We’ve been on a short visit back to the USA which has luckily coincided with Halloween. Our kids, 2 and 6-years-old, have only experienced the Germans’ half-hearted embrace of the holiday before. Our American friends and family have been fascinated by the differences...
The GW Expat Blog
Tag
German schools
School Supplies in Germany
After the uncertainty of applying for a Grundschule (elementary school) outside of our district, we have successfully waited it out. Our daughter got into our first choice! Considering how competitive finding a KiTa (preschool) can be, we had no idea if there was any...
The School Trip
One chilly Friday evening a few weeks ago I found myself sitting in the middle of fifty British teenagers giving a talk. This was a group of students from my old school, over from Yorkshire on a school trip to Berlin, and my former teacher had asked me to talk to them...
Sportschulen: Sports Schools in Germany
Eliteschulen des Sports - Eliteschulen des Fußballs - Sportbetonte Schulen The education system and schools in the German-speaking world have traditionally emphasized academics over athletics or sports. Although all German secondary schools include physical education...
Food at German Schools
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...
Preparing your Child for Preschool in Germany
Do Germans have a saying for "When it rains, it pours"? After months (and months) of house hunting we finally got a place, only to be offered another Wohnung right after that. Now we just need to find a Nachmieter (a renter to take over our current lease), move, clean...
Being “Normal”
Tonight I had dinner with a friend who has been living here in Germany for about as long as I have. We first met virtually through a Facebook post of a mutual friend and discovered we were both in Heidelberg. The commonalities continued when we talked on the phone for...
Berlin Suburbia: An Expat Guide
We decided against buying a fancy coffee machine when we moved to Berlin because right downstairs from our flat is a cafe which serves a good espresso; the coffee in the cafe two houses further is even better. At the end of our road is a gloriously big park and at the...
Free College Degrees in Germany
No Tuition Fees at German Universities Updated for 2020 Get 'em while they're hot. If you're a German-related news junkie like we all are at the German Way, you might have seen your Facebook or Twitter feeds filled with headlines like these a few years ago: "Free...
All Day School (Ganztagsschule)
Here in Eppelheim (near Heidelberg), there has been a lot of controversy about the new Ganztagsschule that started this school year. There had been talk of it for ages, but it finally came to fruition for this school year. However, many, many people are unhappy with...
A Pseudo-European Teenager Goes to Texas
Our eldest has been in Texas for the past year attending high school, after spending most of her life in Europe - some in Ireland, but mostly in Germany. She is sixteen, and with that comes the sixteen-year-old way of looking at the world. She's been back for a week,...
Einschulung
In one my last posts, I mentioned that our family was preparing for my oldest child to start school this year. I know it is a big deal in most countries, but in Germany, I think it is an even bigger deal, partly because the first day is wonderfully ritualized by such...
Schulkind
I've experienced several "American expat in Germany" rites of passage since I first moved to Germany, which was eight years ago: having a German wedding, learning to drive stick in the Swabian Alps, figuring out what goes in the Gelber Sack, pregnancy, giving birth,...
A German Education
I am going to attempt to explain the German education system in the simplest terms possible. For those with further education who can handle the exceptions, I have listed them at the end. When a child is born in Germany, it has the right to a place in a daycare from...
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...
Raising “Free Range” Kids in Germany
I'm concluding my Christmas holidays now here in America, so it's natural for me to once again think about how different my life would be if I were living in America instead of in Germany, especially as a mother. Despite all my good intentions to not shop as much 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 “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...
Airing Out a German Phobia: The Killer Draft
One definition of a split second: the time it takes between opening a window on a hot train and hearing a German say the two most dreaded words in the German language: "Es zieht!" ("There's a draft!") In the summer on German trains, in the days before most were air...
Recent Comments