Spring is definitely here… but whats with the Seagull?

I never liked birds. Never. These feelings flourished years ago when my parents got my sister a bird. This bird managed to learn the most annoying ways to annoy any human in shrills and shrieks. Since then, my dislike has only grown.

I have found for my first spring in Germany, although living in the middle of a city, the birds come back for the spring and chirp full force at the crack of dawn. As an aussie, from a bushy suburb of Sydney, I was used to bird noises at 4am and always slept through usually without caring. I became accustomed to this noise. But living away for 3 years, and I think I got more used to sleeping through drunk people at 4am in the centre of Vancouver than bird noises, I've forgotten these early morning 'songs' and its actually waking me up of a morning.

Aside from the bitterness of sleep loss, what surprised me most was this mornings not so pleasant chirp. It sounded exactly like a seagull. We are at least 6-7 hours drive away from anything resembling ocean and as far as our town goes in drawing seagulls here - we don't have any fish & chip shops. Much to my dismay, this 'seagull' went on for about an hour at 5am making noises like I was hiding the salted fries somewhere in my room and deliberately making sure he wasn't going to get any.

Other than this wonderful spring revelation of renewed bird dislike (borderline hatred), its turning out spring here is pretty dam nice. From about mid march, we started getting temperatures of 23 degrees, almost daily and I haven't put on a winter coat since! We've only had one day of rain, and we got a supposed 'cold snap' two days ago, which still was round 16 degrees and bright sun (mostly night rain). As much as I complain about the winter here, they do have the most decent spring I've come across so far.

I'm sorry to say Vancouverites / Canadians, your spring has got nothing on over here. I've seen your weather report, and you've been having one or two nice days, but consistent rain and sitting around the average 10 degree mark. I never understood the concept of spring living there although most of you tried to tell me how wonderful it was. Here, I really understand it, it was a quick turnaround of cold and dark days to bright sunshine, eating outdoors, no coat wearing and even getting a tan!

And PS for those cherry blossom lovers, if you can't/won't get to Japan this year (for not so obvious reasons...), come here, its blossoming out of control!