pmd

  Metall, thanks for your informative post.   I'm still curious what do PE teachers do in Turnen? Surely there has to be instances were some sort of physical contact is unavoidable? 

OP,  what happens when the children have to do Turnen? It would seem to me that it would be required for some physical contact between the PE teacher and a participating student (obviously in appropriate areas)  when dismounting from an apparatus or doing exercises.    Reading your posting, it seems that it was a mistake by the teacher if there was a school policy in place regarding swimming. The teacher put the decision on your son which was wrong in the circumstances.    But in my eyes, it has all escalated way too much. I would personally talk again with the principal and the teacher, clear the air, shake hands and move on. Following this,  it will be crystal clear what the school policy is to everyone present.

In a perfect world, the OP delivers the neighbour's second package which contains an anger management book. 

We are in the process of decluttering the Kellar in order to build a home office. Quite a bit of success with eBay Kleinanzeige and zu verschenken - we put  up unused boxes of tiles and they were gone within minutes. A guy thought we had more and wanted to drive from Bremen to collect them! Also garden tools and metal. We had quite a lot of childrens things that we made into a job lot - the lady who came brought a big bag of apples that she had picked from her garden which was nice.  A carpet took a while to shift though.   Furniture is almost impossible to give away. It works both ways though - the home office desk and lamp came from eBay also so we helped someone else's decluttering 

  Yes, the old Mieles are legendary for their longevity..you just don't get that level of reliability any more in consumer products.

Ok. Update on the Miele we bought 2 and a half years ago. Couple of days ago, I heard a knocking sound every time the drum was rotated. The Miele technician looked at it yesterday. He said the bearings were completely worn down and basically nothing could be done to repair it. He was really surprised and said usually he sees it in much older machines. We use it a lot but it should have lasted longer in my opinion. This along with the earlier touchpad problem means no more Miele.   Just as well my wife had taken out extra insurance in Saturn or we'd be up the creek.

  Thanks. Don't think that your 40 odd lessons were wasted - you were learning the whole time and gaining experience.  I probably had around the same number.   What you need now is a change and a fresh pair of eyes to iron out the mistakes. 

  I second that suggestion! My original driving instructor got stressed with me and I got stressed with him. It got to the stage that I was not making any improvement and hating the lessons.    It helped that I moved to neighbouring town but I took a break of a couple of weeks, started in a new school (with a younger, but excellent instructor). I had maybe 6 sessions around the new area I would be tested on, had the test and passed first time. The important thing is keep at it but really focus on  your mistakes..As my second instructor said, 'We are in Germany. We never give up!'

  What's your friend doing now? Actually probably best we don't know 

 Ok, sorry for reviving a 15 year old thread but currently watching Die Bergretter and they've said 'scheisse' 17 (!) times at this stage..and I didn't even start watching it from the start..Oh, make that 18!! 

  This BBC article is from 2013 and gives a good overview of trends in UK internal migration:   https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-21511904  

The music magazine Q has stopped publishing. When the news was announced a few weeks ago, there was an online comment about one of the regular pieces called 'Who The Hell Do They Think They Are?' where they would interview celebrities. Well Jimmy Saville was interviewed in around 1990 and the interview is mind boggling (there's a scan online ) - it's basically the Louis Theroux interview done 10 years earlier.

  Sorry OP to hear about your experiences. What I will say is you can experience prejudice when you speak the same language perfectly - personally, I had the 'you Irish go home' twice in my life (in the UK and US, not at work). If the person has a predisposition , there's little you can do about it. Move on.    Racism is out of order at work - you need to report it to a different person and get it investigated properly.   Airports - I suppose you have the normal hierarchies as well as the pressures of working in an environment where security has to be to the fore. It's never going to be your typical workplace.

  Probably no reason to keep doing it in Germany where the Stadt collects the rubbish - I did it before I moved to Germany where private firms collected rubbish and you trusted then to dispose of it in official dumps.    Old habits die hard.

I would never leave anything with my name and address on it in the rubbish. If, for whatever reason, the rubbish ends up illegally dumped, the Stadt can accuse you of dumping it.