my last-minute weekend in Frankfurt

As many of you know, my friend Jenny lives in Frankfurt with her husband Leo and their new daughter Janka who was born in November. Since moving here I've talked to her a couple of times, and emailed a bit, and we were trying to work out a good weekend to visit. This past weekend was booked for them, as a family from Hamburg was going to be visiting them, so we'd decided upon next weekend. But then Friday morning I got an email from Jenny, saying that their friends weren't able to make it at the last minute, so I could come if I didn't already have plans.

I thought about it, and I checked out the website for Deutsche Bahn, the German national railroad, to check out what the prices looked like. Generally, it's cheaper if you book in advance. There are exception to this I think, with some special deals, but to be honest I haven't figured out the Bahn's website or pricing scheme entirely just yet. Jenny says not to worry, she's German and it still doesn't all make sense. (They do have English on their website, but only on certain pages, and not on the ones describing all their special deals.) It looked like it would be about 21 euros cheaper to go the following weekend (63 vs. 84), so I told her I'd probably come the next weekend instead. Also, these prices are with the 25% discount I get because of my BahnCard 25, which was my going-away present from the UVic/lunchtime people in Victoria. I was so happy when it arrived, I even took a picture of it:

I also wasn't sure about going because I'd heard from my mom's co-worker's friend's partner, Alex, and he and Corene (my mom's co-worker's friend) and one of their friends were heading out for Mexican food and cheap margaritas on Friday night as well. I know that it's a pretty silly string of people who know people, but Corene and I were given each other's email addresses, we're both Canadians living in Jena, and it turns out that we both like to eat and drink. It was a sure-fire recipe for fun. We've been out a few times since I got here and we've had lot of fun, but unfortunately they're moving to Vancouver in a week and a half or so. In fact, their going-away party is this coming Saturday night.

But I'm getting off-topic. Essentially, I was already excited at the prospect of margaritas for 1.90 after 9:00 pm, and I didn't want to replace that plan with three hours on the train, heading to Frankfurt.

But then Friday afternoon I was invited to a party the following weekend at the house of one of my co-workers, which many of the younger scientists in my group will be attending. This is way too good a chance of socializing with my colleagues to give up. (And not because I think it will be good for my career or anything like that, just because I think it's nice to have friends at work.)

And so I didn't know what to do - going to Frankfurt this weekend meant a more expensive ticket, really rushed last-minute packing, leaving work earlier than I'd planned, and missing out on Mexican food and drinks. Going the weekend after meant missing out on the work-related party as well as Corene and Alex's going-away party (which are unfortunately on the same night). At this point it was around 4:00 pm in Jena, so 7:00 am in Victoria, and I called Jeremi to ask his advice. Of course he said I should do it all. Buy an expensive ticket that left early Saturday morning, go out on Friday anyhow (who needs sleep?), and then stay in Jena the weekend after.

I called Jenny and worked out the details - I went out Friday night, and took the train leaving Jena at 7:36 Saturday morning. Jenny and Leo and Janka came to meet me at the station, and we then went to a big market to do groceries for a big supper that night. Jenny and Leo both really like to cook, and they're on an Indian spree at the moment. For supper Saturday night we had a feast - butter chicken, masur dal, okra with spices and yogurt, cucumber raita, rice, and naan. It was really wonderful. Here's Leo with the table full of food:
The next day we all slept in (well, mostly Leo and I, as Jenny was up feeding Janka throughout the morning), and had a huge breakfast of sausage and eggs and bread and cheese and meat and jam and yogurt etc., and we made our plans for the day.

We opted to go to the Senckenberg natural history museum, the largest of its kind in Germany, to see the exhibit about archaeropteryx, the feathered dinosaurs which were believed to be the evolutionary "missing link" between reptiles and birds. The exhibit was pretty interesting from what I could gather, which wasn't too much, as of course the signage was only in German. This was a surprise to Jenny, but not to me. She was sure that she'd seen museum signs in two languages before, and I reminded her that she did live in Canada for over three years. I tried to muddle through the signs as best I could, but to be honest I ended up feeling pretty useless, especially as the place was packed with kids and their parents, and I was watching six-year-olds read the signs aloud to their parents.

Aside from the dinosaurs they also had some pretty interesting exhibits regarding marine life. They had some really cool large (10-20 cm) models of some plankton - diatoms and coccolithophores and dinoflagellates and the like - which really look like sci-fi space stations. There were also many preserved specimens of various sea creatures, and amongst these I found the sea urchin shells. Now this is exciting because last August while camping near Port Renfrew with Jeremi and my brother and his wife I found the most interesting shell fragment that I'd ever seen. The design was incredibly intricate, like lace almost, with holes from one side to the other that took circuitous paths through the body of the shell. I took the fragment home and tried to look it up on the internet, but without luck. But I'm almost certain that I found it at this museum! It was definitely a sea urchin at least, and I'm fairly sure it was what's called a Griffel Seeigel in German, or a pencil urchin in english, or Heterocentrotus mammilatus or possibly Heterocentrotus trigonarius in latin. Here you can see a picture of what the shell looks like without the spikes or soft tissue,

and here's the sea urchin while it's still alive. Pretty crazy-looking, eh?
And while it's possible that Chris and Karen and Jeremi have completely forgotten about the mysterious shell fragment, at least I can put it out of my mind now.

After leaving the museum we walked back across town to their place, relaxed, had some leftovers for supper, and then I headed off to the train. Here's one last picture of Jenny and Janka hanging out on the couch before I left: