Ulm
Today we stayed in Ulm. Our experienced guide wanted to make up some brownie points for yesterdays lack of information about a fireworks festival, and took us around town center at a time which wasn't just as everything was closing.
But in a lot of ways, today was a bit more of a relaxing day. After the bouncing between cities that we've been doing over the last couple of days, the cold shock, the constant rain, it was nice that the temperature has finally seemingly reached a point where I can again enjoy the warmth of summer without being dressed like a snowman. The highlight: a café on the rooftop of a four story building close to the cathedral which offered views in all directions.
About half a year ago, I lost my favorite sunglasses and have been on the hunt for a replacement ever since. All the shops I've been to in Australia have tried to show me their collection of glasses meant for faces significantly bigger than mine, and all in modern style of being big enough to hide a small truck behind. The previous shop I went to in Germany listened to my request of glasses and didn't even reply before breaking out in laughter and then informing me that I'm about 10 years too late to find anything like that. Today however we finally found a store that gave me two options. A set of frames that I will need to put some lenses into which is actually very close to the style I want, including the frame actually having a nice construction; and a cheap set of sunnies that is still much closer than anything else I've found so far. And for the price: I took both. Yay. Now to never lose them and go through this pain again.
Otherwise, after yesterday became a pretty late day due to fireworks, trying to find my way home, and then still writing blog; as well as staying in the spirit of taking a bit of a slower day, we also headed home a little bit earlier. I am writing this blog entry while sitting on the window sill of a completely open window, three stories up, with zero railing, enjoying the fresh air. (The editor would please like to add a disclaimer here for any Australian safety engineers that just got a heart attack.) The next few days will all be travel days as we keep on bouncing from one hotel to another, so relaxing like this should charge us up for that. Plus, as I sit here, the rain has started picking up again ...
P.S. Cute story from yesterday. As I was taking some of the sunset pictures, a kid was asking his parents behind me: "what is he doing?!" in a completely flapergasted tone. The parents answered with "pictures", but this answer did not appear to cut the mustard as the question was simply repeated. At which point I turned around, looked at the kid, and asked "do you want to see?" The kid suddenly shrunk to half size, setting both parents off laughing as the kid presumably learnt a lesson about asking questions loud enough for other people to hear.