Hello…
I was coming home on the train the other night after an evening out drinking with friends. I sat at one end of the train and after a few stops a young girl got onto the train and sat next to me with a Fortnum & Mason bag that contained her shoes. After 5 minutes the girl started to sink into her seat. I didn’t think too much of it until she gently removed her shoes from the green bag and promptly emptied the contents of her stomach into it. I couldn’t get further away from her as I pushed myself into the glass panel. A terrible smell started to fill the carriage and the other passenger’s nostrils began to acknowledge that things were not going too well for this girl. I honestly thought everyone was going to start throwing up but just in the nick of time she ran off the train at the next stop looking ever so drained. As the doors on the train closed, the whole train carriage began laughing and for one brief moment the anonymous travelers that never speak or make eye contact with each other started to engage each other. It didn’t last long sadly.
On my last blog I mentioned that I went to southern Germany for a 10 day driving tour. Waking up in Frankfurt for the first time we turned to Google and Google Maps to help us get around. The city is spread out and is a mixture of old and new buildings with a big financial district complete with skyscrapers. Main Tower can be accessed by the public and gave us a great view of the city like going up The Shard.
Sadly the Monday we arrived is when most if not all the museums and galleries are closed. So, we ended up walking the streets and walking across the Eiserner Steg Bridge which is also known as the Frankfurt Love Lock Bridge.
Thousands of people going back decades have declared their love for each other by placing a lock onto the bridge. The earliest lock I found was going back to the early 80’s. I wonder if the lock has lasted longer than the relationship?
We had made a sort of pledge to eat as much German food as possible and this meant eating lots of Sausages, Schnitzels and Sauerkraut. Frankfurt has a reasonably priced restaurant called Leib und Seele. The beers were large and the mushroom Schnitzel was fantastic. The only bad part was the poor service but I really didn’t care that much as I was fairly drunk from drinking a couple of big Steins of beer.
The next morning we got ourselves over to the main train station where we pick up our hire car. Now, this should have been a painless and straightforward process. However, AVIS didn’t want to do this and made it the most frustrating and uncomfortable experience possible. I’d organised the hire car well before we left and was of the understanding that the damage waiver that we’d bought meant that in the event of any damage to the car we’d not have any excess to pay. Can you imagine how shocked I was when I was told that we only had an 800€ excess to pay instead of giving them my kidney should the car get a scratch. However we could pay for a second and higher level damage waiver that would mean we had no excess to pay. The android behind the counter didn’t seem to understand how we were now feeling conned and to add insult to injury the car we wanted wasn’t available but we could upgrade from a tandem bike to a luxury car for an additional fee. Our driving trip was now getting more and more expensive and we’d not driven anywhere. We really had no choice but to pay up and get our Infinity Q50 which was a very nice car but the whole experience with AVIS had made me feel sick. Pass the Fortnum’s bag please.
Next stop. Heidelberg.
M