Bist du Schwanger (Are you pregnant?)

We considered labelling this item "Wir bauen für Sie #3" - see the previous 2 posts if you are confused.

Since we arrived in Leipzig, one of the highest items on the agenda was working out the who, what, when, where and how of having a baby in Germany. We’ve had lots of help from people, and now have:
1) an English speaking Obstretrician (FrauenArzt).
2) an English speaking Midwife (Hebamme) to give antenatal classes, attend the birth and help with mothercraft after the birth (Yes, that IS a word. For those like Nathan who aren’t in the know, mothercraft is the collection of mothering skills such as breast feeding, settling the baby, bathing the baby, changing nappies).
3) A hospital to give birth in (Frauenklinik). Alternatives included a home birth and a birthing centre (geburtshaus).
4) Lots of offers to help look after baby and mum after the birth.

Mum is doing fine, and the baby says "kick, hiccup, punch". Since coming to Germany, Nathan has felt and seen the kicks a few times. Jo feels them almost all the time.

We've had a lot of comments such as "why aren't there many photos of Jo and the bump". So here is a profile of Jo, taken in Johanna Park, only 5 minutes walk away from our house. Jo likes it that our closest park is hers!

Strange German Culture #1 - In some parts of Germany, Beer is not considered alcohol. Workers have the right to a half litre of beer during lunch. In the past, the calories in the beer were a significant part of the energy intake in these areas, and if the workers didn't get their beer, they wouldn't work.

Wir bauen für Sie #2 - Furniture

On Monday a week ago we received a HUGE delivery from IKEA (pronounced ee-kay-are in Germany). For the whole week, Nathan (and Jo where possible) have been "Bauen für Sie". Attached is a picture of most (but not all) of the cardboard packaging to give an idea of how much there was. You can also see how we've furnshed the empty room we showed you a few weeks ago.

IKEA has a pretty bad name in Germany. Real estate agent: "Oh sure, you can rent a furnished apartment, but it will probably be furnished with cheap IKEA furniture". But nevertheless, it is very popular. We bought it for these reasons:

1) It IS cheap and it does the job.
2) We're only here a year, so it doesn't matter if it breaks after a while.
3) It actually requires less effort than getting second hand furniture, which you have to move assembled, or disassemble, move and reassemble.
5) It was too much effort shopping around lots of smaller shops, when we really wanted a couch to sit on as quickly as possible.

Leipzig is in the state of Saxony, and IKEA is located in the state next door - Saxony-Anhalt. When IKEA first opened, the Saxony government didn't like the idea of all their people shopping in the next state, so they refused to upgrade the access road. Fortunately they saw sense, and it's now a pleasant 30 minute drive from home.

Strange German Language concept #1 – Heute Nacht = Tonight. HOWEVER, in the morning, Heute Nacht = last night. Eg Heute nacht habe ich ein schlechtes Traum = Tonight I have a terrible dream = last night I had a terrible dream.

Wir bauen für Sie #1! (We build for YOU!)

Along the motorways, you can sometimes see a sign with this written on it. It's there to explain to motorists why half the autobahn is being dug up, and the speed limit is only 60km/h. I think it's supposed to reduce frustration at crawling when most would like to be travelling at 200km/h +.

There appears to be building all over the place. Always somewhere on the Autobahn, but also in Leipzig city. Leipzig is hosting some of the Soccer World Cup games, and has decided to upgrade its infrastructure. This includes building an underground railway under the city centre. As a result, Leipzig is "Bauen für Sie"! Attached is a picture of some road work, which has shut down one of the terminus tram stops and brought the tram system in the whole city to a standstill.

Because of all the building, navigating through Leipzig at the moment is pretty difficult. One day you have worked out your favourite route to work, and the next day it's blocked off by road work and you have to find another way.

Something new to our eyes on the building sites... you don't often see any people on them, and you certainly don't see three "supervisors" watching one council worker dig a ditch. Almost all the building work is done from inside large trucks of various descriptions.

Useful Word #2. Zeug (neuter) = Thing. Eg Flugzeug = flying thing = aeroplane, Spielzeug = playing thing = toy, Werkzeug = working thing = tool.

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? (Do you speak German?)

Jo has started a 5 week intensive course in German. She has classes 5 mornings a week and is not allowed to speak any English during the lesson!. This has been interesting as there are 3 other people in her class, only one of which can speak English anyway. The method works quite well, although its hard if you don’t know any German to start with. Fortunately Jo had been learning for a year in Australia before we left.

Nathan isn’t having any lessons yet, but has been trying to speak German at work. One day he had an audience of local Germans who wanted to watch him order Italian takeaway over the phone. He thinks they didn’t really believe he was going to get it right, since he was ordering their food as well!

So far it’s still the fun stage of learning a language. Making progress and trying out new words. Whenever you say something in German, everyone is pleasantly surprised that you are making an effort. We’ve heard that after a while it gets harder because people start to expect you to speak German, and get frustrated when they can’t communicate well with you.

Even so, it has got to Nathan in some way. Last night he had a terrible nightmare, where he was sitting a German exam. Halfway through he had to go to the toilet, and forgot how to get back to the exam room. He spent valuable writing time wandering around the grounds trying to find someone who knew which room he was supposed to be in, and panicking that the assessors would accuse him of cheating once he found his way there. By dream’s end, he was on the ground digging the ground in frustration.

Nathan considered putting up a photo of a re-enactment of his dream, but thought better of it.

Useful German Word #1 – Dingsbums (can be masculine, feminine or neuter) = Thingy-mi-jig. Can be used to describe anything that you don’t know the German word for.

Nichtraucher? (No Smoking?)

Something we didn’t write about in earlier posts was that lots of people smoke here in Germany. Smoking is rarely banned from public places. It is very difficult to get used to. Every time you go shopping, or go out to eat, people are smoking. It is difficult when you are in an enclosed restaurant or café. You just can’t escape the cigarette smoke and reek of it when you come home. What they’ve done in Australia with banning smoking is just brilliant and we miss the clean air.

We would put a photo of someone smoking, but actually it looks just the same as in Sydney!

Der Leipzig Zoo

A few weeks ago we visited Leipzig Zoo, which is less than 15 minutes away by tram. It was a special African theme day, when it was opened until midnight and had African music, stalls and food. We decided to get yearly tickets, as Jo will have plenty of opportunities to go for a walk there with the baby in future months. Leipzig Zoo is in one of the enormous parks that Leipzig has. You can virtually go from one end of Leipzig to the other through the various parks!

For a small city, the Zoo is pretty good. They have tried to avoid too many bars, etc so you can see the animals close to their natural state. Here's a photo of a tiger - Nathan's favourite animal.

Neu Wohnung (New apartment)!!

We have finally moved into our own place!!!! We have an apartment on the top floor (dachgeschoss) and it has 3 bedrooms, a large living space, a bathroom and another toilet and a built in kitchen. It has been lovely being able to stay with a family from the church we are going to but it is also nice having our own place now. We have a lot of space as we have hardly any furniture. We moved in a few nights ago, in the dark and during the rain. There are no lights fitted so we have had to buy a couple of lamps and think carefully about what lights to buy.

We spent four and half hours at IKEA on the weekend. A record for Nathan’s shopping endurance! That was after 1.5 hours at a big supermarket buying basic things for our new home.

We are in the process of buying/acquiring furniture and will be looking to get a washing machine and dryer ASAP.

New Blog Online!!

Hi everyone! Sorry to everyone we haven't emailed recently. As you can imagine, we've been extremely busy over the past few weeks. We can't believe it's been nearly 1 month since we left Sydney!

We've finally got our act together, and have put this Blog on-line. Even though the dates suggest we've been working on this since we left Sydney, we actually put it all on tonight!

We will try and update regularly, and also keep up with our emails. Things will hopefully get better when we settle into our own apartment and our shipped stuff arrives from Sydney.

Thanks also to those who have been praying for us and emailing us. For Jo especially, the emails have been a godsend, as she doesn't have work to keep her busy anymore. Please keep them coming!

Bis nächste post!

Shopping for Baby

First of all, we'd like to thank everyone who gave us gifts for the "little one". All the clothes and toys are on a ship coming our way soon. We will be buying some of the bigger items over here.

On the list:

1) Kinderwagen (pram) - In Germany, these rival the Humvee in size and armour. They have to protect the baby from the German Winter, and survive the harsh cobblestone terrain.
2) Autositz (car seat).
3) Kinderbett (cot).
4) Nursery furniture.
5) Things that protect you from "Yucky stuff" :P

We've had some offers from our new church friends, who have been very generous in looking after us the past few weeks.

Searching for a Flat

We have been staying with a family from the Leipzig English Church, who very generously offered their place while they were on holiday for two weeks and their children were with their grandparents for a little longer. It’s been great to get to know some locals very well and learn about the culture.

We are looking for a flat to live in at the moment, and have made an application for one near the centre of the city. We hope to be able to move into it next week.

Once that happens, we can do a big shopping trip at IKEA and start buying baby things!

First Impressions 4 - Transport

The city is a little bit (ha!) smaller than Sydney. Walking across the whole Zentrum (think CBD) is the same as walking from Town Hall to Wynyard. Walking or biking is a really good option, except that Jo would probably fall off (pregnancy, not incoordination!)

The trams are an excellent way to get around the city. Where we are now, it is only a 12 min tram ride to the city.

The main train station (hauptbahnhof) is the equivalent of Sydney’s Central Station. It is not only a train station but a shopping centre as well, with fashion shops, food outlets and an Aldi. There are cafés dedicated only to dessert or “eis” (ice cream etc) too.

When it comes to driving, driving on the wrong side of the road in an unfamiliar place with different road rules and road signs and trams all over the place has been THE most stressful activity so far. We have been advised (thanks Adrian!) that we should treat our fears as a big challenge, and tackle them head-on. Nathan has taken that on-board, and after a few days is now comfortable with driving over here.

First Impressions 3 - Shopping

There is a little supermarket 5 min up the road from where we are living at the moment. It is like an IGA feel but has less choice than an IGA. We have now, however, been introduced to a big supermarket (more like a cross between Kmart and Coles) called Hit Supermarkt. It is much bigger and has much more in the fruit and veg department as well as every thing else. There’s even a section (a whole building) of the shop just for drinks. We’ll be going to Hit from now on. Also, when you want to get a trolley, you have to put €1.00 into a little slot which then disconnects it from all the other trolleys and then when you’ve finished with it, you chain it up again to the other trolleys and your coin comes out. We actually have a “Hit” coin (plastic coin size thing instead of €1.00 which you mightn’t have on you).

There are various little shops all over the place, especially bakeries. You can buy bread, cake or danishes etc anywhere. I think that there are more bakeries than any other small shop around this city.

Shopping has been somewhat challenging as all the ingredient lists and packaging details are in German. Shopping with a dictionary is very time consuming. We miss being able to find cheddar cheese, “normal” yoghurt and just right cereal. The fresh produce however, is very tasty and cheap when in season. Here is a picture of some cheap, sweet, in-season strawberries. YUM!!!

During the week the shops open until either 6pm or 8pm. On Saturdays they open either until 6pm or only for half a day until 1pm. On Sundays nothing is open.

Money is annoying. They still have 1c and 2c coins as well as 5c, 10c, 20c, 50c, €1.00 and €2.00 coins. It is very confusing as the 1c, 2c and 5c coins are all the same colour but different in size and the 50c, €1 and €2 are the same colour. It’s a pain to count out the exact coinage in the supermarket where the checkout ladies are quite grumpy looking to begin with.