Frankfurt Visit: First Impressions

I’m in Germany for a few days at the IPC and since we had some time spare I’ve been exploring!

First of all, we took trip into Frankfurt itself yesterday. The queue for the ticket office was wildly long but some people who had a weekend travel pass and had returned to the airport to catch a flight gave us their train tickets which was really lucky (and nice of them).

Once in Frankfurt I put my card in the cash machine to get some money out – we decided it would be better to take money out on demand rather than changing it before we travelled. I had a bit of a deja vu moment when I put in my card and out came strange-looking money … its just like going to Scotland really :)

We were quite lucky as apparently Frankfurt is usually completely closed on a Sunday (I didn’t know that) but it was a special day of some description so all the shops were open in the afternoon. Its too early for the Christmas Markets but there were plenty of sausages and Gluhwein stalls on the streets all the same. Loads of the cafes had tables on the street – personally I think its too cold in Northern Europe in November for that but we ate outside all the same and it seemed a popular choice. We took some photos but they will have to wait until I get home to my own computer and a faster net connection!

Today we’ve been into the local place, Morfelden, which is tiny but has nice cafes and so on. I even managed to sniff out the wool shop and couldn’t resist buying a couple of balls of wool! I’ll knit something to remind me of my visit here I think, not sure what though.

Scottish Holiday

Recently we had a week’s holiday with the family in Scotland, which was lovely and quite relaxing as we were right out in Dumfries almost in Stranraer and there really isn’t a lot to do there! Its beautiful though and we were really lucky with the weather.

We actually took quite a lot of photos but I’ve uploaded them to flickr account and can’t be bothered to upload them again so pop over there and take a look at anything tagged “scotland”.

Facebook Followup

So I was having trouble with facebook a while back, but things have improved.

  • I now check facebook every day
  • I have 38 friends
  • I have seen the pictures of my cousin’s first few weeks at university.
  • I’ve finally uploaded a profile picture because everyone seems to have one! Only two of my friends don’t … and I can understand why.

Facebook is good for staying in touch with people, I’ve exchanged messages with lots of people who are on my peripheral network but with whom I could easily have lost touch, especially because I’ve moved house a lot. People have a “status” and can update it at will, so you can see who is looking forward to their weekend or who is having a bad day.

I utterly adore the daft applications that come with facebook. My two current favourites (although they don’t see a lot of action it must be said) are the aquarium and the garden. Basically people can send each other flowers and fish (for each application respectively) along with a little message, literally just a one-liner to touch base. Its like a wave but the thing they send hangs around in your profile for a bit so you can enjoy it.

I think I’m starting to see the point, but I suspect its only the tip of the iceberg – am I missing anything important do you think?

New Niece

My niece or nephew is here – and she’s a niece called Natalie. She was born late last night and we got to meet her today! Here she is:

Yawning :)

With her Dad:

Some very proud first-time grandparents!

And Kevin and I being very brave and holding the baby ourselves. We’re not used to kids but this one is adorable.

 

Happy Cat Holidays

We have a guest staying with us … a cat named Orbit :)

He actually belongs to a friend of ours who has gone on holiday, so the cat gets a holiday as well, staying with us. Its quite a responsibility but so far he’s doing fine. He’s pining for his owner and keeps going back to the door she left by and the room she had when she stayed, but he’s popping down for food quite regularly so I think he’s OK.

Boost Your Popularity – Flame Facebook

I recently wrote that I don’t get social networking, with interesting results. I posted links to all my various profiles in various places, and I now have ten friends on Facebook (up from two when I wrote the first article) and one flickr friend as well.

I find it interesting that people respond in this way – its nice to be friends with my friends though so I’m certainly not complaining. It is a bit strange though when a website announces that you are now friends with someone … that you’ve been dating for seven years :)

Am I any closer to “getting” social networking? Not really. I’ve written on walls, given gifts, and joined groups. Suggestions for other exciting things to do are most welcome …

Can Your Husband Cook?

How many women cook the main meal of the day, on autopilot, knowing that the man in their life “can’t cook”? It seems to be a pretty regular thing. I think men are better cooks than they are given credit for – most of them are pretty motivated since they like food!

I think that we are confusing two skills here:

  • the ability to create nutritious and tasty food
  • the ability to feed a family when you come in the house hungry and uninspired after a long day at work.

The two are totally different skills, and they’re not linked! What kind of a cook are you?

Wedding Weekend

Some of you know this young lady and I’m sure she won’t mind me posting a little shot of where I was this weekend:

Three Things I Saw At Chester Zoo

We went to Chester Zoo on Easter weekend, which was great apart from the humongous traffic queues to get in. Still they seemed pretty well organised and since we chose to arrive mid-morning on a beautiful bank holiday weekend then it was always going to be busy!

The zoo itself has a great repuation for treatment of animals and its successful breeding programmes, and was a nice place to visit. There were lots of people with their kids as well and it seems a very child-friendly place (I don’t have kids, I have no idea).

Anyway, here are the three things I saw (one of them twice because I love them!)

Black and white ruffed lemurs!

One Jaguar (I shrank the photo before I realised he would get so small … look closely in the middle!)

And a sealion.

We had ice cream and it was a lovely day :)

Naturally Curly Hair

I had to post this, I’ve just lost an hour of my life on this website for people with curly hair naurallycurly.com. I’ve got hopelessly curly hair and lots of it so I can see me being a regular visitor to this site. As always, good to know I’m not alone!

The internet is great for that, whatever you are doing someone else is doing it to. What’s your favourite community site?