Category: Trip

Bankfurt

I woke at 2 am this morning. Perhaps not a good sign with regards to jetlag! I couldn’t sleep though, so lazed around until the (superb!) breakfast buffet at 6:30.

Dad was arriving at midday, so KLS, BS and I headed to the Frankfurt zoo while JBF hopped onto a train for a day trip to a nearby city on The Rhine. 

 
Frankfurt Zoo is quite good for such an old zoo in the middle of a major city. While some of the large animal enclosures (such as for the hippo) are sad relics of a bygone era, others – including the excellent nocturnal house and aquarium – are worth the admission fee alone.

In particular we loved the following exhibits: 

   
The first are garden eels – tiny and beautiful eels that hide in the substrate and just poke their upper halves out to feed. The other is of course the cuttlefish. Both animals were displayed wonderfully in big crystal clean tanks that really gave us a good look!

After the zoo we headed back to meet dad via the river. 

 
Yes they seem to have picked up the ‘padlock on the bridge’ habit here too!

In the late afternoon we cruised that river for an hour and a half, seeing Frankfurt (at least the river front) for several miles in each direction. Many drinks were drunk and many laughs had! 

   
Conveniently the boat left from a dock right at the same fair we visited yesterday! Once again we enjoyed the many dining options 🙂 

 
Another find day that seemed to whizz by very quickly. Tomorrow we’re leaving Frankfurt for our next destination, but I have to say I’ve found this city quite charming and a good introduction to Germany overall.

Summer In Berlin

I’m been experiencing the ennui of one not on an overseas vacation, so it’s time to remedy the situation. Therefore, with great pomp and ceremony, later this week we will be going to Germany!

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This is of course no sudden decision. This trip has been in the late-planning stages for some weeks, the early-planning stages for a couple of years and the distant-planning stages for a lifetime. I do of course have Teutonic blood in my veins, and it’s time to return to das Vaterland and reclaim my throne!

But this is no solo trip! I will be traveling with a company of four others: Kristin, Bernard, Jim and Alois. Starting and ending in Frankfurt, we’re going to do the whole country in style together – from castles to beer-houses – wearing our German last names (yes, even Jim) with pride. Here’s our route:

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Very little is planned! We’ve booked out hotels and our trains, as well as a coach trip to Castle Neuschwanstein (in the picture above), but the rest of the adventure is an open book. I suspect there’ll be a lot of this though:

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I estimate there will be about 24 hours in total of rail and coach transport during our two week trip. To keep morale high as we ride the rails, I have prepared a ‘German Travel Quiz’ for Bernard. 25 fiendish trivia questions in five topics await him! He only has to score 60% per topic to win up to five prizes, but if he loses he will forsake his ‘escrow prize’ (in other words, I’ll keep it). If he gets at least 60% on every quiz he will win the ultimate prize, but if he fails even once he’s going to give me his handheld computer from the 1980s. Maybe. We’ll see 🙂

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This promises to be a memorable and epic vacation. Needless to say you can – and should – follow our travels here on this very blog!

Blast From The Past

A few weeks ago, I visited Notre Dame in Paris. It was a spectacular place, and I remember it fondly.

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On that trip I purchased the following papercraft kit of this very same cathedral:

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This was originally intended as a gift for my brother, but as these things tend to happen, I decided it would be mine! Here’s the contents once opened:

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The fact all the pieces are pre-cut and pre-scored is a big plus, since craft kits of this type that require you to cut the pieces out of a book are massive pains in the butt (which I know from personal experience). Even so, the kit was a bit tricky to put together, mostly because of the complexity of the curved surfaces (especially the steeple). Here it is completed:

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Impressive isn’t it! It’s about 20 cm long and stands about 15 cm high, and is quite sturdy and a decent recreation of the original building. For a model made of paper, I was quite impressed.

But I thought I could improve on the kit with a little modification of my own…

…such as by making a few additions:

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That’s five fireworks, 4 small guys and one ‘Mini Californian Rocket Fountain’ (from which I had snapped the stick to raise it from the ground). I put my considerable pyromantic skills to work and filled the empty space inside the Notre Dame model with these five bundles of fun:

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If all went well, this would faithfully reproduce the great fire (that never actually happened) that caused irreparable damage to Notre Dame in 17XX (that never actually happened). A quick trip outside, and here’s the completed modified kit sitting peacefully on our ‘fireworks launching log’ waiting for the flame…

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Three fuses. Five fireworks. Could I light them all and get to safety in time? What would actually happen? Would it fizzle out? Burn? Be spectacular? There was only one way to find out:

OMG! Just… omg! Here’s the aftermath:

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My Notre Dame papercraft model: it lived fast, died young, and went out in a blaze of glory. What more could it have wanted?