Endlich Fruehlingszeit in the German Corner

[admylin]

'All welcome, Austria & Switzerland & any German-speaking Leute too'

Thank goodness it's over at long last! That was a long winter. Welcome Spring!

I've left it cos it's so expensive I thought we weren't going away till august, so didn't want to waste half a year (money is tight right now!) but now thinking would love to take the boys to Switzerland next week (gulp) so only 10 days - fingers crossed!

Bloody best part of 120 quid this is costing

As far as I can remember, you can actually apply up to six months before your passport expires and they'll add whatever time is left on your old passport to your new one so you don't lose out. I am going to remember that next time and be very organised! (Remind me I said that if I do end up having a last-minute panic again...)

admylin - a British friend of mine who lives in Germany is also thinking about applying for German citizenship so that a) she gets an Ausweis she can carry round with her rather than her passport b) she can vote in all the elections. There may have been one or other reasons too. I'm not sure I'd be able to do that here without giving up my British citizenship and don't really feel the need to anyway - exchanging my British driving licence for an Austrian one was a big enough step for me!

Oops, which reminds me that I shouldn't still be driving with my little pink paper one from UK. I'll put that on my list of things to do when we move, not doing anything now or I'll just have to get the address changed everywhere.

Dc need a bank/savings account too. They have one in UK but I must set one up for them as soon as we've moved. What sort of accounts do you all have here for the dc? I thought the Deutsche Bank ones for dc sounded good last time I looked or oesn't it really matter?

I was virtually forced into exchanging my old pink licence as it was falling apart and had been scribbled on by one of the DC. With no photo and a Welsh address on it, DH said that an Austrian policeman was unlikely to regard it as valid. So I now have a nice credit card sized Austrian one. DH think it's hysterically funny that I'm entitled to drive 7 tonne lorries and tractors as you have to take separate tests for them here - the woman at the Bezirkshauptmannschaft asked me if I took all the tests on the same day!

Ds is sitting next too me doing his German homework (Tempora/Zeitformen). I can just about follow but it's getting intense - dread to think what it'll be like in year 7. He said the French test was easy today so he's hoping for a good grade.

Sounds good Ernest that your dc won't have far to go to school. It helps if they can get home quickly for lunch especially when they sometimes have school until 1.30pm or longer. Mine will have a 10 minute walk so even less if I can manage to get Gepäckträger for their bikes (not as easy as it sounds as they have mountain bike style bikes with 'Federung')

I did passports for all 5 of us in Dusseldorf last year. The total cost was , I think they came in about 3 weeks, but I didnt ask for them quickly. I once got one for dd from Paris, inside 10 days.

congratulations on the gymnasium place, Ernst. We got yet another HS empfehlung, from a child who just hasn't "got" the need to study yet.
On the bright side, dd1, at the ancient age of 13, is finally starting to get good marks on her own. Too late for the german system of course, but she's doing her first GCSE in a couple of weeks.

admylin, my children have post office accounts in germany - must admit, I didnt investigate all the possibilities though, just went for the easiest! We dont have all the banks in our town.

I cant help dd with her deutsch homework any more, she's in the 7th class too. Its the only thing I cant help with!

Admylin
Tbh, I would go for the plain old Sparkasse. Or the Post Bank. I found that they were friendlier and more willing to do Sparbücher for the DC as the private banks who see it as lots of work. Perhaps I am biased as DH did his Ausbildung at the Spk.

Ernest
I once went to Ddorf to get passport (we were living there at the time so not a problem to go). Handed in paperwork and got a phone call the next day that it was ready. If you are lucky they will come through quickly.

You could just risk it and have "forgotten" your passport in the event of getting stopped. I have only once had to show my passport her, and we have been here for 1.5years and cross the border several times a week. Small crossing though.

I need to apply for mine too. Runs out in August.

passport service in Düsseldorf was super quick with mine, less than a week and I used the regular service, but that was about 4 years ago I think.

speaking of taking on German citizenship, have any of you read Christbel Bielenberg's "Als ich eine Deutsche war 1934-1945" In English "The past is myself"

and if so, what did you think of it/her?

I have read it but it was about 20 years ago, so can't remember it in detail - but I do remember that I found it very compelling. Must check whether it's on the bookshelf upstairs - I suspect it's still at my parents', though.

Here you can read it on google books.

think i'd be doing well to read that in german!! my german isnt quite up to that level yet!

no help about the passports! sorry!! what is the story about drivers licenses - i've got a standard UK one but not sure how long i can drive here before i need to get a german one! i presume i can just change it over and that i dont need to sit a test!! i'm more likely to pass my german test than a driving test!

oh and my MIL phoned yest so i asked her about the spargel - she agreed mostly with Mmelindt - 18 mins (exactly!!)in simmering water, a bit of salt, sugar and lemon juice but she randomly said they need to be standing up in a pot to cook best! dont have a spargel pot so will just have to miss that bit out!

It was fairly straightforward to exchange my GB licence for an Austrian one - the only reason I put it off for so long was that it meant I had to go and get new passport photos done! AFAIK I could have driven on my UK licence indefinitely; it's just that it was falling apart (I had an old pink one), didn't fit in my purse properly and was useless as ID without a photo on it. An Australian friend of mine had to resit her test here and she said it was a nightmare; the driving examiner said he wouldn't have passed her if she'd been a "new" driver. I had to resit my test in the USA though and it was a doddle - 2 mins down a quiet road, drive round a cul-de-sac and back to the driving centre.

where did you live in the USA Linz?

PMSL at exactly 18 minutes. Can you imagine all the trial and error that lies behind that?

I read that book and I didn't know what to think of Christabel. I was impressed when her dh was in a concentration camp suspected of having links to plotters who tried to blow up Hitler - that she went to PrinZ Albert Str for an interview with the gestapo before they came to get her.

I know for a fact I would never have done that. Sometimes she sounds really sharp and fast-thinking. At other times I can't help wondering what kind of a dizzy bint she was. Maybe she was just being scrupulously honest, I don't know but she talks in the beginning about how she stays with this pro-Nazi family when she is studying opera singing in Hamburg and she is so pleased for one of them who is a great fan of Hitler when Hitler gets into power.

Just left me wondering if she was all there. A few things I didn't like such as when she is in a train leaving Berlin and in a carriage with an SS officer who tells her all about murdering Jews in Poland and she falls asleep on his shoulder. Maybe she could not easily have left, hard to say but I found it a bit weird. I did on the whole like her sympathy for Germany/the Germans (not Nazis but regular German life). Difficult person to understand though I thought.

We were in Pennsylvania for two years (if we'd had French or German licences we could just have exchanged them, but they didn't recognise Austrian or UK licences). DD1 was born there so is an American citizen, which means yet another passport to renew (though I'll only bother if we go back to the USA).

I'll have to reread The Past is Myself once I've located my copy - I don't remember any of the details you mentioned, ZZZen.

I heard it serialised on Radio 4 once. ZZ, I think that just reflects the times really.

well I know the times were very very strange but still the book strikes me as odd. Another thing I cannot really fathom is how no one seems bothered that she is British (albeit now a German citizen) and Germany and Britain are at war, yet she is fluffing about her villa in Dahlem, all chatty with the Blockwart, pruning hedges together; she is out at tea parties with the neighbourhood housewives. Everyone knows she is orginally from Britain and that her family is there, yet it is never thrown in her face it seems, never a problem.I just find that odd

especially when you consider what kind of things were going on at the time. Can imagine it being a somewhat schizophrenic existence.

Clothes sizing totally mystifies and annoys me. I take size 38 at - I think that's a 12? If I try on a 38 and it doesn't fit, I never try on a bigger size. I just think "oh sod it, I must have put on weight" and trudge off home feeling depressed. I think it's for people like me they keep altering the sizes.

why doesn't the USA recognise UK driving licences, or Austrian for that matter Linz? Bit of a cheek really. Is it because of driving on the left in the case of the UK?

I was only able to drive on my UK licence plus international driving permit for a month as far as I can remember, then I had to get an American licence. It all seems to vary from state to state in the USA though; as far as I can remember, PA had some kind of agreement with France and Germany (although I can't imagine that Germany would let Pennsylvanian drivers keep their US licences but drivers from other states would have to retake their driving test...). Actually, I wouldn't have been too keen on giving up my UK licence as we were only going to be in PA for two years; I would then have probably ended up having to retake my test when we came back to Europe!

I would definitely fail if I had to sit it again now

which probably means I should

Yes, I couldnt understand why she wasnt interned either.
Oddly enough, I remember listening to this on the radio, and picturing southern germany with all the pine forests, and thinking how unlike britain it was, and how I couldnt ever emigrate because Id be too homesick. I had never been to germany then, and had no tv, but actually my mental picture was fairly accurate, and lo and behold here I am.

parts of Germany are really very beautiful.

I never thought at all about Germany's landscape being very different before going there. I hardly thought at all tbh, I just jumped right in.

the parks are so different (less cultivated in the sense of being obviously designed)

the gardens are so different (ditto)

Also trees. I know we say English Oak and they have the Deutsche Eiche which I think are nevertheless the same tree but I find the trees generally have a different look, maybe it is the effect of a lot of Birch trees lining the streets - Birken(Berlin). Dunno what it is really

Down here, its like Legoland. I love going to france and seeing really old, tumbledown, weedy, overgrown places.

It is actually a lot more beautiful than england mostly (woods, mountains, acres and acres of flowers). But the light is different, not so soft.
Visually, I still feel more at home in the uk though. But socially more at home in germany.