Hanover

I am spending the weekend in Hanover, the former capital of the glorious Prussian empire - the birthplace of the British Royal Family. It's my first foray into Germany and my conclusion is that everything they say about the German character is true. The evidence - German trains are the best, comfortable, well organised and everthing looked onto a well-oiled timetable. This in itself would mean nothing. But as we pulled into Koln; the German way imposed it's will on me.

First, the Koln train station is a hyper-realised example of Usefulness. Who needs a facade or an imposing building? All you need is a skeletan structure of cast-iron ribbing to keep the rain off. Then I wonder down into the guts of the station, expecting the usual smattering of dodgy food stalls, cafe's and station bars. Instead, I found a ... shopping centre. How practical! I thought as I slapped my head on the face. It makes immense sense. People travel to buy things. Let's cut the distance from the station to the goods. Just hop off the station and buy. Furthermore, you alleviate the problem of empty and dangerous railway stations as you can easily combine the security forces of both the shopping centre and the railway station thereby making it safer for all.

Now don't think this is peculair to Koln as when I arrived in Hanover, it was exactly the same. Yes, the same no nonsense hardheaded realism that makes life richer and more joyful for greater numbers of Germans.

Once into Hanover, I met Sebastien, a former flatmate from sunny Sydney. I met up with his friends who then apologised for how boring Hanover is. But it's not. I walked around Hanover and there was much to see. Hanover had the absolutely shit bombed out of it in the Second World War and the Hanoverrians have done a remarkable job restoring it. Old churches reconstructed, buildings from different areas carefully restored. Hanover boasts a lovely town hall from the days of the old Hapsburg empire. There were also leftovers from the Nazi regime, an eternal reminder of darker days.

The undeniable jewel of Hanover is the public transport system. Their buses are brightly coloured boxes that roam around the city powered by bio-gas - that's right horseless carraiges powered by pig-shit. After all Germany at the moment is jointly governed by the Greens which is slowly falling apart. The buses are big and roomy with large windows, all the better to see the sights of Hanover with. The seating arrangement is diverse and you can face whichever way you want and there is even a section separated for the back-of-the-bus people. Raised a bit higher and seats that face each other. A group of drunken Germans can be drunk together at the back of the bus whilst only minimally disturbing the rest of the passengers. And Hanover boasts one of the more arresting bus-stops I have seen. I can only describe it as a large vertical wok.

However, I was most impressed with their integrated tram/train/sub-way system. Some streets in Hanover have been designated as tram-only streets. Given that these trams hurtle around the streets at a rather disconcerting speed, god help any little old ladies who hobble across the street with their walking frames. These same trams then enter the sub-way system in the inner city where they accelerate into angry beasts of the underground. As it is unseely for sub-ways not to have platforms, the train/trams have a dual entry system where the exits extend horizontally to meet the platforms in the sub-way, whereas as trams, they trans-former away into steps that lead onto level ground. Finally, when these trams head into the outskirts, they can suddenly accelerate up to 100 km/hours to reach the nether regions of Hanover, the old Expo 2000 site for instance.

And finally, a few words about German cuisine. It's not true that Germans don't know how to eat. I'm a bit of a fan of the old Bratwurst and in Germany, there are sausage stores everywhere. They serve it perfectly. A big long sausage is served on a tiny little of bun - a most pleasing ratio of sausage to bread with a generous dollop of mustard. And you can yummy matjes fillets on bread.

Snow

Coming from a harsh dry place like Australia, you never see the snow. The first time I saw snow I was in La Charmee, a tiny village in the south-east of France in Bourgonne. It was at night and pitch dark all around. By turning on the outside light of the house I saw large white flakes drifiting down from the heavens above forming this unbelievable layer on the ground. Because of the lack of light, the snow seemed to have been attracted to light as flies drift towards the mozzie killer - zap-zap, zap-zap. Cast over the countryside was this blanket of white, yet the snow would artistically arrange itself on every branch, rock and stone. Walking in the snow produces a crunching noise just this side of the sound of nails on a blackboard.

Falling snow is kind like a hug not haranguing like rain. The flakes of snow wraps gently around your clothing before melting and saturing through your body to freeze you to death.

Noel en La Charmee

I now know how Christmas is supposed to be celebrated. Here I was, stuck in Paris, nowhere to go, missing kinda that familial atmosphere that is one's birthright in the time of Christmas. When, my friend Olivier offers to take me back to his family's home for Christmas. Of course I accepted. I was no fool.

So we travel some 9 hours deep into the south-east of France (the trains in France are excellent). We change trains at Dijon and make our way to Lyon. From Lyon we get picked up by Olivier's mom and her irascible neighbour and we head out into the pastoral fields. As we travel, the population density drops. Lyon has some million people. Then we pass through Chalon-sur Soane, which has 60,000 and finally we turn into a tiny road into La Charmee, a small village of maybe 60 families. By this time it was dark and when we pulled up into the family house, it loomed into me out of the frail light of the little car. Namely, a 200 year old French cottage complete with stone walls, big country windows and a roaring fire inside the house.

The house was thankfully warm as all houses tend to be in Europe in winter - may you never suffer a power blackout in Europe in winter. A large large room that was both living room and dining room took up the lower floor whilst the bedrooms made up the top floor. Simple design, a delight to live in.

Then onto Christmas dinner proper. In this case, Olivier's mom, his aunty and her partner, Olivier's brother and grandmother made up the company. And of course, the token Australian. For starters, we chomped on this kind of cheese-pastry, a minituaire cabbage called an ondive, and some guacamole (Olivier's mother thinks fusion but cooks francais). Then we talk for half an hour, or in my case, listen. Every so often, they'll ask me something in kindergarten french and my face will contort into thinking mode and then I'll spray out a sentence of dog-french. Painful, yet fastly enjoyable as everyone would roar in sympathetic laughter.

Now, I have been looking forward to the second course all day. It was foie gras, translated, it means 'liver fatty'. Story goes that hunters found that geese killed just before the winter migration had particularly delicious livers - larger, plumper with a smoother texture. Consequently, those wilely frenchman realised that you can forcefeed geese to simulate the storage of food for winter and then slaughter them for their livers to make foie gras. Foie gras is the jewel of peasant French cuisine. Normally beyond the reach of the average French family, Olivier's sisters had pulled some favours from a gourmet chef friend of hers. I was told that such 'ostentation' is reserved only for the yuletide celebrations in families such as Olvivier's.

As for the foie gras itself: it's pure liver of which I am not sure if it was cooked or not packed into a block with some kind of jelly through it. In effect, it is a solid chunck of liver. Sliced, everyone was served one special piece. It is special because it has the smoothest texture that melts in your mouth whereas the test has a very strong flavour that I find it hard to describe to people who don't normally eat internal organs. And of course, we were served bread. Lots of bread. And there was a special wine, specially recommended for foie gras - white, light and very sweet. The first tasting was the best. It was almost as enjoyable watching Olivier eat his foie gras as eating it myself. Like a prisoner tasting his first sight of freedom, Olivier tasted his first portion of foie gras.

We talk for another hour and then moved onto the next course.

Which was, baked small potatoes and a, of all things, kangaroo casserole. I have a feeling that the French probably eat more kangaroos than Australians. Australians feel weirded out to think of eating their coat of arms. But I say, what better way to assimilate than to partake in our national mascot in a material way. And we ate more bread and drank more wine.

Then we talk some more. And out comes the cheese. There was camembert, two types of goat cheese, and a nice hard mature cheese with a sliver of blue through the middle. And we ate the cheese with bread. And more bread. By the end of the dinner I was an expert at ripping out a healthy chunk of bread from the stick of baguette.

To finish off, after talking some more, out came two large baskets of profitterole kind of things. If memory serves me correct, then they were called chou de creme, or cabbage of cream. There was vanilla and chocolate. Whoa-hoa-hoa I didn't know if I could fit any more in but I trooped ahead and consumed to my delight and my stomach's demise.

Then there was more bread and coffee. After that was some present opening etc