Home in Freiburg im Breisgau

Our trip Sevilla to Frankfurt went the best we’ve ever had. Still no consistency in how they handle Bruce’s wheels, but it worked out. He was able to keep his chair to the gate, it was brought to the gate in Frankfurt with a lovely woman who took us all the way to the shuttle bus area for hotels.

Frankfurt airport has been under construction for at least the last two times we’ve been there making it difficult to find where to go. It seems done now, at least the functions we need of it, flying through at least twice a year. The support staff are wonderful though, last year we had a lady track down Bruce’s chair, they always seem to lose it. And they don’t go away until you are at your destination bus stop. 

Bruce had to use the bathroom in the main terminal and left his man purse in it with his wallet. I walked boldly into the Men’s washroom and was lucky both had finished peeing, stalls empty and no purse. Damn, didn’t I have a “good” time running over the airport to find it, but I did with much help from staff. We need to edit the id he carries.

So we’re at our usual hotel in Frankfurt, the Intercity, they have a ramp on the bus, accept pets and allow smoking in the rooms, and have the greatest chicken wings at the bar, and Happy Hour, drinks half off. Later, I go to the bar and pay for a bottle of wine, which I decant into a water bottle for going home. That is a trick we use every time we travel, decant liquor into plastic bottles, they weigh a whole lot less than glass.

Next day and it’s a two hour train ride home Frankfurt to Freiburg. Bruce’s help at the platform the fellow said he didn’t have scheduled, we’d have to take a later train by two hours, not That big a deal but still. Then he found us in the smoking area and said with a very big pleased smile on his face we could take the originally scheduled train. He was so pleased as we were, but I think he was even more pleased than us! He said “DBahn (train company) isn’t too bad for us today”. He loaded Bruce and I gave him an extra wave and thank you before boarding. I do a small shop for tonight and Easter Monday at the station, it’s cold here for us! 

Here comes the bride! Actually she's looking for birdies, you can't see me this way!

What a dumb move of me to schedule travel over Easter but it was okay because we travelled between the big travel days of Friday and Monday and it wasn’t too crowded. Another thing I need to get better at is putting phone numbers for wheelchair ramp equipped taxis in my phone, doh, you’d think that is a given but we ended up taking the tram home today, again not a problem. This trip has been the smoothest one yet, only problem was Bruce leaving his man purse really, and since that got resolved we were lucky. 

So we arrive home and the place is really not that dusty, the blinds probably helped with that, being vacant since mid-March when Dawna and Erwin decided they needed to go back to Ottawa for major projects and family commitments. 

I’ve decided to do this A secret… drum roll… when taking the bedclothes off the bed I roll up the three under layers, into a long sausage like roll and then the duvets into their own roll, takes about five minutes to get the bed made again, so much easier than folding everything up individually. So we are home, safe and very grateful for that with all the craziness that happens. I don’t worry or think about it too much, because there is no point to worry, just adds stress.

We do get wonderful sunsets here.

Easter Monday and everything is closed as expected, Bruce is missing his milk and oranges for breakfast and there is no food in the house which has him panicked a bit. It is a cold, rainy and windy day and I had plans (which I didn’t tell him about!) to continue getting things organized in the flat. But he was antsy, how he gets some mornings and wanted to go out. I went with, with a somewhat bad attitude, which improved as we rode the tram downtown by seeing all the beautiful flowering trees. We gathered what was needed, I had a bite of lunch and came home, nasty out there and supposed to snow tomorrow, Egad! and it did for about ten minutes. 

Did a large shop the Tuesday after Easter, then visited the tobacco shop who also sells tram tickets, the mani/pedi place for an appointment, hair cut shop, eye glass shop, bank, then it’s lunch time so we got a pizza to bring home. Poor guy making it had to do it twice, he wasn’t having a good day but it final result was tasty.

We went downtown on a cold but sunny day, Thursday, and I truly wished I’d packed my tam, but it’s in Sevilla. There is a story to this tam, to describe it, softest wool, teal green in colour and I had given it to my maternal Grandmother, a super lady, and I’ve always said “if I turn out half as good a person she was, I’ll be a good person”. She had thinning hair as I do now and needed a pretty hat to wear, she loved it, I love it. So when she passed away I got it back and wear it proudly. It has been said, don’t know by whom, "give a present that you would love to receive yourself", perhaps not always correct but in this case worked well. I survived without it, just bloody cold. 

Went downtown Saturday, demonstration for Earth Day held up all the trams and it was so very busy! I lost Bruce again and was about to head home when he found me. He bought a nice food dryer from Chafferer, a rather upmarket home wares store. This one won’t, or shouldn’t break and we can clean it in the dishwasher, something I especially appreciate. 

Met up with Christoph on Sunday and went to La Cicogna restaurant, which means The Stork. We have gone there many times and appreciated the meals and decent service. My and Christoph’s meals were good, Bruce’s was terrible, how can you screw up spaghetti bolognese? They did! Dry meat which tasted off somehow, maybe a mix of pork and beef, but still tasted weird. The way they handled the send back was not professional at all. The waiter said “that is the way we make it in Italy” with a snotty attitude. He didn’t take it away, he did ask if Bruce wanted sauce, but the meat didn’t taste right so throwing good after bad. Okay! we’ve eaten this dish many times in many places and coming home looked up recipes to validate. Very disappointing since we had really liked this place. They did not charge us for it, a good mark in their favour but I have to say it will be a while, and maybe not ever, going back. It’s more a matter of how the one person handled the situation than the food, he’s been there since we’ve been going there, he recognizes us. Perhaps he was having a bad day but to project that to his customers was not a good move on his part. 

Christoph’s last few months have been an “adventure”, not too much of a good one, no detail here because it’s highly personal but he is surviving and coming out of the challenges and frankly dramas, he’s faced with. As always it was great to catch up with him and start planning outings again. 

Pretty door in the Pub at the Hotel.

All for now, Cheers, Bx2 and the hiding Lexi Cat and it's warming up outside!