Kirchhörde
Checked in with my hosts for the next 17 days - Rolf and Susanne. They live at Dortmund-Kirchhörde which is about 6 km from the centre of Dortmund. They have two children: Marie (17) and Julian (14). Marie is fluent in English and also studies French and Spanish at her high school.
Very warm welcome: fruit and bottled water waiting for me in my very large room and I was soon enjoying a beer and discussing the merits of various players in the Dortmund team with Rolf. Learned that Thomas Tuchel is not so popular among the fans here although perhaps his biggest failing has been to follow the legendary Jurgen Klopp!
This morning I spent a few hours buying some provisions and catching up with some work emails and calls
After completing my settling-in chores I walked to Signal Iduna Park which is only about 30 mins walk away. The contrast between the massive 80,000 + seater stadium and its pre-1974 predecessor could not be more stark. Average attendance at matches played at Rote Erde was 9,000 rising to 24,000 the year after the new stadium opened.
Rote Erde: BVB's home ground until the early 1970s
The Westfalenstadion (capacity 81,600): has the second highest attendance of any sporting club in the world.
But my main task there today was to stock up on some supporter gear so that I can play my part supporting the Schwarzegelbe against the enemy who cannot be named in tomorrow afternoon's Revierderby - known in Germany as "the mother of all derbies".
Tonight I joined the family for dinner (on the back porch - it's quite balmy weather here at the moment) and we shared a bottle of BVB sparkling wine (drinkable but their football is better!). We ate some potato cakes, one mit käse and the other ohne käse with a tomato and mozzarella salad and a feldsalad: a German leaf salad that I have never come across before.
Their yard is quite large with an impressive tree-house built by Rolf, and a beautiful fish pond with a Japanese cherry blossom tree growing beside it. Their are very few fish left in the pond - a few years ago a heron flew one night from the nearby Dortmund Zoo straight into the garden and feasted on all but the 3 largest fish!
And so on to tomorrow - may the hostilities commence!