My interim stay in Frankfurt was great. The weather was quite nice for some of it and I got to cuddle and play with cute babies and spend time with aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.
After a reasonably early night in Frankfurt, it was an early start this morning to pack, have a last wonderful brekky with the family and get to the airport. I had to be at the airport 2.5 hours before the flight. As it turned out, it meant I wasn’t too worried when I got to almost the start of the queue and the hall was closed down because someone had left a plastic bag unattended. Call for the bomb-squad etc and 20 minutes later it was as if nothing had ever happened. Only that I lost my place in the queue and had to line up again….at least I could keep myself entertained with my smart-phone. Especially since the flight was then delayed by almost an hour… Fortunately, it didn’t matter what time I arrived here so I was relaxed about it all.
The Aircoach trip from the airport to the hotel went without a hitch (except it cost 8 Euro, not 7 as advertised all over the internet), and I was the only passenger for the last section, since the hotel is a fair way out. The bus driver was very nice and we had a bit of a chat. He could place my accent straight away. I remember thinking that they must have a lot of Aussies come here. I found out the real reason later…
I arrived at the hotel. The staff were very nice and helpful, though I had to really concentrate to understand them. My single room is quite roomy and nice: 
I tested out wifi (free) and it works OK on my netbook, but not so well with my mobile, which is a damn shame. I decided to look into getting a SIM card for my mobile but the only shop in the area was Vodaphone and I wasn’t too keen on their pre-paid deal: 10 Euro for the SIM card, plus 30 Euro for 1 GB data plus voice & sms free to Vodaphone in Ireland. Since I know nobody here, that would be pretty useless. So I might research this some more or not worry about it all. I’ve always managed to travel OK without it, after all.
This did take me to the local shopping centre, however, and it wasn’t so different to our smaller shopping centres back home.
I saw a few restaurants on a smaller side street and decided to have a look so I’d know where to go for dinner. There was a nice reed-bedecked pub which I had to photograph (of course) and then had my obligatory Guiness there. It went straight to my head – possibly because I’d eaten nothing but an apple since breakfast.
By this time it was late enough to have an early dinner and I’d seen a pizza place up the road a little way, so decided to have the 7” special for 5 Euro. It was actually quite nice, so I was pretty pleased with that. I decided to eat it on site, rather than carry it back to the hotel. It was like being back home: Neighbours was playing on TV with all its glorious Strine. No wonder the bus driver guessed.
Then it was time to head back to the hotel, though not without taking a couple of photos of nice houses on the way back. Looking at the Mercedes in the driveway of a couple of them, these houses are not everyman’s.
Anyway…time for a bit of planning for tomorrow.
