As I sit and stare out my window at the dark clouds and gently falling rain, I find myself thinking “what am I doing here?” I look down at the Dark Weiss beer on my desk, my snowboard all waxed up and ready to go in the corner, and the answers come flooding back, I am in the middle of Europe in a country that shaped the modern world! There are definitely worse places I could be.  I lived in England and thought it was the gateway to Europe, now I know Germany is, its where East meets West, and north to south, stretching from the Alps the North Sea.

Ask any South African about a place they have just visited, and they always mention the weather.  I love the German weather and am finding more and more to love the longer I stay.

Germans are proud people who don’t easily let others into their world. Many times I have felt like a Londoner with a Cockney accent at a Ventersdorp farmers meeting when walking into the local pub. In a way that reminds me a bit of home, but unlike us they have made peace with their past. They have learned to live with a past that they can’t change. They look forward with pride and the knowledge of all the goodness that they posses in them. For me it was a lesson I dearly needed and will never forget.

So Prost! To Germany!
Even if it never stops raining.