Saaga

As I sit here indoors typing away, I am overwhelmed with a feeling that I really ought to be outside frolicking in the lovely sunshine. I swear there is not a cloud in the sky and now with daylight saving, there’s even longer to enjoy it.

It’s really strange. Here I relish the change in the seasons, particularly Winter to Spring, Spring to Summer and even Summer to Autumn. There are really clear differences in the seasons that we just don’t have in Sydney* and additionally, the seasons themselves are, on the whole, pleasant.

Winter is a bit miserable, but living in Düsseldorf means that it never gets too cold, it just rains a lot. It’s similar to Melbourne.

Spring is glorious with all the new flowers and blossoming trees etc. Since most Australian trees are evergreen and our native flowers aren’t so bright, these changes tend to pass us by in Australia.

Summer is also lovely. It may shock you to hear me say this, as in Sydney Summer was my least favourite season. But here the sun warms you, it doesn’t burn you and cook you. That’s the main difference, but a weird positive is that because each season is actually 3 months long, there are lots of activities and foods that are associated with a particular season. People really get into each particular season and enjoy it with relish.

In Spring everybody is busy planting new gardens and enjoying the new found sunlight hours. As far as food goes, we are coming up to asparagus season, which, since I like asparagus, I find rather nice.

In Summer, nobody spends a moment more indoors than they have to. All free time is spent doing outdoors activities - even if this just means sitting around in the beer garden for hours on end.

Autumn, we come into mussel season, so if you like seafood, you’re in luck. Outdoors Autumn is really amazing with the leaves changing colour so suddenly and simultaneously that the whole appearance of a street or a park is changed. There are so many leaves that the council cleans them up every couple of days and yet the piles are still a couple of feet high in places. The colours are amazing and as the air starts to get crisper you start to think about preparing for Christmas and the winter foods.

Of course, Christmas is generally enjoyable in most countries, but in Australia it can feel a bit contrived. You’re forced to sit indoors eating a hot roast (or worse, sitting in a hot car driving from one group of relatives to another to then be forced to repeatedly eat hot roasts) when you would rather be sitting in a swimming pool, drinking a cooler beverage and eating something light and refreshing like a salad… anyway, the point to that rant was that here, the food fits with the weather. Not only that, as you will know from Steve’s posts, for the advent days leading up to Christmas there are Christmas markets in each town. At the markets you can eat lots of yummy food and buy hand made gifts etc (yes, there are stands that sell things other than Gluhwein!!). Of course, Christmas shopping is still a bun-fight, but I have less people to buy presents for here, so it does make it easier.

After Christmas there is a bit of a down period, but for most people in Düsseldorf, this is a period to prepare for the next period of revelry - carnival in February. Carnival is traditionally celebrated to see-off Winter, so after carnival you know that you don’t have too long to wait until Spring again.

And back to me sitting here at my computer looking at the lovely Spring weather outside and wondering what to do to appreciate it more? Any suggestions?

*Of course there are lots of positives about Sydney’s weather and negatives about the weather here, but I’m in a good mood, so just let me have my moment, OK?

Friday night’s dinner was at the Füchschen brewery with Alex’s aunt and uncle. Traditional Rheinisch food can be found there, like Sauerbraten or Kassler, but far more popular are dishes like Schweinehaxe or Eisbein, which are really Bavarian, but due to their deliciousness, people are happy to overlook this.

Füchschen is one of the few remaining traditional brew houses and on the weekend they are overcrowded, as every Düsseldorfer wants to be part of the action. Rathinger Strasse (where the Füchschen is located) has many restaurants and bars, but most of them were empty as the last few stragglers tried to lever their way into the throng that was spilling out on the footpath outside Füchschen.

I also have a new job. Starting in August I will be a regular classroom teacher and will be taking over from a 4th grade teacher that is moving on to a different school. I am pretty happy with this as I know the current grade three very well from working with them as a support teacher.

Yesterday we (Me, Alex, Colin and Sharyn) went to the Fortuna game at LTU Arena. The stadium is quite large (52000) and very modern, which makes a change from what I was used to in Sydney. The 20000 fans sang lustily (at least the Ultras we sat above did) the whole way through the game, even when it became obvious in the last 15 minutes that we were going to lose.
Most of the songs were of the standard football style with a German language twist, but some were actually quite impressive, but too difficult for me to follow. The one I liked most though, was what we initially thought was some kind of Sesame st counting song. The fans started singing their way up from zero and by 30 we had all joined in as well, wondering the whole time why we were singing numbers. When it got to 95 however they started chanting about the number 95 and then launched into another song. It was only then that it dawned on our addled brains that it was because the team was founded in 1895.
The quality of the football was pretty good and at the expense of sounding one eyed, the 3-1 score line was not a good representation of how well Fortuna played. For most of the game, Fortuna seemed stronger than Wuppertal, but had a couple of moments of bad luck that the villains capitalised on.

It was a much different feeling than we had two weeks previous when we went to watch the game against Dresden. The Saxon fans have a really bad reputation for causing trouble and so the train station was filled with police that spent their energies forming lines to herd the unruly Dresdeners from their regional platform to the subway station. On the train station down stairs as well, the cops formed a line across the middle of the platform to separate the fans, so the last carriage could be reserved for the baddies.
My ability to ‘pretend’ to be a dumb tourist allowed us to stay on the bad guys’ carriage when the security sweep came through kicking off all the Fortuna fans. Feeling pleased with myself over my little piece of deception was not to last long, I for when we arrived at the stadium, to our horror we discovered that they were not selling beer. Bastard Dresdeners and their rioting!

We’ve tried to inform everyone personally either via email or over the phone, but in case you haven’t heard - we’re pregnant! The baby’s due in the middle of September, so we’ve just passed the 3 month milestone. And here’s pictorial evidence:

I guess that over the next 6 months or so I’ll be posting about the weirdness of being pregnant and ever expanding, along with any other interesting things that happen. I apologise in advance if it gets a bit gruesome or icky or just plain boring (particularly for those of you who aren’t interested in babies).

I have been commanded by Zombie Master to post (if he is my master, does that make me a zombie?).

So what does the master want me to write about? Well, London was very nice. We saw Monty Python’s Spamalot, which was very funny. The theatre was quite old and amazingly steep. We had the second cheapest seats, which meant that we were almost sitting on top of the stage but about 30 metres up - once false step and you would have become a rather dramatic addition to the performance. Also, as it was a rather old theatre the seats were rather narrow and there was no leg-room. We felt rather cramped, but that is a pretty normal state of affairs particularly for ZM.

We had a nice Saturday with Kat and Adam, who had very kindly come down from Didcot (where? I hear you say…) to spend the day sitting in a pub with us, watching football and getting increasingly annoying, I mean, drunk, I mean jolly (and of course I’m referring to Steve and Adam not the members of the fairer sex).

We visited a few museums, namely the Museum of London and the Imperial War Museum (where everything made me want to cry). Did a bit of shopping and ate lots of yummy multi-cultural food which is a little scarce in Düsseldorf. All in all it was a really nice relaxing 4 days.

On our last visit to London we visited the Tate Modern Gallery to go on the giant indoor slides. This time I made sure that we took the camera so you all could see the slides too:

We’re in the middle of planning and booking our next trip which will be to Spain and Portugal in April. It should be really nice as everyone is always raving about Spain. Also I went to Portugal when I was a kid and had a fantastic time (although if I recall correctly it did seem to have an excess of coach museums. Even now, if I have to look at another gilt carriage again I think I’ll scream!).

We went to watch Fortuna Düsseldorf play Dresden yesterday, which was a weird game. Dresden scored in the 24th minute and by the ninetieth minute Düsseldorf still hadn’t managed to level. Lots of people were standing up and going home and the Dresden fans were looking pretty pleased with themselves. Then in extra time, in the 94th minute, Denis Wolf, who’d only been on the field for about 6 minutes and had already got a yellow card, scored off a corner. All the Düsseldorf players and fans went absolutely mental, but the Dresden fans must have felt really ripped off.

Now Steve is off in Dortmund watching them play Cottbus. I have no idea where Cottbus is, but they are coming 15th at the moment and Dortmund is tenth. I hope they are enjoying themselves, but one football match (in person, I also watched most of the Chelsea-Portsmouth game in the pub yesterday) per weekend is enough for me.

Not much else to write about now, but stay tuned for an exciting update soon.