I'd never been to Germany before December. Six days in Düsseldorf over Christmas market season, and I came back feeling like the world just got a whole lot bigger.
The Christmas markets hit you with the smell first churros, Glühwein, potato pancakes crispy on the outside and warm in the middle. We kept going back. No itinerary, just wandering the city centre with warm cups in cold hands.
The day before the match we took the train to Cologne. Double decker trains never seen one before, such a small thing but it reminded me how much I don't know about how other places work. Cologne Cathedral stopped us in our tracks. Centuries of history towering over a Christmas market at its feet.
Then matchday. Newcastle versus Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League, watched from a pub in Düsseldorf. The 2-2 draw stung but watching Champions League football in a German pub in December, surrounded by black and white hard to complain.
I went for the markets and the football. I came home with this feeling that there's so much more out there. Düsseldorf felt like a start.