Day 2 * Off to Bad Kreuznach *22/5/08

Wünderbar! Vodka soaked lime sorbet meant that I slept through til 6 & woke refreshed and ready. Breakfast in the hotel was great - starting my diet of cheese and meat and bread and muesli for breakfast. Planned our movements and went for another walk in Frankfurt. That was interesting. Walking through the park with skyscrapers around yet still having the feeling of openness. Then back to the hotel, picked up the bags, paid the bill for the water drank overnight €3.30 for the bottle - and had paid €4 for an hours wireless Internet connection.
Walk to the station was easy, finding the subway which allowed us to get through without going across tram tracks and roads. Then buying the ticket seemed to take forever. I had thought there were vending machines which there were but BK was not on the menu so went to the ticket office where the queue seemed to take forever. Got tickets to be told the train was going in 5 mins - we’d left our walk a bit late. Got to platform 20 just in time, clambered onto the train and found seats with all our luggage just as the train left the station. Then the guard came by after the Flughaven station and informed us we were in the wrong class (1st) for our tickets. Fortunately most had got off at the airport stop so there were plenty of seat in the second class section. An hour later we were approaching BK so I started to take the cases through to the exit. Stepping through the doors in the next section and a young woman said “You’re from New Zealand?” while pointing at my koropepe. So we talked a little then she started to tell her companions how she’d been in NZ in Feb/March fruit-picking.
Then Bad Kreuznach and there was Claus at the station to greet us with the parish van for our luggage. Up to Lessingstraße and welcome from Mari Margaret. And so the talk began. She hasn’t really changed, just as bubbly, intense and wanting to know everything at once as ever. Claus stayed a while then went back to parish duties till lunch time.
After lunch and a rest we went bee-keeping up in the woods where MM has 4 hives. Both of us had turns helping and we brought back 21 frames of honey for extraction. Another rest, then at 4.30 had high tea on the balcony - baked cheesecake and tea. Then it was table tennis time and I acquitted myself ok, and Denise had a go right handed against MM playing left handed. They are both good and both competitve. We came in after nine and started to do the honey. Bumble hands me in putting the centrifuge back together didn’t get it properly lined up and the spindle casing bent out of alignment so it wouldn’t turn freely. Once we saw the problem we fixed it and went up for supper - a smorgasbord. Then it was time for bed – midnight. Our systems were reeling quite a bit with change of time zone and change of diet.
And all the time talk, constant and good talk, feeling like we are catching up after just a few months or years instead of 10 in mine or 25 in Denise’s.