Yet another new member

Hi Toytown people :) Yet another introduction, so how original can I be? Not very :P We're a US family of 4 headed to Germany (a dream we've had for many years). My husband is fluent in German and has planned on moving back to Germany since forever. So we're finally going to make it happen (overseas job hunting - so fun). I stumbled onto TT by falling onto the employment offered page actually, and then mined the search engine for all it could give me on finding bilingual IT jobs. What a fount of information you all have typed in over the years - it's already been very helpful pointing me to international job agencies that I hadn't yet found. Belated thanks for all your hard work sharing your expertise in the past :)

I've heard everything from every opinion from every friend about living in Germany (even my *German* friends don't agree, 'You'll love it!' or 'Don't live here, are you crazy?'). I lived all over the world as a kid and loved Germany in the brief time we were there. I love to travel, I love new places and cultures, I love the perspective living internationally gives you (and want my kids to have that). I'm good at taking new places for what they are and jumping in and learning about them, the good and the bad. Living internationally as the parent rather than the kid...well, I've got my zen on about the whole family-culture-shock we're undoubtedly going to run into.

So, that's me. Since I'm here, not there, I'll research and lurk (nothing more annoying than a newbie community member spouting off about topics already covered 101 times), but feel free to post or PM. I'll enjoy hearing from anyone who cares to :)

With that attitude and experience you probably won't have the monsterous laments that some of us do/did. Good on ya!

Where are you moving from and to?

Hi CC :) We're coming from Seattle and we're looking everywhere in Germany right now. Really the only places we're avoiding as top choices are the most conservative areas of the south. I do have a good friend in Stuttgart and we're aware that there's a lot of international IT work in Munich (argh - my Dvorak keyboard layout has no international characters) so we're not ruling anything out. If my choices is "get to Germany in the south" or "not get to Germany" I don't have any hesitations really. Nothing is written in stone yk? A foot in the door gets you a long way toward your goals :)

How long have you been there and where do you hail from?

SS

You may want to reconsider your use of initials.

When you say the "most conservative areas of the south", that may be true of Bavaria, but not of Munich. IMHO, Munich is quite open and liberal. It's quite a change from having lived near Stuttgart for three years. Munich calls itself "the northernmost city in Italy", conveniently ignoring the smaller country of Austria in between

My father grew up in Starnberg, just south of Munich, and went to school in Munich. He always raved about Munich. Now I've lived here for the last 12 years, and love it!

You sound open-minded enough that you'll adapt quickly. I'll warn you that the German school system is rather brutal. I had to confess to my 12-year old daughter, that school was much easier in the U.S. On the positive side, the schools are *much* safer here. No metal-detectors, armed guards, etc. I'd much rather have my daughter in the difficult schools here, than the unsafe ones in the U.S.! Also, there's more cohesiveness in the class, because most of the kids remain together as a group (at least in the Gymnasium schools) throughout the seven years.

Munich does offer a lot of high-tech and IT jobs. I worked for a software company here before going freelance.

Let me know if you have any specific questions. Happy hunting!

Yikes - you are so right! Context is everything...eeep!


Ooo - thank you for the perspective :) Though my sweetie did a lot of traveling when he could, you never get more than generalizations that way, yk? What do you love most about living there?


Heh. It's guaranteed that within a month of getting there I'll find something that I don't think I can possibly live with. Cause that's Murphy's law of moving! I just hope I have the flexibility to get beyond that point :P


Though I know the school transition will be hard for my sons I value having a better education for them. Even assuming they'll go into international schools at first, they both have mild learning disorders so there's no way it won't be challenging for them. I still remember my best friend my sophomore year of high school (a German foreign exchange student) who loafed her way through that school year. She was at about college level in every subject and she was 16 yo :P I just hope we can find a good match. I'm very curious to see how schools there manage learning issues (one has a developmental delay the other has an emotional delay and both are scary-smart so letting them be bored is a Bad Idea). Germany wouldn't have to work very hard to beat the US in this department - I only hope they do!

Oh heck - specific questions? You really wanna open that box? :D I think I've given the TT search engine a workout on the subject, but any brilliant insights you have for how best to find bilingual IT helpdesk work, you lay 'em on me!

Most of the stuff I'm currently researching is actually in relation to the school issues. If there was no school that was a decent match for my kids, that would be a make or break deal for us. And I cannot find *anything* specific online on the issues of disability within the school system there. Somewhere between "extremely academically demanding" and "the land of Montessori and Waldorf" I have to believe we'll find what my kids need. But it remains a big fear for me. I don't want this one factor to jeopardize all of the other advantages they stand to gain growing up in Germany - safety, freedom of transportation, bicultural learning, smaller town living, fantastic travel possibilities etc.

Hmmm. Other questions? Has the "drink this can of German" language learning course been invented yet? :D I'm currently working with Rosetta Stone actually - and it's great. I'm retaining what I learn phenomenally well (I never could learn languages the conventional way in school) and it's fun. But nothing can make it go any faster, yk? We've just gotten a copy of "Tell Me More" which is apparently the cat's meow, better than Rosetta, does your dishes and sings babies to sleep. I can't wait to try it but I doubt it'll make the process any faster :) My sweetie being fluent gives me a place to practice but oi - work :)

Thanks for the welcome & hope your day is a good one,

silversun

The school system can be great for learning math and the sciences. However, just make sure to not let your kids get brainwashed by the German way of doing business. Their way may work fine for Germany but the rest of the world has different ideas about how to run a business.

Math and science are where the US school system is falling on its face right now, so that's no bad thing. We have a constant family dialog about ways and means of life and try to keep the kids very critical of what they learn, from any source, about how things must work or should work. Crossing my fingers that our strategy is working

Do you have kids in the school system? Any experiences you care to share (old threads or here)?

Thanks for your post and I hope your day is a good one!

silversun