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 GW Expat Blog
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Germany
An American in America
Even though it's the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall I won't be addressing the relevant and memorable occasion in this post as fellow blogger Hyde already has. Instead I will be addressing the other side of the Wall. Far west of East Berlin in...
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...
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...
Raising a Native “Shpeaker”
My daughter Vera is now a few months older than two, and like many parents, my husband and I have been marvelling and taking delight over her speech development. Like so many German Way readers, we are doing our best to raise her multilingually and have gone the route...
Where My House is My Home
Germany, like many expats, is seemingly caught between two worlds. Globalization and the new capitalism on one side with tradition and democratic socialism on the other. I am not going to write about capitalism vs. socialism, particularly... this is about how Germans...
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...
Expatriate Eating Adventures: Volume 1
Food, food culture and cooking has always been important to me. All three of those things are hobbies of mine. By extension I am also interested in matters of health when related directly to food and cooking. So my move to Germany a few years ago was, in part, an...
The downside of English as the universal language
Why is it that many Anglophones seriously consider going to Germany to work when they have zero German skills? A German would never for an instant think that he/she could go to Britain or the United States to work without knowing English well. So why would it be OK...
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...
Homeschooling verboten
I recently wrote about the German School System, but a German court decision on homeschooling put that unique aspect of German education in the spotlight. A Bremen couple who have been trying to get permission to homeschool their two young sons had all their legal...
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...
Rx for Drugs in Deutschland
One of the more important items on the pre-departure checklist for expats or travelers headed to Germany concerns any prescription drugs they may require during an extended stay. Those who need certain medications can bring their own prescription drugs with them when...
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