Hi all,
Hope you are well. Its only 14 days now until I’m back, and I’m thinking about it every day. We have been having a great time here in Tübingen, and I’m a little nervous about coming back to Brisbane.

A couple of weeks ago we went to France to visit friends from my food co-op days. They are living in Lyon. Lisa was finishing her study, while Steve is living the good life and doing a little travel. This weekend just gone, they returned the visit and came to Tübingen to visit us (and drink a little German beer).

Their timing was uncanny, as they day the arrived we were going to the Deutsch-America Institute to talk to a bunch of German teachers, who had come from all over Germany, and that are preparing to travel to Brisbane. Where they will stay for 3 weeks of lectures on Australian Culture. Steve and Lisa decided to come along for question time and offer they knowledge freely as seasoned Australians. The Teachers were lovely and ended up giving as a small cash thank you and taking us all out for a traditional Swabish dinner.

We were lucky enough to have the knowledgeable Prof. Dr. Gerhard Stilz sitting with us who is in part responsible for us being here, as he initiated the Tübingen-Australia exchange program. He was a wealth of knowledge and offered us some initial travel advice for our next adventure to India (hopefully in December - which we hear is a good time to visit India). It was also a breath of fresh air to participate in an down to earth discussion about indigenous culture in Australia.

Yesterday, Ellie got lucky and finally convinced Steve and Lisa to go and visit the Ritter Sport Chocolate factory, naturally I tagged along. Check out the photos below for an idea of how much we walked away with. Steve was also extremely happy to find some frisbees… which I was regretting the next day after pulling a muscle. I also included a photo of a chicken van, just for the amusement value.

What else have I been up to? I’ve also been hacking away at the Yet Another Photo Blog module for Wordpress Blog software, so that it reads data from my Zen Cart Store. Creating a new (more intuitive way to view my photos). I haven’t finished yet, but will let you know how to get there when I finish the site. I’ll also share the code here if your interested in setting up something similar. However for the next few weeks I have to put my head down and do some serious study.

I think you are probably just getting out of bed in Australia, but its 1:33am now, so I’m off to bed. Have a great Winter day down under.

Nathan