Easter Edition (feat. bunnies...)

‘Twas a sunny Good Friday, so I decided to break out the shorts for the first time (yay) and go for a walk in the park. Being slightly paranoid about the cold, I still took my big jacket, which I soon came to regret, but at least it provided a soft rug later in the day. Here’s a picture of the landscaping outside Thomas’s building – very nice when the flowers on the trees are in full bloom.





So I wandered through the green strip across the road from me, (which was so pretty with all the little white flowers in the grass)…





…to Stadtpark, where I found lots of people lying on the grass enjoying the first decent sun of the year. I also found lots of flowers, which is always nice:





Stadtpark is what you’d expect of a typical city garden – big trees, lots of benches, manicured gardens, and flamingos. YES, that’s right – flamingos! I can just picture the landscape architects sitting there planning Stadtpark thinking “hmmm… whatever shall we put in a park in the middle of frosty Europe? I know – a flock of tropical birds! What a stroke of brilliance!” Crazy Germans…





But the array of tropical birds didn’t end there, oh no! For up a nearby hill, I discovered (okay, Volker’s kids showed me) a aviary containing a wide variety of MACAWS!!





I will now take you to the other stuff I promised you I’d talk about a few entries ago. On the edge of the park, in a rather unassuming hotel, there are a number of animal displays. The first things you notice when you walk in (even non-guests are allowed to access this part of the hotel) are the aquariums of fish in the walls:





There are also glass panels on the floor, which allow goldfish to swim along in artificial rivers as you walk over the top of them. I couldn’t get a decent photo of this though. I also couldn’t find the entrance to these under-floor rivers, but I assume the fish get fed somewhere, or else they wouldn’t have been moving so much (if at all).

Next up, I found the iguanas / miscellaneous other lizards, within the indoor tropical garden (too boring to show). But my favourite attraction in this bizarre hotel/zoo was by far the BUNNIES!! The first time I went, I was able to pat them, but this time they must’ve seen me coming so hid within pots:





and behind bunny houses:





Anyhoo, it was a nice day. Saturday, however, was not such a nice day (weather-wise anyway). On this day, I made the journey into Frankfurt, which took me longer than expected because of non-user-friendly ticket machines, which caused me to miss my first train. In Frankfurt, it was cold and overcast, and I didn’t wear enough clothes – I really needed my Lions beanie. I also hadn’t really planned what to do, although I have heard since from numerous people that Frankfurt is a hole that is only fit for accountants and stockbrokers between the hours of 8am and 6pm on workdays. Here’s a pic of the town – the usual European city cross between modern and ancient, with some extra skyscrapers thrown in for good measure.





I spent my morning shopping, looking at the markets and tracking down the Aussie pub. I had a chat to the manager, who invited me to an Aussie Street Fest, which will be held in May, and also offered me a job. I told him I would probably get booted out of the country if I earned any money, so instead of giving me a job, he gave me an AFLG promo card with the 2007 draw on it, and told me that he also owned the sports bar in Wiesbaden and they’d screen Aussie Rules games if I asked them to. On the draw card, it also mentioned a tri-nations tournament (Germany vs Sweden vs Denmark), one game of which will be played in Berlin in July. Germany vs Sweden. So I’ve booked my airline tickets and I’ll be donning all the black and red I can find!

Once I got sick of wandering around aimlessly, pushing my way through rowdy Frankfurt soccer fans (big game that day), I decided to go to the zoo in the afternoon, to continue my weekend of animal sightings. I saw two lions who were acting like Matt’s cats and prowling around the doorway waiting to be fed:





A tiger who came right up to me for this photo (or maybe he was also looking for food):





Some very happy hippos who WERE being fed:





And some much more impressive flamingos than those in the Stadtpark flock:





It ended up being an okay day, but I don’t think I’ll be hurrying back to Frankfurt. I’m going to try to con some of the guys in the lab to come see an Aussie Rules game with me in Wiesbaden, because they’re on at midnight on Sunday nights, and I don’t want to go by myself. I think the promo videos I found on YouTube got at least a couple of them interested.

This Sunday I’m playing soccer in the park with some people from the Uniklinik, and on Sunday I’m possibly going to visit some people I met at the airport the other day, who live reasonably close to Mainz. Should be good!

PS. Yes, I know Easter was ages ago, but I've been having issues with my photo hosting. Vienna entry to follow, as soon as I trawl through my hundreds of photos.