UltraRant

I'm missing that, too. Apparently it's against the law to do this in Norway (or so my employer tells me).

This... would... be... Perfect!

Probably not feasible here either, but I'd so love this.

fassy

Yeah, also all the people always think I hate everything about good ol' Deutschland, not true! Some things are actually really great! Still don't want to go back but also not sure where to go, slowly the life in Sweden worn me down

Good think my next job starting in November is not regional bound, living close enough to a major airport in Europe is good enough. Was thinking Brussels perhaps or Vienna, London or... Hmmm, no idea? Munich? Oh, that's Germany - at least on paper for now probably together with Hamburg the only place I might consider for Germany.

Or I try Lichtenstein, Luxembourg or some other low tax oasis

oliver2002

Oh, dear, another FTer in Munich... Note that Bavarian schools are absolutely inflexible on letting kids go early, even if the last day(s) of school before vacation are an absolute farce. And we have summer vacations that start when the Nordics start to freeze over again and make visits to see Grandma a pain.

fassy

Good thing I don't have kids then. for the vacation, being from the northwestern part I was always envious that the Bavarians had the nice time off while we had the bad weather weeks before summer really arrived.

Not sure though where to go, need to see where my SO will need to head out to and then tag along

GUWonder

What's more painful: visiting Mormor during German school summer vacation days; sterilization or contraception use prior to having any children; or abstinence?

They say children ain't cheap. Certainly shows up in what happens to the travel costs once stuck with school holidays as the travel days.

FlyingMoose

Vienna hands down, followed by Munich. Brussels would rank very low in my wish list of places to live in (Europe).

nacho

Not entirely true - if you can plan well ahead you can score deals on tickets. I have been able to get decent prices for flight tickets with a need to only take 1-2 days off from school (mostly for those 1 week vacations). The flexibility of the school system here is one of the reasons why we stay here.

Fortunately most public schools in Sweden has school calendar published pretty far in advance (except my kids' school as they said everything is preliminary), and as long as I follow that the school can't give me any trouble.

I haven't seen Munich much but I definitely don't want to live in Hamburg - people drive like crazy and park like crazy. Finding somewhere to live in Hamburg is like a nightmare according to a German TV programme. At the same time Munich is pretty isolated IMO, it's close to Salzburg. I heard some rumors about Bayern Police catching parents taking children out of the school before school holiday starts - that freaks me out too.

fassy

Don't believe what you see on TV. Yes, Hamburg like Munich are expensive to live in and as in all cities finding a good place is not that easy BUT have you tried to find a good apartment in Stockholm or Copenhagen lately?

Due to the market situation in Germany where most of the inner city apartments are rented out (not having that retarded bostadsrätt system) and there is always some fluctuation - it is not that bad as it sounds. It is bad if you can't pay for mid to upper scale apartments and have to fight for the limited availability in housing projects of though.

I have lots of friend in the mid 30s which live in Hamburg (moved there) which earn good money (but not that good) in the creative industry (designer, publisher, marketing etc.) and have no trouble finding a place to live and even from time to time move around the city.

Hamburg is really great! But you need time to discover it, just judging it from 2 days rushing the touristy thinks won't cut it.

And by the way, being a German, German driving even in big German cities doesn't freak me out. Copenhagen in rush hour is not much better.

And close to Linz, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Innsbruck, Berchtsgarden, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Kitzbühl and Zell am See the Alps, the Bodensee, and thousand other great places. Not sure why you picked Salzburg? To my opinion Salzburg is highly overrated and one of those cities which you just need to see one time in your life for 2 days to check of the "have done that" list like for Beethoven's birthplace. Have been there a lot, both on business in the last years and on family vacation when I was still traveling with my parents some years back (ok, a lot of years back but not that long ago )

Also Munich has well connected airport which takes you almost everywhere you need to go, often enough without a connection.

That is what I was arguing about (up the thread). I didn't know that it is legal in Sweden to take kids out of school whenever you want. In Germany you have to be in School unless you're sick (with a doctors note after some days). You go on holiday when there is public vacation for all, not sometime you feel like it. Since a lot of people (a high percentage of them of turkish heritage) always dropped out of school a few weeks before summer to get home to their family in Turkey it raised some attention in the school boards, social services and up to the Government. At some point they started putting penalties on missed school days and if that didn't stop you - like you said social services will have a serious chat with you (with some chance of high penalties, imprisonment and putting kids in foster care, but I think it never got that far as far as I was told). Still think it makes sense and the Swedish system is, erm... strange.

oliver2002

I get 389€ for two kids each month from the govt, that eases the pain Travle costs are significantly lessened by using miles

Munich isolated?

And yes, in NRW it was the turks. But not because of cheap flights, but because of the drive home.

UltraRant

Hamburg is a generally nice city, if you enjoy a maritime environment. I've been there many times for work. Wouldn't actually mind living there fore a few years.

nacho

We used to live in Copenhagen (actually about 15km north of it because we are not city centre people). Perhaps we are older we want to buy something rather than a centrally located apartment. I know how difficult it is to get a centrally located apartment in Central Copenhagen.

I don't like bostattratt, in Denmark they have a similar system and people like to swap apartments because they can get better deal through that, so yes if you are a new comer, the only way to get something is to buy. The price has gone up a lot because of parents buying apartments for their kids.

Yes but then they don't have that much $ to spend or to save up. That's a big problem because no one knows how the social security will be like when we get old. One good thing about living in a big city - you get very good facilities like library, sport fields, parks etc. My kids really fell in love with the HH's stadtpark playground - that one was unbeatable - free to park, free entrance and it was so nice.

We went there as "tourists" about 8 years ago, now we go there like locals (Courtyard Hamburg is our home in HH) - we drill around to visit shops, go to wochenmarkt to buy fresh produce to bring home (I bought tons of strawberries to bring back because I boycott the strawberries monopoly here in Skane), buying things from kleinanzeigen (so we got a chance to pick up in various places in Hamburg), eat at Andronaco. We have pretty much been to almost every quarter in HH and so far we haven't found a great place for a family.

I wouldn't mind living there but with kids, Sweden is better in terms of more space and the flexible school system (I sent my 3 kids to international school for free - in Hamburg it's 10000 EUR per head per year). So if you decide to have kids at some point of time - this sort of information could be useful - it might actually make you want to move back to Sweden

I drive quite a bit in German cities too - D, K, HH, HB, B, H......The worst drivers I encountered is HH and B. I haven't tried driving inside M, only got to Freising. Danes are not the nicest drivers in the world either, they are the ones blocking the left lanes all the time.

I have been to Beethoven's birthplace in Bonn and the highlight of Bonn is Haribo in Bad Godesberg

I pick Salzburg because it's the closest city to Munich that is "big" to fly from. I hate Salzburg, it's an extreme tourist trap - they almost pointed out where Mozart's go to toilet. Now I have been there I can say I don't like it. I prefer Innsbruck than Salzburg.

We went to Nurnberg to see Playmobil Funpark with the kids. Yes I'd love to base there for a couple of years to really see the area. It's beautiful (much better than this flat piece of land) and I'd love to live closer to it.

MUC is a big hub, no doubt. It's great for business travel, but for leisure travel then it's not as good as if you are living in the K or BN area where you have FRA, DUS, AMS, even BRU......

The German way is very similar to what I grow up with - school is not something you can just miss, especially in Asia. You do miss a lot if you miss a day of school, but try to go to school here, then you know what we mean. That's one of the reasons why Sweden scored so low in the PISA test - I got freaked out by how little they learn at school.

My kids are 2 grades ahead compared to same age Swedish school kids apart from their Swedish (they only have 2 hours Swedish per week) and I have read in a forum that a Swedish born American move back to US and she had to go down 2 grade in her new school.

fassy

Oh, darn! Shame on me! MOZART! How did I get to Beethoven...?


Hmmm, so far in Germany the Swedish school system has always been seen as top notch. After living here for some years I'm not too sure anymore. I think one thing makes it special is the "one for all" system which on the one hand eases integration and closes social gaps (apart from private schools) but on the other hand I think the effect is dragging down the whole class by having to take care of the weaker students.

The 3 class system in Germany sorts that out from the beginning at the cost that you have a batch of students which leave school and cannot even multiply 1,7 times 3,1 and on the other hand the "smart ones".
Often enough the dumb ones are not dumber than the smart ones or vice versa but the social background decided at the age of 6 where they will end. That is a sad thing... lucky for me my parents did not accept the verdict to send me to the Hauptschule like recommended by the teachers (I was lazy, hated homework, was always late and more often played sick to stay at home than any reasonable teacher would accepted) but insisted I got the Gymnasium to be able to study later on.

Was a hard time and I was never good at school but eventually qualified for university and then it made click. Made my computer science degree with 1.0 (highest grade possible in Germany) and have a great job now. Would probably fix broken cars by now if they had followed the recommendation...

nacho

Bravo to fassy seniors! Parents with vision! Your parents can see your potential, you didn't get on with your school system, just like me. I learned to love studying again when I started my degree course in the UK (I was told by my A-level teacher that I'll never graduate from an university).

I have German friend who said that her teacher "recommended" (forced) her not to get into the "going to university" line and her life has been miserable since, the first job was a 2 years contract and then she was unemployed on and off, doing the 300 EUR thing. Another friend's smart husband was put into becoming a brick layer......while she got into the elite line and ended up being a teacher.

Here in Sweden/DK you have another problem: the teacher will only tell you good thing about your kid, until they graduate from 9th grade and they tell you that your kid can't move on because he only has grade 2 level. I have seen this on a Danish documentary and we have heard tons of story about this. Mr was helping out teaching because he's done with all his work - nowadays in Sweden they tell the smart kids to get out to play so the teacher can focus teaching the weak ones (told by a mum just another day, it was in a Swedish school in Lund).

I went to a Walmart in DC and I bought a pair of shoes, $12 30% off. The cashier couldn't figure out and she shouted to her colleague "what is $12 30% off" and the other one didn't have a clue either.

This is a worldwide problem - teachers can't force children to study anymore because they will be violating the pedagogic value of education. Got a note from my kid's school stating that "homework is not compulsory" I was totally speechless when I saw that.

My conclusion: There is no perfect education system in this world. I think the structure nowadays is that the school can get you to pass the exam, but if you want your kids to have good grades (get access to better universities), you need to do the work to boost them especially in Sweden where the summer holiday is like 2 full months.

fassy

Guess it helped that I had a older sister who did good on Gymnasium and that the local Hauptschule was a real bad place. 95% immigrants, violence and drugs the regular thing. I was so afraid of getting beaten up everyday as one of the poor German kids (news what happens during breaks to the German kids traveled fast) that I rather accepted to get up every morning at 5.30 to take the bus to the next city which had a Gymnasium.

Yeah, they can't really force you to decide. They give a recommendation what they think will be the appropriate school. Since 30 years or so Germany has also those integrative schools (Gesamtschule) where they try to have one class room for all but then move better students in advanced classes and decide how far you can advance on the go. Becomes more and more popular for the uncertain types. Wasn't an option in my days. There was on Gesamtschule around but it suffered the same fate as the local Hauptschule. All the higher educated upper class parents send their kids to the Gymnasium leaving the other schools for the rest which means the education there wasn't great and hey had a lot of social problems.

Also the better schools were not available in a lot of smaller villages and towns, so the parents needed to also look at "how to get my kid to school every day". Not all of the schools were reachable by public transport or a school bus and if so, the costs usually had to be paid by the parents and not funded by the school, city or state. For a lot of my friends that was a huge problem and they couldn't go to a school in the next town because the parents couldn't (or didn't want to) afford the extra costs.

Poor move, also what they do in the Gesamtschulen in Germany and it seems not to work well.

I think the key is to make learning fun. All kids hate boring stuff like learning hours of hours of French words, most of them you will never use while watching a French Movie, reading a French book etc would be fun. If you make it fun, kids love to learn. Unfortunately at least the German school system is good for a lot of things, but "fun" is not one of them.

SK2751

Wow! This sounds very much like my wife. I am now wondering who are you and whether I am Mr nacho