For those of us technically challenged

Thanks to the myriad of writers who had responded to my subtle plea for help I had figured out what the problem with my iPOD's battery cradle was. I'm sure it's a problem that has plagued many of you at one stage of your life's journies, so without going in to too many of the technical details, I'll just include the brevities:

The switch needs to be in the ON position.

Now I just need to listen to some more of Bill Bryson's audiobook of his meanderings througout Australia to exhaust batterys of their go-go juice so I can try the thing out.

Untitled

I had met Sabrina and Keri on the train to Amsterdam several weeks earlier. The pair of them work at one of Frankfurt's international schools (one of the best, I had been informed) which lies to the north of the city. We had enthusiatically agreed to convene at a suitable location in Frankufrt to meet the rest of their cohorts. This rendez-vous was to be on Friday (figuring out which tense to write this in is proving tricky without a satisfactorily busy digestive system) at Cafe Metrolpol - a decidedly German affair, which could be identified by its lack of any kind of 20th centry point of sale system. This was to be later reinforced by items the fresh tasting menu, the ingredients of which I'm sure were freshly procured from their stable and abbatoir out the back. I had an inclination to ensure that they knew about the problems with lead in their water pipes.

As I walked in, I cast a furtive glance around the cafe and found the group occupying several tables in a cozy corner off to one side of the establishment. They weren't hard to miss since earlier I'm told that just a pair of the girls amongst the group had been told to keep their "happiness" down barely a couple of minutes after getting on the bus in to town. Life is short over here - you need complete serious concentration. The group was enjoying their evening with boystrous gusto as evidenced by the frequent glances from the envious neighbouring tables in our direction.

The group slowly disbanded over time until a faithful few were left and we headed to a house bar next to Cafe Celona. It was a nice touch being able to drink with the illusion that you're actually outside despite cowering next to red-hot gas heaters under a tarp. The gas fires gave everyone's faces a errily red-faced glow as though we were basking on the face of Mars. The undertones filtering around the gang gave an idication to a desire to head to O'Rileys, which is the local Irish bar in Frankfurt (mentioned earlier in the blog). Unfortunately it had already come to my attention that like all Irish bars on this planet that you can never get a drink from these places on the weekend, Karaoke burbles from some wretched corner. This was no exception, and to add to the mix were American armed forces lads all wanting a piece of whatever meat was on display.

The conversation throughout the evening was friendly and jovial, ranging from topics such as free will in life, to gossipy shop talk. Since both my parents have been school teachers all their life, I had a gut feeling that this wasn't a usual Friday evening for the life of a teacher though. Most of the ones I've met in the past have usually been too tired from the day to venture out in to a foreign town and let the hair down, however to give them credit, they were out to close around three.

So, for the first time in a while, I've got a quiet sunday that I can catch up with some programming what not, and a bit of writing.

Next weekend is another mission to Austria. Rekon it'll be a good one.

The next chapter

New Years was a fantastic time up in Amsterdam. Lots of beautiful girls were besotting me at every corner. Having fireworks let off by revellers was surprising given the intimate nature of the crowd befelling the streets - the skyrockets made it especially special. It felt very European to not have an agency such OSH ensuring everyones freedom be limited in the spirit of a wet blanket. Instead they were used in controlled fashions to cause passers by to need to carry several changes of undergarment with them on the eve of the 31st:

* Doublehappys were let off a the feet of passers by to give the illusion of walking amongst, and setting off landmines but without the annoying limb destruction.
* Skyrockets were let off a few steps ahead of and intersecting the path of walkers to really give the a feeling that you're actually in downtown Falluja. I would have thought that it would be extra points to disrupt a cyclist. These cyclists seemed as hardy as the local insurgent youths and appeared to actually welcome the onslaught with a trite "Als tu Blief" as they rode past.
* Fountain fireworks were used as the effect of blood pouring out a freshly decapitated corpse just to show that Geurilla youths with big swords can flex their might.

Emile and I were wandering around Amsterdam from about 11.30 looking for where the flow of crowds were leading. Unsurprisingly we bumped in to his work collegues and stuck with them throughout the evening. At midnight the mandatory handshakes and kisses (three for the Dutch) were done. For an afterparty we wandered to the Dam and grabbed a few beers from a bar and hung out on the street chatting about incidental things (read: banter).

At about three o'clock we both headed home with the Jesus wheels and nodded to ourselves in aggrement of a relatively sober new years being the way forward. Not out of some illogical reason to stop drinking, but just a lack of need. This will invariably change from year to year depending on the cost of fish in China I suppose. The following day I went out to one of the local Mac Winkels and bought a battery pack for my iPOD. 23 hours of extra battery it says. A pity the first use (after a fully charge) couldn't give me but one millisecond. Might just have been bad alignments of the planets I'm telling myself.

The Ruckfart back to Frankfurt was depressing as usual, but I met a pilot in training, who I thought would be interesting to talk with. The experience was a double-edged sword I would tell myself as I sat there listen her talk, then talk, then talk some more. I now completely understand how people can find pilots boring people to talk/listen to - it felt like I had a sign around me that said "I liked getting talked at - try me today".

Anyhow, I've been a bit crook the last week or two, but it seems to be getting better. I thought I had built up a hardy resistance to bugs over the few years, but it seems that the bugs here know that you don't have a German moustache air filter then attack.

The weekend after this I'll be back in Austria visiting Yayeri and having a burn down the ski slopes. Aparently this month is the coldest, so there should be a good base of a metre and a big waiting.