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Punctuality: Am I Obsessed?

by | Feb 1, 2011 | , , | 0 Comments

When thinking about what to blog about this time round, I came back to one of my seeming favorite topics, punctuality. I had forgotten that I blogged about it in October, but something is calling me back again. I had been speaking to a colleague who had worked for the Irish arm of my former German company, and she mentioned that her boyfriend was always teasing her for being German (she is Irish) after being at a German company for a couple of years. She also expects people to be on time for meetings, follow through, and generally be on time. Her patience is as tested as mine is in many of these areas, although I do admit that my blog posts are almost never on time!

A recent poll done by Reader’s Digest and quoted in a video on the Deutsche Welle website indicates that, despite the trend in lateness when it comes to German trains (they said that only 1 in 5 was in time in recent months), Germans still place high value on punctuality. As the saying goes, five minutes early is considered “on time” by Germans. Thirty-two percent of those polled were willing to wait five minutes for someone, 36% were willing to wait 15 minutes, 6% were willing to wait 30 minutes, and a mere 2% would wait 60 minutes for a person they were meeting. As a recent expat in Ireland, where punctuality is not geschätzt or even expected, I have found that I even have to mention to people that they can expect me to be on time so as not to throw them off in their preparations for a party or evening out. read more…

There’s a dog in the pub!

by | Jan 28, 2011 | , | 0 Comments

Different canine expectations

Kaiserswerth, Germany, a small village just outside of Düsseldorf, is a dog haven. There are vast green farmers’ fields for miles, very little traffic, and the shore of the Rhine offers many interesting things to smell and discover. Dogs in Kaiserswerth are always off-leash. They never bark. They greet each other so politely, you expect them to shake paws. They sit silently under tables in restaurants and cafes, and stand calmly as children pat them. They even wait at pedestrian lights as dutifully as the Germans themselves.

Enter my seven-year-old cocker spaniel, the former stray, Tess. Tess really doesn’t like other dogs. Tess barked at kids. Tess never sat still.

I first moved to Kaiserswerth in 2007 with my then very-new-boyfriend, and my dog. On one of my first outings in this new land I was floored at the sight of a golden retriever lying ever so comfortably under a table at a neighbourhood pub. This would never be allowed back in Canada (trust me, I have since tried), and my dog would surely freak out being in such a situation. I quickly learned why dogs are allowed in so many public places in Germany: They are just so well behaved! (Or perhaps it is the other way around.) In Canada, dogs are different. They bark, a lot. It’s normal, and they are always kept on leashes. Unfortunately, some dogs live in backyards, and sometimes dogs even fight with each other. In Germany however, as I was sternly told, this is not acceptable. read more…

They don’t teach you those words in German class

by | Jan 24, 2011 | , , , , | 0 Comments

I enrolled in an intensive course (a must-have when you plan to live in a foreign country and need to assimilate, FAST) within three weeks of moving to Germany. It met five days a week, five hours a day. The learning curve was steep. It was great. Within two months I was able to speak to the Turkish girls in my class who didn’t know any English. That was a rewarding day, when we realized we could speak almost freely with each other. It was easy to make friends after that point.

When you take an intensive course, you learn what you will need to function in your new country of residence. You learn a lot of daily vocabulary. You learn how to grocery shop. You learn telling the time and reading bus schedules. You don’t learn Graphic Design language. And you most certainly don’t learn Yoga language.

As someone who currently teaches English for a language school and understands how the classes and teacher assignments work, I know that I can’t just sign up (or even ask) for a “Yoga German” class. These are highly specialized in terms of subject matter, and there’s just too great a chance that I’ll get a teacher who has never practiced yoga and is teaching out of a yoga deck of cards. It’s way easier, and cheaper, to do the self-study in this case. read more…

Transatlantic with the Toddler

by | Jan 17, 2011 | , | 0 Comments

There are so many horror stories I could share involving transatlantic travel. I entertained my babysitter the other day by regaling my worst memories of flights between Europe and North America, some of which involve being sandwiched between an overweight, unhappy married couple, or missing my connection due to the deranged older woman who caused the plane to turn around mid-ocean. I was used to the long-haul flight, the hours of boredom and unrest, the painful itching in your legs to get up and move when there are still three hours to go, but that was all paradise compared to international travel with children.

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An Adjusted Adventszeit

by | Jan 10, 2011 | , , , | 0 Comments

In the past week, I had to adjust to the fact that Christmas is OVER, a week earlier than I had become accustomed to. I was used to our southern German world being shut down not just from the week of Christmas to New Year’s but also through the first week of January thanks to Three Kings. (Note: During my time writing for the German Way blog, the most Wiki-ed or Google-ed things I’ve had to look up are Catholic holidays and food.) I missed my older daughter’s first gymnastics class last Wednesday. Back in Aalen, there wouldn’t have been Turnen or any Musik Schule or anything like that scheduled.

This year, I missed the Adventszeit and the tradition of celebrating Christmas time for the whole month of December. And although Christmas decorations start being sold at Target the minute Halloween goes on clearance, that is not the same. I feel that Christmas is largely for consumerism here. Adventszeit is more oriented towards baking Weihnachtsplätzchen together (though I’ll concede that an American Christmas cookie exchange is an efficient and smart thing. I admire my friend Moni and my husband’s Tante Liane for baking at least 10 different kinds of cookies for their cookie bags/tins each year.) The point of a Christkindelmarkt in every town is not just to sell as many tschotchke to as many suckers as possible, but rather to provide a cozy space for people to drink their Glühwein together, for children to pet some farm animals and ride some rides and of course for us to find some sweet, handmade, wooden ornaments to share with our poor, plastic-invaded relatives back home. read more…

Multi-Kulti Christmas

by | Dec 31, 2010 | , | 0 Comments

This past year, our international family became even more international when my husband’s sister married a man from Colombia. When we moved to Ireland in September, the family decided that we would all celebrate Christmas together in Galway this year. The flight was direct, and short, so we anticipated no big problems. Anyone who has not been living in a cave for the past month will know that we were wrong on that front.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I had discussions with my older two girls about whether we would do “American” or “Irish” or “German” Christmas. I was pushing for a little bit of each. The older girls wanted to open presents on the 25th, as is done here in Ireland and in the US. I preferred to open them on the 24th, especially because the grandparents were visiting from Germany. We had finally concluded that we would open the German presents on the 24th and the ones from Oma in America on the 25th. But the bad weather made that decision for us.

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Flavors of Christmas

by | Dec 13, 2010 | , | 1 Comment

Spending the Thanksgiving holiday with friends who have recently moved to Germany, I found myself thinking – yet again – “I am becoming sooo German”. The topic of conversation was the abundance of deliciousness available at German bakeries; under contention was whether they are all as delicious as they look. In the end, we all agreed that German pastries are less sweet than American pastries, and the level of sweetness required to define “delectable” was left to the individual. What I realized is that after 10 years of German sweets, the American fare is far too sugary for me. For the newly arrived, German pastries are lacking in about a pound of sugar each.

And now we find ourselves in the midst of the holiday season, when kitchens everywhere are bustling with cookie-baking and good cheer (and at our house, Glühwein too!) Something I have grown to love about my host country is Christmas baking. read more…

A Hockey Wife in German-Speaking Europe

by | Dec 10, 2010 | , | 0 Comments

Most would imagine that being the partner of a professional athlete would be quite glamorous. Some imagine it as a life full of designer handbags, contract bonuses, nannies, and lots and lots of leisure time. But as the fiancée of a professional hockey player here in Europe, I have to tell you, my life looks quite different.

People back in Canada often ask me, “Wow, how did you end up in Germany? Was Brandon not quite good enough for the NHL?” The reality is, he was in the NHL, and their farm league, the AHL. But like so many players in the same position, being sent up and down between leagues, never knowing where you will live next week, or what your paycheck will look like at the end of the month, they are now figuring out that European hockey leagues have a lot to offer. The German Elite League, or the DEL, offers read more…