ago. I left it for dh to sort. Obviously he didn't. It's been propped up with crates for ages. Today it has been fixed. yippee. It's probably going to cost an arm and a leg, but wow, my kitchen looks great not being propped up with crates and books. I now also have 4 rings - have had to manage with just 2 this whole while

she was just being an ar*e. Who knows maybe it was the day she discovered her ds had to go to Hauptschule, her dh was leaving her for a 20 year old Serbian student who was pregant with his dc and she needed to have her intestines checked. Just to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Why not appeal if you can be bothered? I don't know about München but in Berlin there is a place you go and state your case. You just walk in and wait till a counter is free and present your cse. A friend of mine did that once and it was relatively quick and unproblematic. Forget what the situation was exactly. The man at the counter was alright though.

you stamped on the back of the ticket or with the ticket upside down?

I stamped it top to bottom instead of bottom to top, but on the right side (even I'm not quite that dim, though pretty dim clearly)

Then she's just being utterly ridiculous. I know they get really uptight if peoplestamp on the blank side.

What was the tourist slogan again: München liebt dich? How does she know you're not a tourist with a Sammelkarte fgs. Oh yes, definately query it.

It's called a Streifenkarte, and has space for 10 stamps. A short hop is 1 space, a longer journey is 2 a longer journey out of zone is 4 or 6. I need 2 Streifen for my jorney. I have stamped therefore the karte 5 altenate line. everything is in order, the correct spacing, correct amount per jurney, only 1 stupidly did it top to bottom instead of bottom to top. I have def. had my ticket checked before and it was not pointed out to me, otherwise I would obviously have done it correctly.

crossed posts. thanks Zzzen, you think it's worth it? I'm so pissed off about it really, more I think cos it just feels really unjust - I paid for a ticket, I stamped the ticket, I made a mistake, but I've done it like this for over a year, and def. been inspected before and no one said anything, so naturally I assumed it was right.

So, do I write or go in in person?

well you haveto send in the ticket with your letter as proof so if you can face it , might make more sense to go in person if that is the way it is done in München. Don't know if they have a different system.

If it goes badly and you get someone of the same ilk, might make you feel even worse though. However I think thisi s utterly ridiculous, you paid for a ticket, it was clearly stamped, you had obviously not been a Schwarzfahrer

You have to way up, is it worth buying another couple of tickets, travelling there, hanging about however long it takes, travelling back? If they accept a written complaint, might be worth trying it. What does it say on the back of your fine?

WEIGH up sorry

can't fully understand it, and nor can dh, whose german is far superior to mine. It does have an address and the opening times, so it would seem that both turning up and writing is possible. My written german is really oor, so I hate writing. otoh, it would make the point that my german isn't so great, so her snootily telling me that the rule are all written somewhere - well, give me a f*ing break, I'm clearly foreign and didn't/couldn't read the small print. cow.

That is just so

so (words fail me really)

The ticket was stamped in order and each stamp says the date and the time so how could she dare say you had to pay a fine? were there not two of them? In Berlin they go round in pairs. No wonder if they act like that eh?