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The Complex Issue of Integration

The Complex Issue of Integration

by | Mar 16, 2016 | , , , , | 0 Comments

I’ve written before about how I have been planning on becoming a mentor to a newly arrived refugee in my local community. The journey has been slow at getting started in terms of actually connecting with my mentee despite numerous thwarted efforts. Meanwhile I have attended the monthly Stammtisch (regular’s table) for all of the mentors of the organisation that has been coordinating the many efforts of welcoming, housing, and integrating the refugees arriving to the shelter in our neighbourhood.
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Getting Ready for your Bachelor’s Degree in Germany

by | Mar 2, 2016 | , | 0 Comments

static1.squarespace-1For many high school students in the United States, the college process begins in middle school, and all college-bound students need to get serious by the time they reach their junior year. For American students interested in continuing their studies in Germany, though, this timeline looks very different. While their applications to US colleges will go out around a year before they begin their studies, many of the deadlines for German universities don’t come up until after they graduate. So when should American students start planning in earnest to get ready to study in Germany?

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Becoming seahorses: otherwise known as swimming lessons

by | Feb 24, 2016 | , | 0 Comments

Swimming course provider in Berlin

Swimming course provider in Berlin

Yesterday our children – both aged five and a half – had their first swimming lesson. That is more than I ever had: I love to swim but have little recollection of ever having learned how to do it. Until now we have relied on holidays to sunny places with nearby pools and plenty of visits to lakes, on the assumption that our children would somehow organically teach themselves to swim. Indeed, it did make them confident in water but it did not get them securely out of armbands. So when winter descended and we didn’t fancy weekly family Sunday trips to an indoor swimming pool (we are such fans of open water), we signed them up for a set of ten forty-five minute lessons, at a small local pool.

If you start asking around almost all German children seem to have swimming lessons – either organised through their KiTa, privately, or at school – certainly not the case in Eighties’ Yorkshire. But here, in Berlin, it is very much the norm. And where we live in child-heavy Prenzlauerberg that fact means contending with the swimming course waiting list. As with the last waiting list we encountered – the KiTa waiting list – this one was a rather nebulous, not entirely sure what criteria gets you moved further up it, intransparent, six-month affair, negotiated ultimately by that age-old trick of calling up frequently and asking whether it was finally our turn.  read more…

German TV Options for North Americans

by | Feb 21, 2016 | , | 0 Comments

Watching German-Language Television in the US and Canada

When I wrote about the loss of most of NEXTV’s German channels in November 2015, I promised to review the quality and channel lineup of the German TV Company. You’ll find that review below – but I also cover some other options for watching German-language television from North America.

German TV Company

A screen shot of the German TV Company website. They offer both online and set-top box TV viewing.

Since my previous blog post there have been some new developments:

  1. NEXTV has restored some of its lost German channels, but the number of channels available is still far less than before the 2015 cuts.
  2. German TV Company is a worthy replacement, and has even added a few more channels to what was already the largest German-language channel lineup I know of.
  3. A new online service, Deutsches Fernsehen (“German television”), is now available, and it offers a wide range of channels in German for computer/mobile device viewing – currently for free!
  4. Since February 2017, the cloud recording service YouTV.de offers a wide range of German television and movies via apps for tablets and smartphones, your computer, or your TV (Roku).
  5. An expanding array of apps for iOS and Android devices is available for German-language radio, television, and cinema. See Mobile Apps for Watching German-Language TV for more.
  6. In a later post I’ll also discuss the VPN (Virtual Private Network) option that some people like to use for foreign streamed TV viewing.

NEXTV | German TV Co. | Deutsches Fernsehen | YouTV

NEXTV Update

This Canada-based video streaming service is again offering the two German public TV broadcasters ARD (Das Erste) and ZDF in real time. Now known as NEXTV International (you need a 3rd generation Roku now), this service also carries some regional “third-channel” broadcasters (HR, NDR, SWR, WDR) and a few local TV stations (Düsseldorf, Augsburg, München), but far fewer than before. There is now a regional Austrian station, M4. But the truth is that NEXTV is still a pale shadow of its former self, now offering only about 25 TV channels (many being local cable channels) in German, with fewer choices than before the autumn 2015 cuts. It no longer offers time-shifted versions of ARD and ZDF, and can’t compete with the recorded broadcast options of its competitors. For some reason the ProSieben Sat.1 Welt channel on NEXTV is still distorted (squeezed horizontally). Most channels are in HD. Using a late-model Roku or Apple TV device hooked up to your TV, it’s a lot like watching real German television on a normal TV screen at home in Germany. There’s now a new mobile app as well. read more…

Food at German Schools

by | Feb 17, 2016 | , , , | 3 Comments

Photo: Erin Porter

Photo: Erin Porter

Every morning I scramble around our kitchen, looking for appropriate snacks for a 15-month-old. Cucumber? I think she is eating that lately. German roll, or rice cake? Blueberries are always a yes. Is Würstchen trying too hard?

Blearily, I stash these goods in her little green lunch box and send her off to Krippe. And even if she doesn’t eat my lovingly packed breakfast and Vesper (snack) I know she is getting a warm lunch at school everyday.

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From Smoke Detectors to Electric Cars: New and Revised Laws in Germany for 2016

by | Feb 10, 2016 | , , , , , , | 0 Comments

Sometimes it’s surprising how a modern nation like Germany can lag behind in certain areas. A good example from the past is smoking. While the US and many other countries long ago banned smoking in restaurants, the workplace, and other public areas, Germany was slow to do the same. After an initial period of voluntary restrictions by some businesses, Germany began to regulate smoking in public places. (Austria, on the other hand, still has a lot of work to do on public acceptance of smoking bans. Cough! Cough!) While non-smoking areas in Germany were once a rarity, today German anti-smoking laws are similar to those in the US in most cases.

caption

As of 2016, some German states require the installation of smoke detectors (Rauchmelder) in existing homes. PHOTO: Feuerwehr e.V.

Another area where Germany was lagging behind was smoke detectors. As with many things in Germany, this is an area left to each of the 16 Bundesländer (states). There is no nationwide law. After a slow start beginning around 2004/2005, almost all of the German states now require smoke detectors in new houses and apartments. As of 2016, only Berlin and Brandenburg still lack any smoke-detector requirements (Rauchmelderpflicht). Some Länder now also require smoke detectors in older, existing living quarters. read more…

My First Karneval: On the Verge

by | Feb 3, 2016 | , , | 0 Comments

Before Hyde sends me a message to “gently” remind me that my blog post is due today, I figured that I should get something up here. It isn’t my preferred style to just throw something up here, half-baked or half-thought through, but I realised that I’m on the “verge” of everything that is a hot topic right now: refugees, Karneval and the American election. Regarding the election back home, I’m not touching that one just yet. Otherwise politically engaged, I find myself wanting to plug my ears while screaming, “Make it stop!!”

Miss ID

Representing Miss Identified at Karneval in Düsseldorf 2016 PHOTO: Jane Park

I did talk about the refugee situation last year and how I was trying to find my way towards helping beyond donating winter coats and towels. Here I am on the verge. I’ll be meeting with the mentor coordinator of our neighborhood charity for refugees next week who will introduce me to my mentee and the person I will be sharing the Patenschaft or mentorship with. I am excited to be able to write about this experience in a future post. But I can’t just yet.

And the last topic is Karneval. My wallet is sticky from sampling Berliners at the bakery today, and I’ve already procured a bat costume, dug out a Wonder Woman costume snagged on sale two years ago, and researched and ordered a mermaid costume for my three kids. My younger adult self always wanted to celebrate the fifth season just as I wanted to check off Oktoberfest, the spas in Baden-Baden, and visiting the Beethoven House from my “while living in Germany” bucket list. (You might be scratching your head about the Beethoven House but it is just that I was thwarted twice from getting inside in the course of ten years which has only made me more determined.) My husband, my assumed partner in crime, has never been a big Karneval fan despite having grown up in the Rheinland. His extent of participating is to just remember to wear an icky tie on Weiberfastnacht. So I have never participated in Karneval in any vague sense of the word. (In Germany that is.) read more…

Breaking down the barriers to studying in Germany

by | Jan 27, 2016 | | 1 Comment

Source: WikiCommons

Source: WikiCommons

Most Americans who decide to apply to study in Germany are drawn by the low (or free) tuition, but another aspect of the system that is equally, if not more, appealing is the simplified admissions process. Unlike the holistic approach of the American system, which weighs many factors when deciding whether or not to admit a student, zulassungsbeschraenkt (admission restricted) university study programs generally simply the process through the use of a Numerus Clausus (NC) designation, which restricts admission to students with a minimum G.P.A.

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