Columnist Liz Gaiser (“The Swabian Housewife”) on the joys of trying to learn a foreign language with Oma.

I don’t speak German, nor do I speak English. What I speak is Schwäblish. This is a cross between a southern German dialect – Swabian – and English. It has all the appeal of fingernails on a chalkboard. Although I have had people tell me it’s “cute,” I think that’s a polite way of saying I sound like an idiot when I speak.

Apparently the emu - a flightless Australian bird, similar to an ostrich - never takes a backward step. Not a bad animal to adopt for a sports team. The Stuttgart Emus are the city's latest sports club, an Australian Rules Football team, now playing in the German Bundesliga.

Ask any Australian to describe an emu and he'll tell you they're big, tall, strong, fast animals. A kangaroo might be described the same way. So it comes as no surprise to learn that the first clash between these two Australian icons last Saturday, on a huge grass field in Esslingen, was a tough, pounding contest. The Emus came out on top. Australian Rules Football - or 'Aussie Rules' - has arrived in Baden-Württemberg.

Germans are the World Champions of travel. They've maintained their crown for the world's biggest spending travellers at Germany's biggest tourism trade fair for the public - the Caravaning, Tourism and Motoring (CMT) trade fair - in Stuttgart.

Every year in January, more than 200,000 people from the Stuttgart area flock to the nine-day-long event to collect information for their next holiday. More than 1800 exhibitors from around 100 countries set up stands at the CMT to entice travel-hungry Germans to their part of the world.