Winter ist gekommen...

The snowy path to victory...

So, as many of you may have noticed, winter is well and truly here, and has been for a while. You guys back in GB got the snow a few days before us and I heard about all the excitement back home, so couldn't wait for the proper snow to fall here.

Then it fell, and... nothing really. I don't really know what I was expecting, but snow is not really a big deal here at all, more a blooming nuisance that has to be dealt with for a 3 month period every year. I guess since there's no real doubt about whether snow will fall or not, there's less excitement when it actually comes. The most worked up people get is when they hear the S-Bahn has a 7 minute delay - shock horror. I've seen maybe one group of kids playing in the snow, a couple of pathetic snowmen and the odd little snowball fight has broken out at Uni, but otherwise its pretty much business as usual.

That said, it is bloody lovely here at this time of year. The christmas markets (which will earn their own post due to their true awesomeness) are all open, and every day at Uni there's a group of hardy students set up outside the Mensa selling waffles and sending the quintessential german smell of christmas (Glühwein of course) wafting along in the breeze. The problem with living in a part of the world which is just city after city after city is that there's nothing really to do when it snows, you either escape to the ski slopes (which, lets face it, is a bit gay) or go to the park and arse around. Give me a deathly steep hill and a little piece of plastic any day of the week.

Aside from the snow, I've been continuing in my quest to be more German, and getting German people to be more English. When a friend from me asked me if I knew any 'geile Weibe', he explained that meant 'hot bitches', to which I retorted that one does not say 'hot bitches' where I come from, but 'fit birds' would be much better. To see him spend the whole statistics party saying things like 'ich habe gerade mit einige fit birds gechattet' was priceless. I also took part in a Skat (impossibly complicated card game) tournament and managed to avoid ending with a minus score (I achieved 3, to be precise). The fact the winner got near to 1000 was scheißegal.

Schön, aber verdammt kalt

Also visited the Gasometer in Oberhausen which is basically a massive Gasometer converted into a sort of art gallery with awesome space photos, a lift up 200m to the roof and a huge (practically life-sized) model of the moon, but in sub-zero temperatures (its not heated of course) looking at pictures of stars was challenging. I suppose that's what you call suffering for art.

 On my side of things, I'm seriously considering changing my name. Or rather changing how I say it. It's become somewhat of a ritual for me to introduce myself as Rowan and be met with confused looks and 'WAS? Wrorun? Wrowan? Ronan?', to which I then explain:
'you would pronounce it CHROVANN'
'Ahhhh Chrovann, danke schön!'

So from now on I would appreciate it if you would all call me 'Chrovann Brunnsvickk'. Or Braunschweig as the surname if I want to be really German. It's all part of the process.