Believing in Nikolaus

Today Finland is celebrating Independence Day, but here in Germany the day is all about Nikolaus.

I wrote about Nikolaus two years ago in my blog post Odd German Way No. 4, but I have now learned something new. Even though Nikolaus looks like Santa Claus, he is not the 'Weichnachtsmann' after all. You can check the details *here*

I had thought about doing this Nikolaus tradition with Fräulein, as I knew they would be talking about him in the kindergarten. But we were very busy yesterday evening so the girls were already in bed when I remembered that we were supposed to clean our shoes!

At that point, I thought that we could skip the tradition this year. But in the morning I changed my mind and sneaked out to the staircase to fill Fräulein's boots with little gifts (our boots are usually so muddy that we store them outside the apartment).

But to my surprise, Nikolaus had already been there! And he had not cared that we had skipped cleaning our shoes!

*****
Suomessa juhlitaan itsenäisyyspäivää, mutta täällä Saksassa nautitaan Nikolauksen tuomista lahjoista. Aloin itsekin uskoa kyseiseen ukkoon, sillä myös minun likaisista saappaistani löytyi aamulla herkkuja!
  

Be Careful What You Wish For

Just a few weeks ago, my friends kept telling me that it was warm, even hot, in Finland, but in Central Europe the weather was cold and rainy.

But as my Silent Sunday photo suggested, it is finally warm in here, too.

A bit too warm for us, actually.

Be careful what you wish for...

"Feels like +36°C"

*****
Onpa kuuma!

Hyvää Vappua!

Like I mentioned last year, the celebration of May 1st is quite different in Finland and in Germany.

In here it is more about protests, where as in Finland it is all about having fun.

It is nice that as an expat you can choose the good parts of both cultures. First the German Fasching and now the Finnish Vappu!

Last week we had a chance to celebrate early Vappu in a Finnish playgroup in Frankfurt.

Even though our Vappu delicacies will arrive only this evening, we are getting into the right mood.

Happy May Day! Hyvää Vappua!

Almost!

The summer arrived quite quickly, but nature has not really been able to keep up with this change.

One year ago, the magnolias were in bloom already in early April.

This year we are now almost there!

*****
Viime vuonna magnoliat olivat kukassa jo huhtikuun alussa, mutta tänä vuonna luonto ei ole ihan pysynyt nopeasti saapuneen kesän mukana. 

The Shortest Spring Ever

As you might have noticed from the photos of my Easter post, the weather was very cold here in Wiesbaden. Fräulein was wearing a woolly hat!

After Easter the spring finally arrived: it was rainy and around +10°C. It lasted about a week - conveniently the time when Fräulein was ill.

But now it is summer!

This was taken yesterday. Luckily I didn't have to spend much time in a car.

The one kilometer long walk home from the Krippe took three hours!
A lot of clothes on for +28 weather,
but somehow it seems impossible to change from the woolly hats straight to bikinis!

*****
Täällä Saksassa siirryttiin melkein suoraan talvesta kesään. Jee!

The Protester

I participated my very first demonstration yesterday.

In the state of Hesse, some changes to the kindergarten laws are about to happen. I'm not sure how far the process is at the moment, but I know that it would bring a lot of negative changes to the everyday matters.

For example, in the groups of small children (under 3 years old) there are two teachers and they can currently take care of 10 children. After the change, there could be 16 kids in every group!

Not good, not good at all.

So, yesterday there was a demonstration against this new law held at the Kochbrunnenplatz in Wiesbaden.

There were quite many participants - mostly kindergarten teachers and parents with their children.

Unfortunately the weather was not the best possible ( -1°C and windy), so we didn't stay there for very long time.

But on our way home, we saw the first signs of spring!

*****
Hessenin osavaltiossa suunnitellaan lakimuutosta, joka toisi selviä heikennyksiä päiväkotien toimintaan. Esimerkiksi nykyään alle 3-vuotiaiden ryhmissä voi olla kymmenen lasta kahta "tätiä" kohden. Uudistuksen jälkeen lapsimäärä voitaisiin nostaa kuuteentoista! Eilen täällä Wiesbadenissa järjestettiin mielenosoitus lakia vastaan ja mekin osallistuimme. Ensimmäinen mielenosoitukseni! 

Vaikka keli oli jäätävän kylmä, löysimme jo ensimmäisen lupauksen tulevasta keväästä: kukkivan puun.

Expat Hausfrau's Peek into Local Customs - St. Martin's Day

As an expat Hausfrau, it is sometimes a bit difficult for me to get into the local habits and customs. Fortunately, Fräulein's daycare provides a great connection to German everyday life.

Yesterday, we had the first free-time activity arranged by Fräulein's Krippe. The kindergarten arranged a St. Martin's day procession for children and their paper lanterns.
(I'm sorry for the hideous quality of the photos!)

The small bright spots are the lanterns...

It was already dark at 6pm. when the procession started from Nerotal, so the lanterns looked beautiful. Along the route, there were musicians playing their trumpets. After a short walk, everyone gathered by the local church, where there was a play about St. Martin and some singing.

Fräulein's selfmade lantern

And last but not least, all children got one of these:

It was a great experience not only for Fräulein, but for me, too.

*****
Eilen pääsimme tutustumaan paikallisiin traditiohin, sillä Fräuleinin päiväkodista järjestettiin Martinpäivän kulkue.

A Coffee Complaint

I need my cup of coffee (or four) every morning.
I actually think that the German coffee tastes better than Finnish coffee.

But in those mornings, when I need to open a new coffee package, I wonder, why don't some good practices spread from one one civilized country to another*.

The Finnish coffee package:

A new vacuum package

You just pull the two sides apart...

...and you are done. 

Afterwards, you can close the package with the tape attached.

The German coffee package:

A new vacuum package

Pull off the top part.

Cut off the corners.

Try your best not to spread the coffee all over the place
when cutting open the package.

Move the coffee to a jar,
as it is impossible to close the package.

See what I mean?

*) Disclaimer: no one has encouraged me to write this post,  even if my background may suggest so... ;)


******
Yksi isoimmista asioista, mitä kaipaan Suomesta, on helposti avattavat kahvipaketit!
Vaikka tämä voi jonkun mielestä olla vähän epäilyttävä aihe, voin vakuuttaa, ettei tätä kirjoitusta ole sponsoroitu ;)

Pretzel Princess

You can take a girl out of Germany, but you cannot take Germany out of a girl.

Odd German Way No. 10 - Bring In the Police!

We were walking in the city center the other day. When we approached the Marktkirche, I noticed dozens of police cars around it. And on every entrance of the Schloßplatz (the area surrounding the church), there were several police officers.

My first thought was that there was something big going on and I wanted to find out what that was. But then I remembered that Germans tend to bring in a lot of police force when there is even the smallest event, in which some trouble might arise. Like when there is a football match, even in some of the minor leagues, the railway station is crowded with police officers with their helmets and shields.

Most of the times this armament seems a bit exaggerated.

And so it was this time, too. There was only a smallish demonstration by the Rathause.

I guess that the demonstration was against the air routes over Wiesbaden.
The noise of the flights started last year,
when the fourth runway was opened at Frankfurt airport. 

Having a Baby In Germany: the Hospital Part

Now, don't get all excited - I'm not saying that we are having another baby! But I have been writing about all baby related things I have come across here in Germany, like the paper work required and how the healthcare of a newborn is arranged. So the two things missing are the pregnancy and the hospital parts.

We moved to Germany about a month before Fräulein was born, so I don't really have much experience about being pregnant in Germany. But she was born here, so I can tell you about choosing the hospital and what is to be expected there. I know that more and more women are giving birth at their own homes or these 'birth homes', which are not medical facilities. But when I was pregnant with Fräulein, I only considered different hospitals, so this post is really only about that choice.

Like all doctor's offices, also the hospitals are private here. In Finland, you must have your baby in the hospital, which happens to be 'your' hospital, based on the city you live in. But here in Germany, you are able to choose the hospital. Because of this, there is a bit of competition between the hospitals, as they want as many customers as possible. And I guess that is partly the cause why especially the smaller hospitals seem to be very cozy and friendly. That is something I'm not sure I could say about Finnish hospitals...

The hospitals have introduction events (Info-Abend) for future parents, usually 1-4 times per month. There you have a short lecture about the hospital and their services and afterwards you can have a look at the delivery rooms and the maternity ward. I think this is great, because then you can meet the staff and really feel the atmosphere of the hospital. Although some of the lectures might be a bit too praising...

When you have chosen your hospital, you should contact them to arrange a meeting, in which their collect your personal data and information about your pregnancy. Hospitals usually recommend to have this meeting about 8-6 before your due date.  You can also go to most of the hospitals without this pre-meeting, but when you have done this beforehand, you don't need to worry about the paper work when you are going to the hospital to have your baby.

When we moved to Wiesbaden, we were a bit in a hurry in choosing the hospital. There are three hospitals with maternity wards in Wiesbaden. One of the hospitals, HSK, is a big one and they also have a ward for sick children. The other two are smaller and cozier, but if there is something wrong with the baby, she/he will be moved to HSK for treatment.

We went to see all of the three hospitals. It was clear for me that, as there wasn't anything exceptional in my pregnancy, I would choose one of the smaller hospitals. A friend of mine had had her baby in Paulinen Klinik and had liked it a lot. So, I called them to make an appointment. Already on the phone I got a bit funny feeling, as the nurse did not speak any English and giggled a lot. I was able to make an appointment, but at the meeting the nurse, who was taking my notes (not the same one as on the phone), giggled in trying to find the right words. So much so that she had to leave the room at one point.

This experience made me think that I wouldn't like the nurses behaving like that while I was in labor. There is nothing wrong in trying to find the right words or being in a good mood, but I really didn't like to face that giggling in the delivery room!

There are a lot of Americans here in Wiesbaden, because the U.S. Army is based here. I thought that maybe these American families would prefer the other smaller hospital, catholic St. Josefs-Hospital. And I was proven right. I was able to make an appointment on a short notice and in the waiting room I talked with an American mother, who had given birth a couple of hours earlier (she was already leaving the hospital!). The nurse I talked with spoke perfect English and they even had many documents translated in English. So, my decision was made: Fräulein was to be born here!

And so she did. I won't go into details of her birth here, but I must say that I was very happy with St. Josephs Hospital. Everyone was nice and professional. On the maternity ward they even arranged so that we were taken care of by the nurse who was the most experienced in speaking English.

Three-days-old Fräulein in her hospital bed.

Before Fräulein was born, I had some questions about the German system. There were also things I didn't even come to think of. I'll list some of them here, in case someone else in wondering the same things. And yes, some of these things might sound completely normal for some of you, but I'm from Finland and used to the ways things are handled there.

• There are anesthetics available for you while in labor, if you choose to have some. At the pre-meeting I was given a document about all the possible drugs so that I could read it in advance and just sign the consent when needed. Everything went so quickly that I didn't have time to get any drugs, but I wondered afterwards, why they didn't offer me any laughing gas, which is quite popular in Finland. 

• In Germany, you usually stay in the hospital for three nights, because then your baby can have her U2 check done at the hospital. You can leave the hospital as soon as a couple of hours after birth, if you feel like it, but then the hospital wants to make sure that you have booked the U2 check with the baby's doctor before you leave.

• Many hospitals have family rooms, but you cannot book one in advance. In our case, there was only one other mother with her baby in the ward when we arrived, so Herr Welle was able to stay with us in the room which was normally equipped for two mothers.

The view from our 'family room'

• In Germany, the hospital doesn't provide the towels or the clothes for you to wear while you stay there, so you must pack those in your hospital back. They do provide clothing for the baby.

For some reason, all the baby clothes at the hospital
were very big for a newborn (56 or 62cm)

• If you are not German, you should take your own birth-certificate to the hospital with you. And if you are married, take also your marriage-certificate and the husband's birth-certificate. I can say from experience that it makes things a whole lot easier...

• In Germany, you must give a name to your baby soon after the birth (in Finland you have two months to do this). They asked for the name as soon as Fräulein was born. We only had one name decided at that point. The two other names we filled in the form, in which all birth details were documented. This had to be filled before we left the hospital.

• They do not teach how to wash the baby's bottom under running water. I have been told that, in Finland, you cannot leave the hospital before you know how to do that safely. But here you just wipe the bottom with baby-wipes or wet towels.

• Many German hospitals have a certificate called 'Baby-Friendly Hospital'. The main points of the certificate are that the breastfeeding is encouraged in every way possible and the hospital practices rooming in, so that the baby shares the room with the mother. I would have taken these things as granted, but apparently they are relatively new practices.

• And something I did wonder a lot, although it now sounds a bit silly: You can go to a catholic hospital even if you are not catholic yourself. The nurses were not dressed as nuns, actually the only 'catholic' thing there were the crucifixes above the doors.

Happy Valentine's Day!

What do you get when you combine Germany with romance?

salami with heart

Odd German Way No. 9 - The Daily Airing

The German apartments do not have ventilation. This means that you must open the windows for a while each day to let the fresh air in. Even when it is cold outside. But, I quote Cara's blog post, "Ten minutes of cold is worth not having the mold".

I once saw a German TV program about lousy tenants. One of the tenants had not done the airing in the apartment and the window frames and bathroom ceiling were covered in mold. The tenant said it was the house owners problem, but the house owner showed that all tenants had been provided with instruction sheets, where the daily airing procedures had been explained. So, even though we haven't been given any clear instructions, I have realized that it really is our duty to keep the air fresh and dry.  

"Exhaled 3742 times,  cooked 1 liter tee water, watered the plants,
slightly sneezed 3 times, washed 2 pairs of socks and
cried 1.6 minutes while peeling onions... hmm...
according to my calculation the window should be kept 2.5 cm open now for 4.3 minutes..."
Source: Passivhaus Institut

I have previously thought that tumble-dryers are useless, but now I have changed my mind. As the weather here is very moist, you cannot dry your laundry outside most of the time. And because of the lack of ventilation, it takes ages to dry it inside. Plus the air inside gets very moist.

The only thing helping in refreshing the air are the small ventilators/blowers in the bathrooms. Usually these work so that when you put the light on in the bathroom, also the ventilator starts. It helps to dry the air a bit when you take a shower, but it does not actually give any fresh air.

The fact that Fräulein takes her nap on the balcony, resolves the problem of airing for us. I always keep the balcony door open a crack while she is sleeping, so that I hear when she is waking up. I also keep the bathroom ventilator on and the door open so that the air circulates a bit. Although this isn't based on any complicated calculations, I hope it is enough...

Odd German Way No. 7 - Alternative Medicines

In several occasions, I have noticed that in Germany alternative medicines, like herbal and homeopathic products, are used as, well, 'normal' medicines.

First I thought it was just something our Hebamme (midwife) was into, as she recommended homeopathic medicines for Fräulein's colic and my breast infection. But when I bought some medicines for Fräulein's cold from the pharmacy, I noticed they included some homeopathic ingredients as well.

Before Christmas, I went to the pharmacy to buy some gel for Fräulein to numb the pain caused by teething. After giving me the gel, the pharmacist wanted to introduce all the herbal medicines they had available for teething. I was happy with the gel.

This week Fräulein has had a mild eye infection. According to the doctor, the infection is most likely viral, so he prescribed some eye-drops for her. If those would not help her in 3-4 days, we should go back for a prescription for antibiotics.

A pair of watery eyes

Herr Welle picked up the eye-drops from the pharmacy. After a closer look of the product data sheet, we noticed that it was actually herbal medicine, made of plant called Euphrasia. There isn't much improvement in Fräulein's eyes yet, but I'll need to wait until tomorrow to say for sure, if these drops have worked or not.

I have previously been quite pro-modern-western-medicine type of person, but especially with Fräulein, I am more than happy to accept any 'gentler' medications, if they actually work. Thus, I don't want to give any label of 'good' or 'bad' for this oddity. However, I do remain quite sceptic about alternative medical systems.

But putting aside my own scepticism, I am amazed that these herbal and homeopathic products are sold side-by-side at the pharmacy and doctors prescribe them equally. Yes, the homeopathic system is originally a German invention, but I would have thought that in this country, the lack of scientific evidence of their real efficacy would be valued more.

Odd German Way No. 6 - Changing Eggs

Every time I visit our local grocery store Rewe, there is someone standing by the egg shelf. This someone is opening the egg cartons and looking closely at the eggs. Sometimes the carton is closed and put into the shopping cart, but quite often he or she moves the eggs from one carton to another, inspecting every one of the eggs in detail.

In Finland, I have never, ever seen anyone choosing the eggs one by one from different egg cartons, but here in Germany this seems to happen every day. I understand if some wants to make sure that none of the eggs is broken. But what kind of differences can be seen unbroken eggs? Color? Size?

The odd German ways...

To Fly or Not to Fly?

I wrote earlier about our attempts to get our baby to fly to her own christening one year ago (see the post 'Fly, Baby, Fly'). Arranging the birth certificate, Finnish citizenship and passport really took some effort and quite a lot of paper work!

To our relief, the passport was granted fast. The Finnish consulate in Luxembourg received the passport on Monday, and we were going to fly to Finland on the following Friday. As Herr Welle was traveling (again...) and I didn't want to make another road trip with our baby, we asked to send us the passport. First, we asked if they could send it via courier, but for some reason that wasn't an option. The consulate promised to send it as a signed letter. Although a bit worried, we though it would be delivered in time. Even though the consulate is located in another country, Luxembourg is only 200 km from Wiesbaden. So how long could it take?

I had calculated that the passport should arrive on Wednesday. When it didn't, I asked about the number of the signed letter from the consulate. According to the tracking information, the letter had been processed at Frankfurt post hub earlier that day. Yes, the passport was so close!

To our horror, the snowstorm of the century hit Frankfurt just during that week. I tried not to worry when I saw some news about how post started to pile in the post offices due to the snow. Surely they would favor signed letters over Christmas cards?

Thursday passed. No postman. I even stood by the door phone while I was boiling water, so that I wouldn't miss the ring. But there was no one at the door.

The main character of all the fuss had no idea what was happening...

I found the number for customer service of Deutsche Post from internet and started to call around. As the letter was sent from Luxembourg Post, the tracking was not as easy as with letter send within Germany. But finally I had someone on the phone telling me that it was STILL in the Frankfurt post hub. It hadn't moved an inch closer Wiesbaden since the day before! But they assured me that it would be delivered the following day. Phew!

So it was Friday. Our flight was planned to depart in the evening, so we would still have time to get the passport with the afternoon post. Our post is usually delivered around noon. Around 1 pm. I finally started to panic. I called again to Deutsche Post and spoke with a lady, who had probably talked with thousands of unsatisfied customers during that week due to the delays caused by the snowstorms. So I don't blame her sounding bored, but I was desperate! She assured me, that there were no way we could get the letter. That there were millions of letters there in the post hub, so even if the hub was located by the airport, we couldn't just stop by and get the letter.

Fortunately, Herr Welle is able to think more rationally in these situations. He made a call to the consulate and things started to look brighter. The officer at the consulate called the airline, which we were about to use, and explained our situation. She even provided us with a scan of a very official looking document, in which all the information of our baby's passport were stated.

Thankfully, we were flying with Finnair (Finnish airline), both Herr Welle and me are Finnish citizens, we were flying to Finland and as a whole family. I appreciate the fact that the regulations of flying with children are so strict, but I'm happy that the crew at the airline recognized that the chances that we were kidnaping the baby were very low, and they accepted our baby to the aircraft without her passport!

But the excitement didn't end there. As it was still snowing a lot, many flights, for example all Lufthansa flights, were cancelled. Fortunately, our flight was only delayed for an hour. And we even got an empty seat booked between Herr Welle and me, so we were able to place our baby there in her car seat.

Thanks to the nice lady at the Luxembourg consulate and the flexibility of Finnair, we were able to have our baby christened in Finland on the following Sunday as planned!

If you are wondering, how we got back to Germany, we did not need to have such a fuss over it. Herr Welle wrote a proxy to his colleague, who picked the letter up from our local post office and brought it with him to their mutual meeting in Finland.

Flying back home

Tomorrow we will be flying to Finland for the holidays, so it might be a bit more quiet here in my blog. I hope there will be no snowstorm tonight, and our journey to Finland will be less exciting this year!

Odd Geman Way No. 5 - Purple Fingers

A Finnish friend of mine visits the Netherlands quite often on business with her Finnish colleagues. Last winter, one of her Dutch colleagues had asked her, why Finns have this funny way of using gloves or mittens in winter.

What?!?

I have noticed, that people do not tend to use gloves here in Germany, either. Yes, it might not be -20°C, but Finns do put their gloves on when it gets below +10°C...

What I am even more surprised of, or even worried about, is that small children do not wear mittens here! Germans might dress their children in down jacket and use footmuff made of real sheepskin when the temperature is still above zero. But the hands of the children remain uncovered.

The odd German ways...

Mittens on!

Fly, Baby, Fly!

How to get your baby to fly? You need to get her a passport. And to get her a passport, you need to get her a citizenship.

It was exactly one year ago, when we had a bit of drama with our daughter's passport.  So, I though I would tell you about all the snags there are in getting a citizenship and passport to you baby, when she is born abroad.

1. Do not give birth without the birth certificate
We didn't know that, when you give birth to a child, you must also prove that you have born yourself. So, when our daughter was born in Wiesbaden, it wasn't enough that I had my passport with me to prove my identity, but I was supposed to have my birth certificate with me as well. And Herr Welle's (baby's father's). And our marriage certificate.

The lady handling all the paper work in the hospital was certainly not happy with us. First of all, I didn't have German insurance card (not my fault, but more about that in a later post). And then we didn't have any of these certificates with us. On the day we were leaving the hospital, Herr Welle spent quite a while on the phone trying to get these papers. There were two snags: none of the Finnish registry offices thought it was their job to help us, as we lived abroad and didn't 'belong' to any of them. And we wanted the papers in English (well, German would have been the first choice, but much too difficult).

We finally convinced the lady that the papers were on their way and she let us leave. But this meant that after the certificates arrived, we had to make an extra visit to the office where babies are registered. But finally we had a certificate to prove our baby was born (well, plural 'certificates' would be more appropriate, because you get several documents for different purposes).

On our way home from the hospital

2. Be ready to travel because of a stamp
One could think that as both Germany and Finland belong to European Union, things would be relatively easy to sort between these two countries. But we couldn't just send the German birth certificate to Finland. We needed a certain stamp, called Apostille stamp, to the baby's birth certificate, so that Finnish officers would believe the document was real and original.

OK, we would get the stamp. But even if the listing we found on internet said otherwise, the closest stamp was in Darmstadt. This meant that Herr Welle had to make a nice road trip (about 100km, 60 miles) to the city to get the stamp. Finally, the stamped document was sent to Finland.

 3. Wait for the officers to choose who should look at the papers
Normally, there wouldn't be any rush in getting the Finnish citizenship and the social security number when you live in Germany, but you need that information before you can apply for a passport. And you need a passport quite urgently, if you have planned the christening of your baby to be held in Finland before she is two months old. Fortunately, they promised to call us from the registry office as soon as our baby was officially Finnish, so that we wouldn't have to wait for the notification to arrive by post.

4. Try to get your baby to keep a strate face
While you wait for all this paper work to go forward, you can get a bit of extra excitement by taking your baby for passport photo.

The rules for passport photo are quite strict:

• your eyes must be open, 
• your mouth must be shut,
• your expression should be neutral,
• you should look straight to the camera so that both of your ears are shown, and 
• the background should be smooth and neutral.

This is difficult even for an adult, so try to get a passport photo of a three-weeks-old baby... Fortunately, the officials are not so strict when it is a baby's photo. In her passport photo, our daughter has eyes open and both of her ears are showing. But also her mouth is open, her expression is surprised, and there are a lot of shadows in the cloth on the background... I later thought that it would had been easier to lay the baby on her back and take the photo from above.

5. Be ready to travel with the baby because of the passport
When you apply for a passport, the person who it is for must be present, even if she is a newborn baby. So, I couldn't send Herr Welle for another road trip, but the baby had to present in the consulate.

There is a Finnish consulate quite close here, in Frankfurt. But it is a honorary consulate, so they do not handle any of the important stuff, like passports. The real consulate is in Hamburg, but the distance there is more than 500km (310 miles). So, the closest one is actually in Luxembourg, only about 200km (130 miles) from Wiesbaden. Great that you can pass the border without a passport!

As we were in a hurry, we needed to get to the consulate as soon as our daughter's information was registered in the Finnish system. Conveniently, Herr Welle spent that week in Korea, so I packed my six-week-old daughter to the car and we drove there just the two of us.

This trip we made exactly one year ago. Now the memories are smoothened a bit, but on that day I swore I would never laugh at this.

There were quite a lot of roadworks going on, so the drive took us about four hours. And as the consulate is only open for a couple of hours before noon, we really needed to get there in time (I wasn't willing to drive there again the next day). Fortunately, the baby was so young that she slept the whole drive there. I found the right place quite easily, but the parking lot, where I had planned to park my car in, was full and I didn't have time to wait to get in. After a small search I found a place to park at the railway station. I unfolded the buggy (that took some time, as I hadn't yet had much practice) and ran to the office.

I took the elevator up to the third floor, but the door didn't open and I couldn't get out on the right floor. So, I went back down, took only the basket and the baby with me and ran upstairs. It was five minutes before the closing time when I stormed in. The paper work was quickly done, but I was a bit disappointed, that the officer didn't even take a look at the baby to check that the photo matched. Fortunately, the officer promised that we wouldn't need to drive back to Luxembourg to get the passport when it had arrived, but they would send it to us.

Before driving back home, I needed to feed the baby and change her diaper. Looking back, I don't know why I didn't breast feed her in the car, even thought there were people passing by. But I took her to the toilets at the railway station. There were a lot of stairs but no elevator. Just as I was mid-way down the stairs, my phone rang and it was Herr Welle calling. I just angrily replied "I'm in no mood for talking" and hang up.

Luxembourg Railway Station

As I was in the toilet feeding the baby, I heard noises outside. It turned out, that someone was being resuscitated inside the men's toilet. When we left the toilet, there were a lot of paramedics and police officers there in the toilet area, but none of them helped me and the buggy upstairs.

As I was walking back to the car, I checked my phone and noticed a SMS. Herr Welle wrote that they had phoned him from the consulate, because I had left my own passport there. I could go and get it (they would let me in even though they weren't officially open) or they could send it to us with our daughter's passport. I decided to pick it up, as I use it as an ID in Germany.

After our second visit to the consulate, I took this picture,
even though I didn't know I would use it one year later in my blog!

After another visit to the consulate and up to the third floor, I quickly ate something at McDonald's and then we drove back home. When we got home, we were both so tired that we fell asleep at 8, even though my daughter had a habit of crying her colic until midnight. As a result of this trip, I got myself a breast infection. And we still had other thrilling moments to come when waiting for the passport to arrive.

But I guess this is enough for one post. I'll tell you about this thrill in a later post. Stay tuned! :)

Odd German Way No. 4 - the Early Arrival of the Weihnachtsmann

I have found out, how Santa Claus has the time to visit children all over the world on Christmas! I had thought it has something to do with the time zones, but there is another thing helping him: he visits German children already on December 6th!

The previous night, Dec 5th, German children clean their shoes (usually boots) and place them outside the door. During the night, Weihnachtsmann (German name for Santa Claus) brings small gifts, like sweets, apples, nuts and coins, to the shoes. 

Well, this is what my German teacher told me. I guess Santa Claus visits only part of Germany, as for some children it is Nikolaus (dressed like Santa Claus but a different person), who visits on December 6th.

So, is this all the German kids get during Christmas time, some sweets and nuts? No, they will have another visitor as well: Chirstkind!  I thought Christ-child would be a boy, but my German teacher told me I should call the child 'she' (in German das Christkind is neuter). On December 24th, she brings German children their gifts. In many families, she also decorates the Christmas tree while the children are not home.

But you cannot fool these Christmas characters. They must know that we are going to spend Christmas in Finland and Santa Claus will visit us then, so he didn't bring us any treats last night. Or maybe our shoes were not polished enough...

Odd German Way No. 3 - The Nanny Has a Dull Voice

I have finally given up. I will never, NEVER, learn to tolerate the dubbing of TV programs.

First I thought it was just because I didn't understand the language. Now I am starting to understand REAL German programs, but I still cannot follow the American TV series, in which Desperate Housewives or CSI agents speak German. And as it cannot be the language, it must be the fact that I am only concentrating in being annoyed.

As you might guess, in Finland the TV programs are not dubbed. Historically, it has been because it is so much cheaper to use subtitles. But no matter what the reason, I think it has been a good decision.

First of all, it would just sound stupid. As Finland is quite small country, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito and Brad Pitt would probably all have the same voice. And it sounded weird even to hear the Donkey in Shrek to speak Finnish after hearing him with Eddie Murphy's voice.

Secondly, what could be better way to learn a language than to hear it daily on TV (well, being Expat of course, but I guess that is not always an option). Even older generations learn English by watching the Bold and the Beautiful. You can learn some very useful phrases, which are repeated there in regular basis, like "I love you, will you marry me for third time?" or "I'm going to have a baby with my daughters boyfriend".

But back to the situation with the Odd German Way. About a year ago I got really frustrated with this. So, we bought the Unitymedia TV packet, in which you get also some English TV channels. But quite soon the old episodes of Two and Half Men started to repeat themselves on TNT Serie and, unlike my husband, I'm not so interested in current economic situation, that I would like use my evenings watching CNBC.

And then about a month ago there came the last straw: they started dubbing E! Entertainment. Now my friends Kim, Kourtney, Khloe, Kendra and Holly all speak German. Why, WHY?!?!

So, we decided we would invest in Finnish TV programs. Well, they wouldn't need to be Finnish programs (most of those you can see free online), but this was the only way we knew how to get see fresh TV series, which are not dubbed in German. Yesterday we purchased a two week trial period of Finnish service called 'TV Kaista'. In this service, you get a digibox reserved for you in Finland. On this box, all TV programs from all 12 free Finnish TV channels are recorded. The TV programs are saved for four weeks and you can watch them from internet with your own user name and password.

So, now all Finnish TV channels are available for me to watch on my MacBook or on our television via PS3 (finally some use for the PlayStation!). The only minus point here is that you cannot watch them live, but only after the show is over. It is not a problem with TV series, but my husband was a bit disappointed when he realized he wouldn't be able to watch the ice hockey World Cup matches live with Finnish commentary.

And just my luck: yesterday the two week trial period cost 10€, today you get it for free...

P.S. If you were left wondering about the title of this post, I'm referring to the American TV show The Nanny, which is mainly based on the fact that the lead character has a nasal voice and a funny laugh. But in the German version her voice is plain and normal...