Tuesday 14th December
We arrived into Dusseldorf on a cold Tuesday evening to find Jan (Yarn) and Thomas' girlfriends, Hannah and Helena, waiting in the terminal lounge rather eagerly! I stood patiently as the couples reunited. If you've ever seen Love Actually, the situation was somewhat similar to when the Prime Minister arrives at Heathrow in the end. I looked around for my “Natalie” (movie reference) but surprisingly no one was waiting for me...not even customs. Oh well!!
We eventually hit the road and headed to Jan's home in a town called Hamm about an hour from Dusseldorf. The journey home consisted of Denglish, a mixture of German and English, and my language education began. Helena asked me to phone a friend of hers who was jealous that I would be speaking English to Helena ad Thomas. For a few moments I felt important!
We made it to Hamm where Jan's parents were waiting for us all to arrive with food already on the table...they won me over immediately!
Jan’s mother, Annette, is an English/Maths teacher so talking with her was easy. Jan’s father, Gunther, has excellent English as well, however slightly more broken than the others...but we managed.
After dinner Jan’s father offered me a non-alcoholic German beer. How could I refuse? I think it must be sacrilegious to drink beer from the bottle in Germany so Gunther showed me the technique of pouring a German beer. As to the taste...the jury is still out on this one!
It grew late quickly and we all packed it in for the night given the day ahead of us tomorrow!
Gute nacht und schlaf gut!
(Goodnight and sleep well)
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| Jan (Yarn) and Thomas boarding the plane through the fog |
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| Gunther (Jan's dad) preparing my beer! |
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