The Last Two Weeks - Part 1

Hello everyone, me again. Since there is so much to tell about my Dad and step-mom being here for two weeks, I am going to have to post about it in at least a couple of different parts. Since I need a break from crammng for the History of East and West Germany test I have coming up on Friday the 21 of April (read about it here), I thought now would be a good time to start out.

Firstly, let me say that my birthday was a blast (it was on the 31st of March). I got my haircut, had yummy chinese dinner with my boyfriend who also made me a super cute cake, opened my gifts (two tinkerbell purses, a tinkerbell shirt, some stationary, and an elephant picture holder from my mom and step-dad; Harry Potter 3 from Fabian; Harry Potter 2 (the books) from myself; Swiss chocolate, a typical French coffee cup, and a cute beeswax decoration from Ellen), talked to my mom and step-dad and just overall enjoyed my 21st birthday.

The next morning we got up bright and early to go pick up Dad and Bev at the airport - they arrived at 8:20 and we left home at about 6:45 (a little later than we meant to). It was exciting to see them again, and we spent the day looking around Frankfurt. That evening it was off to Giessen, where we stayed at a hotel overnight (where Dad and Bev were able to stay awake until 10 pm or so - they did a great job!) and bought a board game where the first person to lose all their money is the winner. Quite interesting, to say the least.

The next morning it was off to Marburg, the same town that I visited previously with Fabian and Tiffany (read about it here). We wandered around again mainly, going up to the old Castle, seeing the museum inside, and ending with delicious cake and coffee (or hot milk w/honey for me) which is a typical German tradition (at least used to be) at a very old cafe there. That evening we drove back home where we introduced Dad and Bev to Ellen (Fabian's mom), the apartment, and the air matress they'd be sleeping on while in Saarbruecken. Monday the three of us saw a bit of the city, and had an early night.

Monday night (or rather Tuesday morning) we woke up around 2 am to take a taxi to the train station where we caught a shuttle bus for the 2 hour drive to Frankfurt Hahn Airport (which is a small international airport which has nothing to do with Frankfurt the city and is actually not even near Frankfurt) where we caught an early (and cheap) flight with Ryan Air to London Stansted Airport (an airport not directly in London, but nearby more or less). For those of you unfamilar with Ryan Air, they are an European company who offers extemeley cheap flights to various cities in Europe. Their flights are sometimes so cheap that you pay 0.01 Euro for the ticket, and the rest of what you actually pay is various taxes. That was the case for us. We paid 0.01 Euro for the ticket to London, 0.01 Euro for the ticket back to Germany, and the rest of the 25 Euros we paid per person was taxes. That's a whole $30.28! Very cheap...

The only little problem we had in the whole thing was an arguement I got into with a woman trying to sell us shuttle tickets from the airport in London to the main part of London. The price was more than I expected, and the money I had needed to be kept for other things in London and back in Germany so after the lady wrote out our tickets and told me the total I tried to explain to her that I didn't have the money for it because the money I did have was needed for other things...except she didn't listen to me at all and just yelled at me for letting her write out the tickets and then refuse to pay for them and use them. Then she told me, "Well, thank you. Goodbye. Very nice of you, I saw the money you have. You could have paid. Good bye!" in a not very nice way. Then I gave up trying to explain to her that the money had to be saved for London (the pounds I had changed) and for our return shuttle to Saarbruecken (the euros I had). Dad and Bev at that point only had dollars (they were out of Euros, and we didn't get their dollars changed into Pounds yet due to bank problems in Saarbruecken), so they couldn't pay either. It actually all worked out though, because their supposedly "cheapest shuttle to London from Stansted Airport" bus was more expensive then the bus we paid for and took in Lndon.

And with that we grabbed the plane (since it is a cheap airline they use commercials from supporting companies that they play over the speaker on the plane nearly the entire flight) arrived in London at about 7:30 am (london time, which is an hour behind the time zone I am in or 6 hours ahead of Central Standard Time in the US), took a shuttle bus which was cheap but long since it got stuck in traffic and arrived at Victoria Station at 10:30 am, ready for two days of exploring London.

Stay tuned to Part 2 of the story - where you can expect to hear about the London portion of the last two weeks! :)