Diana Elle Blog

When moving to Germany you will need to choose your Health Insurance provider as soon as you get here, you will need proof of adequate health insurance to get your residency permit and you need the residency permit to open your  bank account .  Health insurance is mandatory for all employees and students in Germany, you will not be able to start working or studying without it. Students are offered a special rate, we paid around 70 Eur for all three of us when Pablo was doing his master's.  When you are insured through the government/state system you only have to pay a nominal fee for medicine (usually 5 Eur) the rest is paid for by the insurance company. the same goes for hospital stays and ambulance rides you don't pay it all, you pay a nominal fee (at least in our case). You will have the option to choose the expatriate health insurance that fits you best.  You get peace of mind knowing that your chosen health insurance provid...

Originally I was going to make this post about hospitals and how in the two and a half years I've lived here, I have visited 5 of them and stayed in two.  But  something happened and  It requires me to talk about  Hamburg ,  the first city we lived in by ourselves, as a family of three  and a city we fell in love with. It is the city we will be moving back to this summer !  Wait, WHAT ?  Yeah. It's been confirmed. Pablo starts work on July  June 1st.  We love Hamburg so much we weren't able to adapt well to Kaiserslautern, such a shame i know, but the good news is we will be returning to our favorite city.. wir ziehen nach hamburg am 1. Juli um! Posted by Life in German. on Thursday, April 9, 2015 It has to do mainly with the fact that we weren't able to get a spot for Avi in any of the kindergartens we 'applied' to. I mean, hello, she's five, its kind of a big deal ! I actually met another lady at t...

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers, in honor of it being thanksgiving, I thought it would be a good idea to share some of what I ate while we were in the hospital. I haven't uploaded my menu plans for over a month, mainly because our food was being provided and I wasn't doing any cooking (just 'preparing' our breakfast and abendbrot,  evening bread). The times we were home I was too busy with other stuff that I just bought whatever I felt like cooking and only did a quick plan on my way to the grocery store , which is also why i've been a little MIA lately, there is SO much to do around the house, I'll post an update soon enough.  Back to what I ate while we were in the hospital, they had a good variety, offering 4 -5 different meal options per day (3 regular ones and 2 vegetarian). I managed to snap a couple of pictures of  some of my lunches, I don't remember what everything was called, I think I might have written it down...

It is always a good thing to bring extra items to keep your child entertained, whether it's for keeping them distracted while traveling, or a stay in a hospital. Avi had surgery done yesterday, thank God everything went fine, in fact, the area that was operated was even smaller than we had foreseen, that's always a good thing, right? Now we just have to wait for it to heal and take extra care so she doesn't end up with that much of a scar.  We will be spending the next five days in the hospital, but this time I came prepared. I brought a bunch of snacks and activity books for her to keep entertained, since she won't be able to get off of the bed in a while. In the backpack you will find similar items to what I will be packing in her carry on backpack when we travel in three weeks! The backpack is filled with: - Comic book/coloring book - Phone/iPod with age appropriate games  what she uses most is mainly the electronics,   - Mandala creator -...