Day III (Frankfurt to Cologne with a bicycle) (WITH a bike, not BY bike ;-)

Even though I only got to bed around midnight last night, I am wide awake at 4 am. 'sO.K., I'm sure I can sleep on the trains today.

When I have my first cigarette at 4:30 am, I am glad that the hotel's smoking area has a roof. It is raining.

After breakfast at 6:30 am however, I am pleased to see clear skies with the moon prominent in the sky.

Does it look the same same where you are ? ;-)

Then it's time to figure out how to get the bicycle to Cologne.  An ICE train takes about 1 hour to get there, but since I am travelling with a bicycle, I have to take slower trains and it will take me almost 4 hours.  That's OK, there is not much on my agenda today.  



I do remember the pain of buying tickets at machines last July, and consequently go to the Deutsche Bahn website and hope to buy my ticket online, but I don't really expect my credit card to work over here.  It already was refused in the Lufthansa plane when still in Canadian airspace !





Then I see it.  Things ARE changing and improving. The Deutsche Bahn website accepts PayPal !!!!









I check out of the hotel (Very quiet and comfy no-frills hotel; I will come back here next time I'm flying to Frankfurt) at 11 am.

My train is not leaving from Walldorf train station until 12:48 pm and I have my hopes set on eating some of that fabulous Thai food at Martins Thai Bistro.   As my luck would have it, today is the day when the oven-cleaner showed up and I won’t get any Thai food.  Ah well. I cycle towards the train station, thinking there must be another restaurant somewhere where I can eat something and kill 1.5 hours. I find a pizzeria right next to the train station.  I order a Pinot Grigio (perfectly acceptable to serve this stuff in an Italian restaurant ;-) and a Pizza Calabrese.

Riding a bicycle to the Walldorf train station is messing with my head.  I am copying what I was doing on a day in the second half of July of this year but now it is the middle of December!  And while in July the train was taking me to my spare mom in her hip-replacement rehab clinic in Bad Neuenahr, today’s train is taking me to her funeral in Cologne. 

But I also have noticed that having a bicycle with me on any trip is normal for me now, and that I feel uncomfortable or ‘wrong’ if I have to walk or worse, call a taxi.  Roughly 10 years ago I had what I thought of as a ‘crazy idea’, namely to have a bicycle stationed with every friend or relative living anywhere on this planet.  Now this crazy dream is actually approaching the realization stage!  Clean up those garages, people ! ;-)

The Pizza Calabrese is spicy as advertised. I don’t know where it all vanishes to, but vanish it does!  So does the wine.  I order a second glass.

After I change trains for the first time, sleep hits me like a hammer. I can't remember how often I retrieve my head from my chest in panic, quickly checking the station name to make sure I have not missed the stations to change trains or my final destination.  I wake up 5 minutes before the train reaches Cologne main station and unlock my bicycle and keep moving around so I don't fall asleep again.

A mural in Niederrad on the topic of racism in soccer: "We feel ashamed for those who shout against us"

I manage to walk/cycle the 5 minutes from the main train station to my hotel without falling asleep.  I check in, find my room, collapse onto my bed and sleep for FOUR hours until 9 pm.

I leave the hotel at about 10 pm.  I neither have any food nor any wine, so that should be changed.  Also, on the very short way from the train station to the hotel, I noticed TWO different Weihnachtsmaerkte. My friend Alan keeps praising them, so I decide to check one out.

Alas, even though pedestrian and tourist traffic is heavy on the streets, both Weihnachtsmaerkte are closed at this hour. A store in the main train station supplies me with water, wine, chocolate, and cookies for the night and I head back to the hotel.

Starry skies in Cologne Central

Hohenzollern Bridge with Love-locks gleaming along the railing

I 

Day II: Riding a bicycle in inclement weather (AND meeting an old friend from my army days)

Yesterday I walked over to my pseudo aunt and uncle.  The half-hour walk left me semi-exhausted.  I hope I can blame it on having spent the night before in a plane and don't have to consider old age as a reason!

The July 2013 lock on that same bicycle.

While I was there I picked up a bicycle.  Yes, the same bicycle that went on a riverboat cruise in July of 2013 ;-). It has been waiting for 1.5 years here for me. Of course, my uncle placed the lock on the bicycle but could not remember where he put the key. So it is time for the tree clippers AGAIN.  And just like the city employees in Bad Godesberg on July 15, 2013, my uncle does not believe at first that his garden tools will cut the lock, but after 5 minutes of work he has become a believer.  Later in the day I buy a new bicycle lock that does not consist of individual metal strands.  If I loose the keys now, I'll have to call a welder or a locksmith ;-(

At 4 am there is nothing that can hold me in bed.

 Breakfast is served at 6 am and the breakfast room is BUSY.  The owners or operators of this hotel seem to be Korean, so there is a little bit of Asian breakfast stuff, a lot of German and English breakfast staples, and I am happy to also see OLIVES. Turkish immigration has had a positive effect on German breakfast tables ;-)

Yesterday's sunny skies have been replaced by grey skies with fast moving low clouds, which will emit white frozen water crystals when I head to the grocery store at 9 am.  


I realize that when I locked the bicycle in the hotel's basement yesterday evening, I must have taken my gloves off and left them there, because they are nowhere to be found in my room.  Unfortunately they are not next to my bike either. Ah well. Someone without gloves and with a purchasing power less than mine now has warm fingers.  I find new gloves in the local Dollar-Store for 4 Euros.


The plan for this evening is to meet Uwe, a friend I met when suffering my mandatory time in the German army in 1986.  I can't even remember when I met him last; maybe 15 years ago?  I sleep again from 11 am to 2 pm to increase the chances of being awake in the afternoon and evening.

Yes, I know. I own many different bicycles. But they get used!

It is already dark when at 5 pm I don my arctic outfit and jump on the bicycle.for a ride to the local train station.

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

I meet Uwe in the banking quarter; I recognize him from his gait across a large square! We decide not to tour the Weihnachtsmarkt but to head to an Indian Restaurant (The Ivory Club). The Chicken Tika is yummy but the Riesling is even better!  
During dinner I describe Vancouver as a place where too many people drive a Porsche Cayenne. Noticing a slight twitch in his face, I tone it down by saying "I should be careful who I complain about before I see your car, which might be a Porsche Cayenne!"  Uwe quickly shakes his head and says "No Cayenne!".
I have to laugh hard when I squeeze myself into his VERY NICE Porsche Targa 4S. I have no desire to drive one myself but must admit that being driven in one is fun.  
Especially when going 200 km/h on the Autobahn (No, I'm not kidding!)
The Porsche takes us to Uwe's home to meet his wife Uta and their two sons.

The Downside:
Whenever I have a grandiose time with friends, whether I have seen them just yesterday or not for 15 years, I never have any pictures to show for it. Not only does one not think about taking pictures when having fun, it would also be a semi-rude thing to interrupt the fun to take those pictures. So, No pictures of Uwe, Uta, the kids, or the Porsche.  I will have to come back here soon and have a 5 minute photo session before things get fun ;-)

At 11 pm, Uwe drives me back to Walldorf train station. My bicycle is still there and after Good-Byes I cycle back to the hotel.

I try to finish watching The Hobbit on Netflix but I have to admit defeat and collapse onto my bed.

The world is not in your books and maps. It's OUT THERE!  Gandalf

The WORST of airports and the BEST of flights (or In the Vaterland)

It's going to be a long day.  I have my alarm clock set for 5 am to be able to finish some translation work and finish clearing out my hotel room before 9 am.  At 10:30 am I am on the SeaBus from North Vancouver, which will connect me to a rapid transit train to the airport.

The check-in line-up at the Lufthansa counter stretches through half the airport.  A panic-exuding woman in a Lufthansa uniform runs shouting through the ranks of suitcase-laden victims and shouts at them "Did you check in at home?"  Half the passengers don't even know what that means and then have to self-check-in at a computer terminal before they are allowed to join another line to drop off their suitcases.  This reminds me of another completely out-of-control check-in procedure. Where was that again where they treated people like cattle, where employees were walking down the corralled lines shouting and I swore I never would go back to?  Oh right. RyanAir at London Stansted.  The nightmare has come to Lufthansa and Vancouver.

Welcome to YVR (not my pic)

When I ask the people-directer at the funnel-in point of the security corral where the people are that are supposed to man the 5 out of 10 security check-points that are not operating while the lines of people keep getting longer and longer, he says "They are not here".  I then tell him that maybe it would be time to man those counters and stop treating people like cattle. He admits that I am correct, but that the people responsible for decisions at this airport don't think of us as people but as numbers of units processed.  Who were they bribing to be given the "Best Airport in North Americal"  award? Oh. It was a survey? That makes sense then since a large percentage of surveyed travellers will be Vancouverites who are better at nothing than unjustifiably being full of themselves. Yes, I admit, I am full of myself too, but I'm justified ;-)

Thanks to the Non-efforts of the security people, I finally get to walk towards my departure gate 10 minutes before the scheduled take-off time.  I don't walk particularly fast because I had noticed a few old ladies in the security line-up also having Lufthansa stickers on their boarding luggage.

My ride !

Still, I expect an announcement with my name on the PA system any minute but when I reach the gate, I see another HUGE line-up. They haven't even started boarding yet and the plane is scheduled to take off in 5 minutes!

The plane takes off an hour late, but I don't care any more.  I had purchased the cheapest ticket Vancouver-Frankfurt and Paris-Vancouver on Expedia and paid even less than a friend of mine paid a few weeks ago for the flight Vancouver Frankfurt return.  Expedia had already assigned me the seat number 11K.  The chaos at check-in prevented me from getting to the counter to possibly ask for an emergency row seat to get a bit of extra leg room. When I present my boarding pass to the greeter stewardess at the plane's door, she directs me to the LEFT.  Even though I paid economy, I am flying Business Class.  When I see the fully reclining seats with their VAST leg and elbow room, I stop asking why and just make myself comfortable.  Even with my legs fully stretched out, I am not able to reach the seat in front of me.

Creature comforts take over. Is that free wine in a real glass?  Is that a table cloth?

Is that dinner? NO. This is the appetizer ;-).  .

After the appetizer, I eat most of my main course, then I set my fully adjustable seat (it has a massage function!) to the flat sleeping position and I'm asleep before they even bring the dessert cheese plate. A thoughtful and quiet stewardess removes the half-full wine glass from my armrest while I sleep.

When the flight-information system on the screen informs me (probably before dinner) that we are passing close to Lake Athabasca I catch some blurry bright spots in the darkness below and my heart fills with sorrow thinking at the First Nations towns down below, where whole families have been decimated by cancer deaths caused by the ruthless and merciless processing of the tar sands below that focusses on profit and growth and apparently happily accepts a few hundred dead Indians as an acceptable cost. Not much has changed in the minds of people.  Here is a link to an Excellent and scary documentary on that subject.

When the first light of the new day can be barely anticipated at the horizon, I notice that we're approaching the coast of Holland.  Below me are quite a few individual lights of individual large ships and ahead the bright lights of a big city. 

When we're right above it, I recognize the strange vagina-art-like pattern of canals in the centre, because I walked down there in August. 

This is Amsterdam!

And the timing is JUST RIGHT today: while it was dawn when passing Amsterdam, the sun rises when we bank around a last curve to land in Frankfurt.

We land at Frankfurt before 8 am, and despite then enormous flight volume at one of Europe's largest airports there is NO line-up at passport control (hear that YVR?). There IS a smoking booth on the way to the luggage carousels (hear that YVR?). I don't have to wait for luggage since I have none, so the time between leaving the plane and passing through the un-manned customs stations is 10 minutes (hear that YVR?). 

Since my Wind Mobile phone does NOT roam in Germany (It roams in Holland!), I buy a cheap Samsung prepaid phone at the airport.  A 22 Euro taxi ride then gets me to my hotel. in nearby Walldorf. Those 22 Euros are more than I paid in July to take my bicycle on Air Transat, which I then used to cycle from Frankfurt Airport to Walldorf!

It still is morning and sunny when I walk by that fabulous Thai restaurant, where I ate very well last July.

Aeroplane time again (or Off to another funeral) 2.0

Monday morning.  I'm boarding another plane today. Time to say Good Bye to my spare mother.  Funerals are a good thing.  So far her death has been a kind of theoretical news. Going to Germany, attending her funeral, and especially having 'coffee and cake at her home' without her being there will make it sink in.

Jan, the son of my spare mother, has created a spectacular memorial card from various pictures of his mother, my spare mother (double duty woman with a heart much bigger than her body and an inspiring lust for life).  

A side note:  The above card was distributed by Jan as a memorial card to the attendees and those who could not attend. That includes me.  In late December Jan requests that I remove this image from my Blog., I thought about it for a while and removed this entire post for the time being.  Having had received this image from him,  and having including the credits, I feel entirely justified to reactivate the post on Mother's Day, May 10 2015, almost exactly 6 months after her funeral, having given Jan the time to channel his grief into other directions. The post is unmodified except this paragraph and the size of the collage image. Complaints are welcome but most likely futile. As they say in Canada (including the relevant connotation): "So Sue Me".

Having known her for most of my life, I just keep thinking:  There should have been more pictures.  How can you summarize a life with this?  Is that all we'll be in 50 years?  A few pictures on a card?  Not that a few hundred posts on a blog are really that much better.

Maybe the moral to be drawn from this is that what happens after one's life is really not that important.  Important is the time before death and that one uses it well.

GO LIVE!

A reasonably unreasonable Tuesday (with a GORGEOUS sunset)

Judging by the number of people in the water today, it will be a windy (wavy) day.

Max in drag?

I cycle into town for the last time. It is time to return the bicycle ;-(  The 45 minute walk back to the hotel is enjoyable but does not offer too many photographic moments

There is this carved piece of wood that I'm taking home with me.  I've wrapped it in T-shirts and other materials serving as padding and packing.  
Remember my rant about never getting a straight answer?  

I ask Grandma "Do you have any room in your suitcase for this?"
Her answer is "It's OK, I will unwrap it and wrap it".
I say "it IS wrapped".  
She says " Christian, be REASONABLE for once".  

This exchange makes perfect sense if you KNOW that Grandma is the ONLY person on this planet (How dare I? In the ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM!) who can WRAP things PROPERLY. Every one else is UTTERLY INEPT when it comes to this task.  I have no idea WHO the adept WRAPPER was before Grandma was born or whether humanity simply did NOT know HOW to wrap before Grandma, but ever since Grandma has been on this planet SHE has been the WRAPPER KING. 

That's REASONABLE, isn't it?

When Grandma gives up that job it will probably pass to a new-born baby, a process similar to the one used by the Dalai Lama, you know?


I am GLAD to be leaving Hawaii !  (UNREASONABLE, you say?)

On later reflection, while it might be strenuous and very painful to one's tongue, one should give someone whose age makes it highly unlikely that they will ever visit Hawaii again, some leeway to be themselves, just this one time.

At 5:30 pm I'm going down to the water for presumably the last time.  The waves provide an amazing spectacle.  Even from my standing-up perspective, some of the crests block the view of the horizon and then crash with torrential beauty.   

On the way back I notice people lying in the sand, their bloated bodies exposed to the evening sun, and their eyes fixed on their tablets or cell-phones.  

As if the waves hadn't offered enough excitement, I have to double-check when I glance out of the hotel window at around 6 pm. I don't even take the time to look for my shoes; I just RUN down to the waterfront to get an unobstructed view of the sky.  I start up my camera while running, because I know how quickly the perfect moment can vanish.

Not even 12 hours after that experience I am scraping the windows of my car in Vancouver.  Arriving at 7 am at Vancouver Airport, I am greeted by -3 degree Celsius.

T minus 7 days (or T minus 1 day, depending how you look at it)

Today I feel like I am caught in an avalanche!

At 7:30 am I am shopping at Keauhou shopping centre.




At 9 am I have booked a ticket to Germany for next Monday after consulting with Grandma. I am going to attend the funeral of my spare mom.













At 10 am I come back from a smoke break and see Grandma quickly closing my laptop when she sees me.  The first two thoughts hitting my brain in a split second are:  Good thing I have password protection and Some things NEVER EVER change (she used to steam open my mother's letters).

Snoopy Lady on the right is NOT my picture.

At 11 am I have booked a hotel close to Frankfurt Airport (~ 4 km from the airport for ~$75/night).

1pm - 2pm: In the afternoon I take the bike on a hunt for a particular Christmas present that I have seen 2 days ago but unfortunately did not buy.  The crafts fair, where I saw it, will not re-open while I am here, so I head to the Kona International Mall again, in the hope that yesterday's wood carving Czech man knows where I will be able to find what I'm looking for.

Of course, that entails a journey into Kona's Industrial Area or Big-Box-Stores shopping nightmare:  

 Shops shops shops until the planet drops

No luck at my first stop so subsequently I cycle all over town trying to find one of those carved Balsa-wood turtle Christmas ornaments.  It was meant to be a Christmas present for and old friend and purveyor of mine. No Luck, unfortunately ;-(

At 3 pm I have booked a hotel in Cologne for the night before the funeral.  I doubt that the weather will be in any way similar to when I was last there in late July.  The weather forecast for Wednesday calls for mostly cloudy skies with a high of 2 Celsius and a low of -1. Brrrr!

Cologne in July

After all that consumerism it's time to go down to the water again. For me the ocean balances it all out.  Brings to mind what is important and what is not.

 Yet another fish sees me and raaaaces to a hiding spot.  I used to have that effect on little children when I was 15 years old!  This fish is quite big though (about the same as a size 12 shoe) and it looks familiar. It's another box fish!

As soon as the next wave crests the surrounds of his tidal pool, Mr. Box rides the rapids to get himself to the safety of the open ocean, out of my reach.  How does he know that I like to eat fish?  

After sunset I am restless and I finally think I've figured out what it is.  I have a Thai curry craving ;-)  I feel like I'm on my way to an Opium Den, when I first stop at a bank machine and then head to Bangkok House under the cover of darkness.  Tonight I am increasing my dose!  Tonight I am ordering Thai HOT !