Well, we start our journey out of Frankfurt in 3 and a half hours(tomorrow will be a long, long day!) and what an adventure Frankfurt has been.

Yesterday Darren and I wandered the streets for about 10 hours - a highlight would definietely be finding ourselves in a botanical type garden and watching some old german men play chess(the big type, where you have to walk around the board to move things). One of the men was loud and extremely over enthusiastic - Naomi once used the following reference for Czech people, and it couldnt be more appropriate here - its like in that Simpsons episode where Lisa goes to Russia and then sees two Russian guys playing chess and yelling at each other, but the subtitles are things like - thank you for that excellent game -and - it was a pleasure playing with you- and such. ANYWAYS it was sort of like that. Then it started raining and as we wandered out of the park we stopped to watch some other people play normal size chess, and one of the old men that had been watching at chess game number one was there. He had a fabulous pink and purple umbrella. I pulled mine out and he looked at us and said something in German, and when we stared at him blankly and said English he said "you have another one?"(in regards to the umbrella) we shook our heads no and he promptly pulled one out of his rolling luggage thing, not just any one, one that was pink and handed it to Darren. We werent sure if he meant just to watch the game, but as soon as he handed it to Darren he said "ok, have a nice day, bye bye". I laughed with joy all literally all the way up the street.

We have been having an absolute ball staying with Tommy and Pavi(Im not sure how to spell her name!) They are hilarious and very sweet - I have definietely laughed until there were tears in my eyes on many occasions. Yesterday they put a bbq together for us, and we all shared a meal and then played Settlers of Catan. Today Tommy had the day off, so the three of us went into town and went to the old church, the modern art museum, wandered, had haagen daaz and then came home. We went for a fabuloud walk in the GORGEOUS forest just behind their house, with the dog of course, and then Darren and I treated them to dinner to say thank you. I have what was esstenially a giant hamburger pattie, but 1000 times better, with feta cheese in the middle. We then ended the night with another game of Settlers of Catan. Darren and I need to leave her at 5am and it is past 1am now, so....tomorrow is going to be a lot of dani whining. But we did jsut book into a b and b in Amsterdam that is very reasonable and looks very cute.

O, the first day Darren and I were here, the wandering day, we also got a German lesson from a man in a museum that was closed, bought a wooden version of connect 4 and then played in for a while in a coffee shop, had currywurst and enjoyed the river. It was a very relaxing, fun and full day.

Off to stockholm in 8 hours!

Love, love love love love to you all!

Dani