You've been living in Germany too long when...

you look at the average high of January in Heidelberg being 3.8 degrees and say "wow, that's heaps warm!" ...at least the South Australian in me is not lost.

Mine until February!

Yesterday I picked up the bike that I am renting for the rest of the semester, and even rode it twice! When I was a child, Dad used to take my brother and me up to the road and let us ride along the straight-ish, flat-ish part where he could still see us. This was obviously much better than riding around the house under the verandah, but the very best was going to the park and riding around the track while Mum and Dad walked the dog. When I was 14 we moved to the city and though I think we pretended for a while and had bikes, they were soon forgotten (though I don't actually think I even had one any more when we moved). Anyway, my point is, since I was a child, there have been precious few times that I've ridden a bike, so it is exciting that I have finally got one... just in time for it to get cold.

I also now have give me a home among the gum trees in my head, and also kookaburra sits in the old gum tree. Probably a slight improvement on Strawberry Kisses, though.

Anyway, I had had my bike for less than six hours when DISASTER STRUCK. I rode it to town and locked it up on Bismarckplatz, then walked to meet Laurence and Zoe for coffee. Then we decided to go and see König der Löwen (The Lion King) in 3D in Mannheim (a 20-minute train ride away), so walked back down Hauptstrasse, and I was going to get my bike and take it to the station. Unfortunately, the lock that came with it was really stiff, and none of us could get it undone. So after about fifteen minutes of standing around trying to undo the blasted lock, Laurence (bless him) carried the locked bike on his shoulder it to the bike shop on Plöck to see if they could help/ supply me with a new lock. We got a few strange looks (we could very well have been stealing the bike, really) and when we got to the shop, there was a sign in the door saying that they closed at 1pm that day. Sooo we left it there, and I will go in tomorrow before/ after (probably after ;) class and see what they can do.