Curiosities - Spring in Fall and Christmas

October has arrived - the woods have tossed
Their final leaves from naked branches;
A breath of autumn chill - the road begins to freeze,
The stream still murmurs as it passes by the mill.
The pond, however's frozen; ...
(Pushkin, From Autumn)

Am I wrong or is fall finally arriving for you guys, or at least for the ones amongst you living in the Northern Hemisphere? The wind is getting chillier, the days grow shorter and leave room for longer afternoons in front of the fireplace with a cup of tea, rain is pouring down heavily, kids are out in the fields playing with their kites; slowly, the colors of the forests and of the leafs of the trees change... and if I were in Canada now, we would get a canoe and spend a couple of wonderfully quiet days out on some forelorn lake with nothing but the blue sky and the sun above us and the burning colors of the forests during the Indian Summer around us and the wild geese slowly moving South. Soon, I would wake up every morning and run to the window, in the hope of seeing the first dancing snow flakes.

Well, at least, that's how I feel. That's how the world should be like!! You all know that I love autumn so very much and that I can't wait for the first snow to fall. However, my world here does not seem to fit with what I am feeling - there is just no autumn to be found even though David and I feel that it should be starting any minute now. No, here, spring is coming up and I can tell you, as much as I usually enjoy the first signs of green after the long months of lifeless nature and wish for the first colorful blossoms to show, here and now it just confuses me terribly. I took some pictures so you might be able to take a look at them and figure out if you feel like that right now! The worst is, with nature looking like that I would expect Easter to be coming up soon but no, wrong again. Here, the first Christmas decorations are up, when looking for postcards I stumble over Christmas cards, and in one shop I truely found the first Christmas Stollen!!! Help!!! Something is wrong here! I don't get it right!!! You want to know who we met on the street the other day??

Here goes the picture :





So, that's that. My world is all upside down and I am thoroughly confused!!! ;)

But I am sure that won't stop me from enjoying the last part of our Australian journey - the famous Sydney - and from writing to you again soon with some richer content! For now, I just wanted to share some curiosities of our travels with you!


PS: Dear Suse! Thank you so much for your long letter and also for the package of tea! I am sure it would have been wonderful! Unfortunately, your fears were quite justified, the whole package has been put into quarantine! The customs are offering me a heat treatment to kill any potential danger in the tea bags, only it would cost me $45. As it would also cost me $45 to have them send the tea back to you without any heat treament, I figure, you won't mind the tea being consumed by the customs officers, would you? :) ... I guess this will become part of our collection of tea stories now!