I still call Australia tasty

The sudden shift in seasons has taken us a little by surprise. Weren't we frolicking through golden hued leaves in light-weight clothing just a few weeks ago? Temperatures of 9 and lower sent us scuttling for warmer clothing. But even wearing all our warmest Melbourne clothing at once didn't seem to be enough. I felt like someone who has turned up to an auction, feeling confident that they'll do well, only to have the bidding whirl past their highest price in a matter of seconds. Gazumped by the cold as Thieu put it.

It's feet that are my problem - coldness thereof. Mine are often cold when they have no good reason to be, so the downturn in degrees has not been pleasant for them. Last week I went and purchased some (fake) fur-lined boots and some furry innersoles to shove in them for good measure. Bliss. It's like sticking your foot into an inverted teddy bear, but it's certainly made a difference when I'm standing around in the local park.

So far Mads hasn't seemed too bothered by the coldness. In fact, she mostly complains about being too hot when we get on the train or go to the shops where the heating is insanely high. Otherwise, life continues as normal. Mads is enjoying playing with the Australia puzzle sent by the grandparents, but more as a set of ingredients than as a puzzle. Here is a tasty feast she cooked up for us on the weekend:

Somehow I managed to wangle it so that I scored Western Australia. It was a little dry in the middle but quite delicious around the coast. Thieu got South Australia and said it tasted of Farmers' Union iced coffee and frog cakes.

Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag

Now that Mads has had her first German Birthday, I thought I'd make some notes on things I've learned about German Birthday customs. They may be of use next year.

No Pre-Birthday Birthdays

Maybe I'm wrong here, but my feeling is that in Australia if you are going to have a 'do' for a Birthday you choose the day closest to the actual day. So, if your Birthday is on a Saturday but you want to have a cake and champers at work, you'd do it on the Friday rather than wait until the Monday because it's closer in actual days. Is that right? In Germany it seems to be bad luck (or at least bad form) to pre-empt a Birthday. You don't wish people happy birthday in advance and you can't take a cake to the kindergarten before the day.

Also, I discovered to my horror, you are expected to bake a cake for your child's kindergarten birthday. Explaining that you are a terrible cook and the cake will be very flat makes no difference. You have to do it anyway.

Cake Carriers

I must admit I used to chortle whenever I saw people walking around carrying their cakes in one of these. I guess they are probably available in Australia, I'd just never seen one before. Maybe we are a nation that simply doesn't transport cakes much or maybe it's more about my own deliberate avoidance of cake-making or carrying. But when I realised there was no way out of making a cake for the kindergarten, I borrowed one of these transporters from someone and frankly, it was great. The cake barely moved as I swung it around, although that could have been because the cake was about 5 centimetres high and somewhat heavy. Still. It did make the train trip easier and the cloudy plastic stopped people from being able to see just how flat my cake was.

Birthday Registries

I've noticed that a lot of the big department stores here have a system where a kid who is about to have a birthday is given one of the store's plastic tubs to fill up with all the things they'd like their guests to give them. Then the tub is labelled and left in a shelf so that guests can come and choose things from it to give at the party. A sort of bridal registry, I guess, but for kids' gifts. Do these exist in Australia? I've not seen them.

And finally:
A kid dressed up as an obscure bright red super hero with bunny ears will attract less attention at Rome Termini than you might expect.

(See below)

Still here

So yes, there has been slackness on the blogging front of late which has been owing, in part, to there being a large amount of writing to be done in a short amount of time and to our recent slew of visitors (all of which we adored having!). First there was the delightful Marisa who overcame an unfortunate incident with a bad burrito early on in her stay and rallied to play endless games of 'Super Mouse' with Mads, even though she was herself only ever allowed to be 'regular cat'.

Then last week Matti and Evie arrived, which was very exciting, not the least because they speak German so finally we had someone to tell us what our mail said. I did discover, however, that it's a little humilating to have an 8 year old order for you in a cafe, so I began pretending I had larynjitus. One evening we took them to one of the Sachsenhausen Apple Wine Bars where the photo above was taken. I am leaning forward because I always look like I have a pin head in photos (although my head is actually quite large) and frankly, I'm tired of it.

Another day there was a visit to a reconstructed Roman barracks. I didn't go on that excursion, but apparently there was an impressive display of barracks-related items including a sandal, some weapons and handcuffs. It made quite an impression on Mads. When she got home she went straight to her room and made handcuffs for the Donnies (both hard and soft) with pipe cleaners. Then she left them on her floor to think about their misdeeds.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to the Frankfurt book fair. It's the biggest book fair in the world and I suspect it will be a somewhat sobering experience in some ways, but it should be interesting too.

Then on Friday we are going to Itri to meet up with Evie and Matti for the weekend and hopefully catch the last of the rapidly diminishing European warmth.

In which my cooking nearly kills me

There has been a definite seasonal change in Frankfurt during our absence. The days are much shorter, the air is cooler and there are piles of dead leaves everywhere. There is also a preponderance of pumpkins and squash. These are not only in the supermarket but arranged decoratively outside people's houses. Early halloween preparations? I'm not sure.

On Sunday we visited a nearby Schloss (which turned out to be another castle that didn't measure up to Mads' exacting castle standards) and, inspired by the general autumness of our surrounds, we collected up some chestnuts to roast in the oven that evening. I actually don't really like chestnuts all that much - they are so floury - but it seemed like a cosy, autumny thing to do. Besides, they kept falling out of the trees and clonking us on our heads.

'I have a feeling we're supposed to score the top of them,' I said to Thieu as I bunged the chestnuts in the oven, 'but that's probably just to make them easier to peel.'

Ah. Not so it would seem. 45 minutes later we heard a loud bang in the kitchen. The fine white powder covering the inside of the oven (and the fragments of shell) would have probably been enough to convince most people that a chestnut had exploded. But it wasn't enough proof for me. I took another chestnut out of the oven and popped it into the water-filled sink where it obligingly exploded for me, very nearly taking out an eye. I shut the oven door and no one ventured near the kitchen again until the oven was stone cold. The chestnuts tasted terrible.

Ah, autumn.

Pharlap

When Mads and I were at the Melbourne Museum during the first week of our trip we were on our way to visit the poo in the body section and somehow ended up in the Australian history section instead. Maybe subconsciously I steered us there, thinking a bit of a top up on Australiana wouldn't hurt. We've definitely seen enough poos. Mads didn't seem all that impressed by Pharlap but she was intrigued by the archival footage of him playing nearby. She sat and watched the entire loop three or four times.

Nothing more was said about it until this afternoon when Mads announced she wanted to 'play Pharlap.' She, naturally, took the starring role as the great horse himself. What do you think my role was? One of the other horses, perhaps? The jockey? Perhaps someone cheering in the crowd? The camera man filming the race?

No.

I had to be the giant white arrow that points out where Pharlap is in the archival footage. In practical terms this meant I had to run along beside her pointing at her head as she galloped along. Is that strange? It seemed quite strange.

Adobe Punk

For the first few days back in Melbourne I kept turning my head everytime I heard someone speak, thinking 'they're Australian!'. But the appeal and amazement quickly faded and by the end of the first week I started to feel irritated by being able to understand everything everyone said. It was way too much information all the time. And most of it was deathly dull. I found myself listening to a couple of young women on a tram one day, but they were having pretty much exactly the same conversation I overheard in London. At the risk of sounding really, really old, don't young women have anything else to talk about? Something more interesting for old women to eavesdrop on?

Then there were the people who decided to talk to me, even though I'd shown no interest in talking with them - like the woman who berated me for letting Mads walk in a flower bed near the floral clock ('These gardens are for everyone, not just you!') and who didn't apologise when I pointed out Mads was actually walking along a path.

The worst bit was when I started suspecting people were eavesdropping on me. A woman sat ridiculously close to Mads and me in a not-crowded train back from the zoo last week. I swear she was listening to the story I was making up about the day Mads went to super-hero kindergarten.

But luckily last Saturday afternoon something that made all the listening in worth while. I was catching the tram back from town at 5 pm and a group of young male punks got on the tram, talking loudly and swigging from a red wine bottle. The thing I noticed about them, besides the loudness, was that they weren't all that convincing as punks. They had the hair and the clothes, but there was something kind of nerdy about them. One had glasses which he kept pushing up his nose in an almost nervous way while raving on at the top of his voice about how much pot he smoked that morning. It was quite odd.

And then, once they'd finished discussing pot, they started talking about computer programs. One of them took a large swig of wine and said 'the great thing about Illustrator is that you can save a path, import it into a new file and apply the same path to the new file.' It was a most unexpected topic of conversation for a group of punks and I found myself edging a little closer - party out of surprise but partly because I've always been a little hazy about using paths in Illustrator. But unfortunately they got off at the next stop, leaving me unclear as to whether they were really punks or just graphic designers on their way to a dress up party. I was also still unclear about using paths in Illustrator.

Still, it was an satisfying bit of eavesdropping. I doubt I'll see its like again in the six days left of my stay here.

Sneaky

A few things have taken me by surprise recently (and not just the kilo per month I've gained while living on a diet of beer, salty bread and potatoes). Like, for instance, Mads and I are getting on a plane tomorrow night and flying to Melbourne. I really should pack.

I also knew, but have only just taken seriously the fact that I have five days of book week school visits ahead of me (including one session with a group of 120 high school students, which is making me feel a little queasy). And then there's this event (it's at 10 am by the way Sally). I need to work out what I'm going to do for that because surely I can't just read for an hour?

I think the reason I haven't really let myself dwell on any of these events until now is because it would require me to think about the thing I am fearing most of all: the long haul flight, on my own, with my not-great-traveller three year old. I have packed books and toys galore but I suspect I will spend most of the time pretending that my arm is a sea slug called Celina which is what I can be found doing most afternoons on the train home from kinder. Still, hopefully the pain (and the RSI) will be forgotten shortly after we disembark and I hand Mads to the grandparents.

The blog will be on holidays too until mid September when we return as hopefully I'll be catching up with the two of you who read this blog in person shortly.

Wish me luck.