Sommer, Sonne und Hitze - living in Germany thread

[admylin]

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

Summer is here at last, now we can complain about it being too hot - when it isn't raining!

was reading another thread about FB and wonder if i'm really out the loop that i dont have a single MN on my FB? not even anyone from our german group? is there MN on FB?

i dont post much on other threads apart from this one and altho i feel i know a lot about some of your lives i wonder if it would be weird to see people in real live and then still post here?

just wondering really!

canella - I'm friends with quite a lot of other MNers on FB (including admylin). You'd be welcome to add me if you like - you can e-mail me at traungold @ hotmail.com.

Yes, it is a bit strange at first to see MNer's real names and what they look like in RL, but you soon get used to it!

Yes, linzer can you send her in my direction too!? I'm not on there much except for famville !

OK, so our first day of the holidays is going OK. The dc and I had a nice breakfast at 9am and I told them the rules so they don't expect to spend the next 6 weeks lounging around with a nintendo in their hand and that I expect them to get washed including teeth and hair brushed every morning without me nagging at them. Sounds so strange having to say that but they would honestly go for weeks without going near a bath or shower otherwise!

I've sorted all the school stuff out and packed it already in a a safe place too. Then we went for an icecream outside and have just got back. It's very hot today so we're hiding indoors for abit.

Now I have to plan some activities around the packing to keep us sane for the next few weeks.

IQ test for immigrants?

lol.
Didn't know Canada had IQ tests for immigrant dc. News to me.

IQ test for politicians I do support though

think you have to have a reasonable IQ to pass the Einburgerungstest anyway so an additional test seems like just a news story to me! and those questions are as random as the ones i had to do the other week! its the kind of info you learn then instantly forget!

had a lovely day watching the football with german friends yesterday - i could hear the whole village roar when germany scored! already got plans for saturday to watch the next game!

oh and i saw in Lidl's this morning that from next thurs (8th July) is british week! the dc cant wait for baked beans!

I'm not even going to attempt any IQ tests. I prefer not to know

I don't have any good memories of Gemrany and football. I remember being there in Berlin for the WC I think it was and Germany won it? We went to Ku'damm and the crowd (mob it was more like it) frightened me to bits. I was utterly terrified. They were just celebrating, hooning about, shouting and so on but the effect of that great mob of people and the energy. I think that is what war must feel like, when a country first goes to war. Kind of elation but scary too. Totally freaked me out.

And all the horns blasting and fireworks. Plus I don't really get football tbh in the first place. So glad not to be there now but way away from it.

sorry not sure if you'd know but Ku'damm is a big shopping street int he centre of what was W.Berlin

It's quite strange to think that Ku'damm used to be right at the centre of things (in west Berlin, at any rate) and now seems almost peripheral. Glad I haven't been there for the World Cup, Euro etc though - it was bad enough in Mannheim.

The last Euro was a much bigger event here, probably because the Italian team was staying in a hotel just round the corner from us so the whole town went Italy-mad.

Why doesn't Lidl in Austria ever have British weeks? I seem to remember they had baked beans during the last American week, plus lots of food that they sell normally anyway (popcorn, choc. chip cookies etc) so it wasn't particularly exciting.

did you live in Mannheim?

It's weird about Berlin, I feel there is no centre. If someone said, oh let's meet in the centre of town, where would it be? Although Mitte is called "centre", you go there and it is one big street and lots of building sites and it doesn't really feel like the centre of town either somehow.

I suppose the Brandenburg Gate area would be the official centre but it is like a wasteland round about in parts

do you find Austria very different to Germany? I kind of bunch the two countries up together because of proximity and the common language etc.

Yes, we were in Mannheim for two years (I worked near Heidelberg) but I'd previously lived in Berlin for two (non-consecutive) years.

Berlin changes so much every time I go back. I get the impression that the area around Unter den Linden is most like the centre now, but it does seem like one huge building site in areas. I also felt very disorientated the second time I went back (93/94) as a lot of street names etc. in the east had changed after reunification.

I actually find Austria quite different to Germany, at least the areas in Germany where I've lived. The dialect was almost incomprehensible to me at first (where my ILs live at least; it's closer to Hochdeutsch here as we're nearer to Vienna), the pace of life is slower, people are generally less direct and - dare I say it - friendlier (although I realise I'm not exactly comparing like with like as we live in a small town now; I'm sure it would be a different story if we lived in Vienna). OTOH it can be quite parochial, you'll always be an outsider in certain villages (where my ILs live, for example) unless you were born there and so much depends on who you know. One of my friends here lived in Germany for quite a few years and is often saying how much better certain things are there, e.g. the school system. The Austrians also have a reputation for grumbling about things while not realising quite how good they've got it.

Hi - just saying hello as I've been lurking watching you chat about Berlin.... we're due to be doing a stint there in the early part of next year. Blauer Engel had some really useful info about schools etc when I came over to the German corner before to ask about it. Is BE still around? I am very pleased to hear any info about Berlin, as I've only been there for a weekend before...

Hi stickylittlefingers, I lived in Berlin before the DC came along so wouldn't be much help on schools etc. and am in Austria now. How old are your DC? Do you know yet whereabouts in Berlin you'll be?

Blauer Engel hasn't posted in the German corner for quite a while but I think she's still around as I'm sure I've seen her posting on other threads. Otherwise, someone else will probably be along soon who can help you more. Didn't you use to live in Berlin, admylin?

Yes, we used to live in Berlin, in Mitte just around the corner from the big Charite hospital and down the road from the new Hauptbahnhof. It was a clean area (compared to other parts) but not many families and dc lived there.

Ashamed to say we didn't really venture out far enough to say I know Berlin, we stayed in our Kiez, dc went to school right behind the Charite and most dc came from quite far away from areas with not so good schools. Their after school clubs were also near us.

Have you found somewhere to stay/live yet?

It's too hot today. I knew it would get hot when I'm meant to be starting with the packing. How I wish we had a garden for the dc - all they need is a little pool and they'd be happy. As it is they are getting very fed up.

is there no outdoor pool near there, maybe they could go there together now without you and you could get on with the joys of packing?

Sticky, you could just post up a thread directly to BlauerEngel to catch her attention, maybe here in Living Overseas. Hope you'll have a nice time in Berlin, how long will you be staying there? Some parts of BVerlin are very pretty, nice and green and there is a huge expat scene if you felt you needed it.

lol at Austrians have a reputation for grumbling.

For some reason I have them down as flirts. Any truth in that? Only Austrian men I ever met were quite flirty while Germnan men mostly aren't (in my very limited experience)

I can out-grumble any Austrian, believe you me.

Get thee down to the Biergarten.

I didn't know you had an Austrian grandmother. Did she make Kaiserschmarrn? My sdh likes that. I think it is just basically a scrambled pancake with icing sugar on top. Mind you I am quite good at scrambling things (mostly unintentionally)

Ah, but it's not as easy as it looks. I tried to make it once but overbeat the egg whites and it was a disaster.

I didn't know you had an Austrian grandmother either, Hope. They have a funny word for great grandmother here - Urli-Oma. The first time I heard it, I thought that someone's grandmother called Uli was being referred to.

Zurich-Swiss great grand father is my claim to being partly German blooded!

Phew, what a heat today. We've just got back from a biergarten in the forest where we thought it'd be cooler but it wasn't. Big screen was up so we watched Paraguay-Japan match too.

Offered to take my 2 round to the pool but they wouldn't go. Packing going well, looks as if the years of sorting out and getting rid of stuff have done some good. Now I just have to convince some removal firms that it'll really only be a half day job to move us and that they can atleast half the quote the gave us!

Dd keeps asking me to make Kaiserschmarm - it was on the lunch menu at the Berlin school and she's fancied trying it since then! I don't fancy making it because I just know it won't end up like she thinks it should then she won't eat it.

Rather boringly, I have nothing but English and Welsh ancestors AFAIK (although quite a few of the Welsh ones emigrated). V. about your father's family, Hope.

I've never heard of Schneenockerle. My MIL makes Eiernockerl and Zwiefelnockerl (sp?), but thankfully seems to have given up on serving Marillenknödel as a main course - not one of my favourites.

Hot here in Austria too - the weather improved just in time for the Sommerfest at Kindergarten today. I still can't quite imagine DD2 at school in September, but it's even stranger to think that it would be DS starting if we were in the UK.

Hi StickyLittleFingers, I'm still around.
Anything in particular you want to know about Berlin?Did you have a look over on the 'Family' section of the Toytown/Berlin board? Lots of threads there on where to live and schools. My Toytown name is Red Dragon, by the way, you can PM me via that.

Sorry I was absent for a while, lots of work going on and then just managed some random posting on threads that caught my attention. I've been following this thread passively though, bad news about that mum who died.