Weekend away

On the day G went to her last job interview I promised myself that, would she get the job, I would drag her on a weekend away back home. Weeks and weeks of stress and late night Shiatsu sessions have eaten on my nerves. G and I had a couple of things to do in Wiesbaden anyway, so why not have a weekend away?
We booked tickets to Frankfurt Hahn which isn't really Frankfurt but somewhere in the middle of nowhere, for last Thursday. The flight went well, the Hertz car rental guys gave a us a free sat nav. It needed to go back to Frankfurt Airport where we would drop our car anyway- Frankly I don't even care if they gave it to us because we looked like two helpless women, it was really nice - although I had all the maps printed out.
The Airport B&B was comfortable (I miss double glazing!) and even the weather was great. We had a pleasant drive to Wiesbaden - apart from one moment on the motorway driving past oodles and oodles of lorries. The poor Italian guy - who happened to be the first car in this lorry-overtaking-event - looked close to a nervous breakdown when we drove past him at the end of the line of lorries. It was a stressful with just two lanes, one being entirely occupied by lorries, the other one by the overtaking cars. I had to suppress the mad urge to crawl over G and out of the left window. It didn't help that the motorway bent sightly towards the middle lane, which gave the impression that the lorries would fall on top of the overtaking car.... well you get the idea: not a peaceful moment. The picture above shows our breakfast in Wiesbaden, in a small cafe/restaurant called Lumen near the cathedral. Nice place with enormous windows - I can recommend it. I particularly enjoyed the moment when the people at the next table made remarks about how sad people are who depend on their mobile phone. (I took several pictures with it while G was feeding the parking meter). Since G and I usually talk in a mixture of German/English they might have thought I was foreign - big mistake - and so I didn't feel guilty listening to their conversation.
We dropped the car at Frankfurt Airport because the train station is in walking distance under the terminal. It now paid off that I had to go to Frankfurt for singing lessons years ago and knew about the locations. The train journey up north to our families is one the most beautiful train journeys we have in Germany. If you take the IC train from Frankfurt to Cologne, it will take you for about two hours up next to the Rhein with stunning views. The Lorelei rock - I think - is part of the UNESCO world heritage. We sat on the 'wrong' side of the train, but I still managed to take one good picture. For more pictures, the legend and the translation of the Lorelei poem by Heinrich Heine see here. Of course all those hours on the train meant uninterrupted knitting! I finished the Odessa no. III - a birthday present for my friend A, and G knitted socks - which originally were meant for her Dad, but now will be for her. Also note on the picture's left side the red melon shawl which hadn't been on any pictures so far (we're still looking for the camera).
As you can see I already have the sock wool ready: Dream in Colour, Smooshy, Black Parade from socktopus who bent over backwards to make it possible that we could take the wool with us to Germany. Thanks again! I left G on the train as her family lives a bit further north than mine and spent a great evening with my parents at home. I love my old room, huge compared to what I have here. Ok, I really don't need it that big but it's so nice to come home and invade all this space. On the road again on Saturday to see my sister (three more hours of knitting) in my parents' new car and then to my friend A's 60th birthday party which only (!) lasted until about 3.30 am - summertime's calling.... slightly tired we all met for breakfast a bit later that day.... In the evening G and I met up at the airport to fly home together. A great weekend away. So nice that we decided to do this more often and have booked a car and a B&B to go the Wonderwool Wales at the end of the month!