Being a foreigner once again here in Ireland, after finally not feeling very foreign in Germany, is a new adventure. I finally learned the little cultural tricks in Germany, like not putting my hand out for change at the bakery, but waiting for them to place it on the...
The GW Expat Blog
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Sarah Fürstenberger
Expats All Over Again: 10 Things I’ll Miss (and 10 Things I Won’t) About Germany
Like Jane and her husband, we are also on our way out of Germany. Unlike them though, we are becoming expats once again, this time in Ireland. There are so many things I love about living in Germany. This move happened quickly, and it was a choice for us, but it is...
Before Amazon, there was…
I'm an avid reader, and always have been. But as an expat in Germany, it wasn't always easy to feed my fervent need for reading material. When I was a kid, I sat between my brother and sister in the back of the car for every vacation with a pile of books at my feet....
Vacationing on the Cheap in Germany
Since our family is still affected by the dreaded Kurzarbeit (Germany's solution to the recession provides an alternative to laying people off. They cut down on the amount of hours employees are supposed to be working and the Arbeitsamt makes up 2/3 of the difference...
Buying Bio (Organic) in Germany
Long, long ago, in 1992, when I first came to Germany, I, at the tender age of 21, had no real idea of what "organic" even was. Who did back then, except a few hippies and tree huggers (ha, ha). I had a few older and wiser friends with small children who bought bio...
Expat, Phone Home
Nowadays, there are many cheap and easy ways to keep in touch with friends and family at home when you are an expat in Germany. When I first moved here in 1992, I was only really able to call my parents from a pay phone outside my dorm, and I could talk for about 5...
Movie Ratings — Watch Out!
I had planned to go see the movie "Valentine's Day" with my eldest daughter this past week in English, but the few times it was being shown just didn't work for us. On Friday we finally decided to go to see it in German in the local theater, and because it was "ab 6",...
Buying Shoes for Kids: Germany vs. the US
Just recently, I went to buy my youngest his first pair of shoes. Ty the au pair came with us to chase Olivia through the store, expecting this to be a short process. He was wrong, of course, because this is Germany, and everything takes just a little bit longer! And...
Doing Math in a Foreign Language
Many a time I have written about German schools, which sometimes seem to be the bane of my life, but are generally pretty okay. It seems that no matter how good the non-German parent was in school (and in our case, that would be me), when confronted with German math...
The Dreaded Swine Flu
I'm quite positive that no one wants to read anything else about the swine flu at the moment, but unfortunately, the swine flu is the reason my blog was two days late this week. It has been a hard week for our family, because all four of the kids have been sick, and...
The Instant Expat
Because I have to go back to work earlier than anticipated thanks to the recession, we had to think about childcare for the little ones earlier than anticipated. With two kids under three, daycare (Kinderkrippe) was not an option due to the cost involved. Although an...
Closed Door Policy
When I moved to Germany for the first time in 1992, I was 21 and was going to university in Freiburg. I had never worked in an American office for more than the time required to do a temp job over spring break and had spent summers working at McDonald's. When I was...
The dreaded “Materialliste”
If you have children in school here in Germany, at some point, either at the end of one school year or the beginning of the next, your child will hand you a meager piece of paper called a Materialliste, which is exactly what it sounds like, a list of supplies for the...
Long-term Expats – Are My Kids Really American?
Recently, with the economic crisis and the dreaded Kurzarbeit, we have been thinking about whether the US is an option for us again job-wise. There is nothing concrete happening, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder, how will it affect the kids? I dragged...
Oh the many holidays
Today is another public holiday here in Germany, Pentecost Monday, or Whitsuntide. May and June are good months for public holidays, what with May Day, Ascension Day, and Pentecost. Unlike public holidays in the US, where sometimes it seems that only the post office...
Jet Lag: No Heia for the wicked!
Having spent the past week dealing with jet lag in small children, with my mind still fuzzy and my eyes still bleary from lack of sleep and too many espressos, I only have one thing to talk about this week: recovering from a cross-time-zone trip. Every expat you ask...
Cook, Shop, Seek
Since I have known him, my husband has been obsessed with cars. But don't worry, this post won't be about cars, because I get enough of that kind of talk at home. For the past year or two, his interests (obsessions) have taken a turn in a more gourmet direction. Now,...
Oh, the Places You’ll Go
If you are an expat in Germany with children, at some point or the other you will probably have to endure that oh-so-anticipated but oh-so-dreaded journey of traveling home to wherever you hail from. If your kids are over the age of 5 or 6, the trip may not be so...
Tatort
One of my favorite German-made TV shows is "Tatort". In general, I am not a TV kind of person. Most of the time I would just prefer to read a book while my husband zaps through the channels. But Sunday nights at 8:15 (which is when prime-time shows come on here), you...
Blowing Hot and Cold?
One of my favorite topics of discussion with my German friends has to be the difference between perception of temperature and whether a person gets cold easily. I don’t know whether it is due to the fact that many Americans come from climates where there is extreme...
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