On my trip to Frankfurt, I had a lot of spare time in Tallinn at the airport. And I think it is just about the lamest airport I have been to. At least for a capital city. The airport at Tartu last year was even below mentioning. The luggage claim there was a truck that would drive to the entry with our bags! Even at the airports in Uzbekistan in the middle of nowhere we had better service. But yes, back to this year's trip.
At the check-in they specifically asked me where I wanted to sit. Of course I wanted a window seat. There is nothing like looking out at a miniature of the world you usually think is so big and important. Apparently a French couple thought just about the same. On my seat I found a lady in her sevennties, and her husband on the middle seat. I kindly pointed out that the window seat was mine, and I think the lady killed me about 5 times in her head.
The food came, we ate, and I thought her husband was really nice. BUT, since I have a weakness for Coke, and I had been drinking one at the airport (overpriced of course, about the triple price!) and two small cans on the airplane, I really really needed to go to the toilet. The husband was trying to get some sleep, and well at one point I just had to bother him, but I had waited nicely until he had opened his eyes. So the couple had to stand up to make way for me (oh gosh how horrible..) and I can not believe how small they make these rows nowadays. As I walked by the wife, I think she just thought about the 10 worst ways to die and imagined me in those scenarios...
Happy and relieved I came back to my row. Which I at first didn't recognice. The couple was "gone" and somebody sat at my place. Since there were quite a bunch of Frenchmen on the plane traveling together, the men behind me kindly adressed the lady, since he noticed how puzzled I looked. The lady bitterly replied: "She can sit there now, I do not have to stand up anymore." She did this with quite some I-am-older-better-and-therefore-privileged attitude. So even though I did for a minute think about talking to a stewardess, I didn't. But what really put wind on my fire was that, since she sat on my seat, all my stuff was there. My book, my bag... AND SHE DIDN'T EVEN MOVE HER FEET FOR ME TO GET THOSE. Gaaah, French people. I just abdicated them that minute in my head of being nice people, and I will not treat them nicely anymore.
So the couple was happy about (finally) getting to look out of the window. And I just was pissed. Since that is about half of the fun on a flight. To put some more anger into my already blackened mind, the captain announced that we are seeing a wonderful sunset outside, the best he has seen in a while. Especially on the right hand side (where I should have been sitting). Karma is a bitch!
I have been telling everyone about this event since I am still quite grumpy about it. Sometimes I can hold a grudge for a real long time...
In Frankfurt a great late summer weather greeted me. I was able to walk around in shorts and t-shirts for about 4 days! And read outside in Opa's(German for granfather) garden.
Already the next day I met up with my aunt C to do some shopping in Frankfurt. But first Opa had to teach me how to get there. Which wasn't that hard, be he liked to test me anyhow. After living a year in Helsinki that bit was a piece of cake.
The first stop was of course the bookstore Hugendubel. I could live in that place. There are some nice reading corners were they have sofas all around. Shown here. They have just about everything you need. Here is a pic from the English corner of the store:
I found this cool comic downstairs in the science department:
This is a comic about genes, Mendel and so on. Even though I know this stuff I just think that it was so cool. But I didn't buy it :P
Also C introduced me to some "new" things. The restaurant Mosch Mosch, where they serve really good Asian food and the clothes store Hollister, where half of the shopping is the special setting of the store. In New York apparently they had some goodlooking guys in only their Hawaiian shorts standing outside of the store. Sadly this wasn't the case in Frankfurt. At least the times I was there.
On Wednesday I did some food shopping. Except for sweets, that you either can't get anywhere else or their being overpriced, I bought Maggi. It is sort a really really good seasoning soya, that is salt and just perfect. Skip the ketchup the next time you have you student meal consisting of mac and ketchup, and do some mac and Maggi. Heaven.
Then I bought some Spätzle. That is some kind of special pasta I always connect to Germany, but apparently they use it in Switzerland and France also. Traditionally I would eat them with cheese and onion. Nams.
Later that afternoon me and Opa met up with C and we went to the Jewish museum. I have always wanted to visit it, but it was acutally a disappointment. It was smaller than I imagined and not well equipped. The others agreed. It could have been better.
Afterwards we talked Opa into taking a 50min cruise on the Main. It was the last one for the day, and here are some pics I took:
At this little tower my aunt C had her wedding reception at a stylish bar last year
A bad pic of the skyline of Frankfurt (also sometimes called Bankfurt since well as you can guess there are a lot of banks there...)
I would like to live in a penthouse apartment like this. But not on this side of the Skyline, but upstreams near the University's hospital. A bit pricey, but what the heck :D
Thursday I went to Frankfurt once again, and I got my first manicure ever. It was just about as in the movies, since besides us there was a (very) studpid customer and the Vietnamese women there just couldn't figure out how she wanted her nails. Neither did me and C, so the problem was a stupid lady not the language barrier.
And since they spoke Vietnamese all the time you could almost guess that they were talking about us. As I said, just as in the movies.
After that I decided to make a stop on the way home at Neu Isenburg and visit the mall there. It is really nice and renovated, but a store that has always been there is a petshop. And they have always been showing small bunnies in their shop's window. Ever since I was a little girl I've visited them. And I always have to start at that end where the bunnies are. Otherwise my whole route is messed up. So even though I got in at the other far end, I walked thourgh and admired the bunnies for a while, and I fell in love. With the black and white one:
That night my Dad and brothers got to Opa's really late, because on Friday we had to go to Ludwigsburg where Tanti's (Tante means aunt in German, and Tanti is a shortform. I have always called her Tanti and probably always will. It's like Mom, Dad, Opa, Mommo. You can't call them anything else!) wedding was going to take olace. It's near Stuttgart, so Friday we had quite a long day driving, and there was Stauerparty on the Autobahn. But I got my own room at the hotel where we were staying, which was sort of integrated in the apartmentbuilding where Tanti and J live. So it was perfect. And their apartment is really nice, I will have to explore Stuttgart sometime (when there isn't a wedding to attend :D )
About the wedding I will post some pics in a seperate post, since there are a lot of good pics.
Anyhow, when we came home on Sunday, I started to "solve" some crossword puzzles. The funny thing is that even though Swedish definitly is my stronger language I can not manadge to solve those in Swedish. Some kind of logic just is missing. So I only do those in German.
At the end I involved Dad and Tanti also, so we did that for quite a while.
Tuesday we all traveled back to Finland and me to Estonia. This time I had a really nice and quite good-looking Australian guy in my row. Even though it was the row in front of the toilets, and I had to sit in the seat next to it basically. So this did heal the wound a little after the French incident.
The most interesting thing about a trip is always the people you meet. Even though they can be annoying. But planes and trains are just good places to meet all kind of people. That's what makes traveling so interesting. Even if it just is a train ride between Helsinki and home :)
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