1 August 2008
We are still in Frankfurt. We couldn’t find a cheap way out to Paris. We ended up spending 198€ or almost $400 to get to Paris. Enough bother…
We went to the zoo today and saw real Aye-Ayes!!! We couldn’t believe they had them. It was worth the walk across town and getting lost and walking twice as far to get home.
The problem with photographing nocturnal animals is no flash. He's in the upper right-hand corner.
No one has donated in two days. I don’t know if anyone cares anymore.
We are staying in a different hotel tonight. We spent two nights at the Nurnberg and it was a big room with a tiny bath. This is a small room with a larger bath – Hotel Continental.
We have been in Frankfurt for three days. A visitor would need only one. Train and lodging are the largest expense. Our largest expense.
We had cheese and pretzels for dinner. We bought them at a grocery store. It was probably the least expensive, most filling ‘dinner’ we’ve had so far.
We were so happy with our food find, we took a picture.
I miss salad. I miss milk.
We got confused over what day it is. Google said it was August 3rd, but we didn’t think it was. It’s the 1st. We’ve been at this for nine days. That doesn’t sound like a long time, but it feels like I’ve spent half the time on trains. After three days here, it no longer feels like the ground is moving all the time.
We’ve had CNN the last few days. It’s better, especially with the language barrier. We watched Star Trek and Family Guy in German.
I don’t understand travel. I just don’t get it. Why would anyone want to go thousands of miles away to look at a building? It makes no sense. I would have traveled to Frankfurt for an Aye-Aye. Wait, maybe not.
I cannot think of anything I would travel to see. Why?
I simply don’t understand. It’s like there’s a small chip/mod/widget that’s missing in my brain.
[beyond-the-journal notes]
The days are a little confusing around this time – both then and now. On 29 July we left Salisbury and went from London to Brussels – sleeping in Brussels. On the 30th we left Brussels and went to Frankfurt, passing through Cologne. On the nights of the 30th and 31st we stayed at the Hotel Nurnberg. On the night of the 1st we stayed at the Hotel Continental (yes, same name as the hotel in Brussels, but in Frankfurt).
At the zoo, the lions and the rhinoceros were not in cages. They were just… there. They had a small gap with an incline – like a ditch, but it really looked like they could just jump across. It isn’t so obvious in the lion picture, but you can see in the rhinoceros picture:
It's just *right there*
There was a tiny, wire fence up to Jake’s knees. The lion’s area was exactly the same.
There was no fence!
13 August 2008 at 9:56 pm
Never heard of a aye-aye but i will be googling a picture of one.. i can’t believe there aren’t fences around the animals- i wonder how many people they kill each year or what they would do if they all planned a big escape. your dinner looked pretty good to me.. is that chocolate milk in the bottle or a large bottle of yoohoo?
13 August 2008 at 10:48 pm
I read somewhere that if you put an animal in the right size enclosure, it won’t realize it could run or jump to get out.
That’s chocolate milk. The options were 2%, chocolate, strawberry or banana. Every place had banana milk. Yuck!
Germany did have a lot of grapefruit flavoured candies and chocolates with hazelnuts. Two things I wish we had more of here in the U.S.
14 August 2008 at 4:40 am
the grapefruit candies sound wonderful… no cage and a lion still sounds scary… think about the kid killed at that zoo last year and there was a fence there… i can see the lions asking each other “so who jumps the ditch to pick up dinner tonight”.