when Ritsuko times out

Hey peeps, I somehow found myself in Frankfurt, while neglecting to bring my laptop. Thus, I’m typing this on a rented laptop with a real icky, stinky keyboard (all public computers are icky, I should have brought my own laptop, no matter how heavy). Hey, at least it works, and at least it doesn’t barf on non-standard H.264 video encodes like my PSP (damn, I should have tested that encode of Aces Go Places 4 before I hopped onto the train).

Speaking of the train, I switched so many times. I stayed in Hannover, and I didn’t find anything particularly noteworthy of the place, except for the tons of soccer fans in the train station, all singing soccer anthems and wearing yellow scarves that had DORTMUND woven in to them. I bought two disposable film cameras (no more shitty noise in dark conditions, yay! but no zoom) and proceeded to take pictures of everybody and everything. Pretty soon I figured out that this was a pretty damn effective way to flirt with everybody on the train. So I took some pictures of beautiful women who were on the same train. In the end, I found that there weren’t that many, as I secretly confided in one of the girls I had photographed (she took that as a compliment, how nice). All this continued until I met this one real cute girl. After some hesitation, I decided to use the same old tactic. She flatly refused by saying she didn’t need a photo. I then said but I need one… of you! And she said: I don’t care about you. So I went back to my place.

Some time later, I realized that I shouldn’t have left so quickly. Had my German being a bit improved, I could have made fun of her – superstition, or saying something like ‘I like your attitude, what’s your name’ would have helped. Instead, I waited until the end of the train ride, when I said to her ‘Ich mag deine Haltung, wie heisst du’ and she apologized for her kneejerk reaction. At this point, if my German was better, I should have said something along the lines of ‘wow, you apologized. I thought you were a bitch before, but I guess you’re not after all’ and that should probably work with this particular girl. Oh well, practice makes perfect. Hopefully hindsight will soon make the transition to habit.

If you ever find yourself in Frankfurt, go to Five Elements. At only 18-22EUR per night, it’s hard to go wrong with these guys. It’s a youth hostel, but not only in the price, it’s clean, the decor is stylish, and apparently it’s stylish enough that everyone here pulls out their Macs while I’m stuck with a IBM Thinkpad X30 (mmm, Tualatin). The only bad thing is that this hostel is in the middle of the red light district, and I get hit on by the proprietors all the time (I wish women would approach me for reasons other than my money, say, for instance, my DICK). Uh, I meant horribly interesting personality.

Then there’s the Mozart Cafe. That place is basically snacks, done right. Any fool can make ice cream that brings a smile to children’s faces, but the guys at Mozart Cafe have the kind that will make a ice cream connoisseur (grossly obese or simply immature compared to wine connoisseurs, take your pic) dance in ecstasy. The Rothbusch tea was also really nice, subtle yet strong flavour. It was lovely, and the guy at the table next to mine wished me a great time in Frankfurt. Not many strangers will wish that for you in most cities.

On my way from the airport, I met a Chinese woman. She had obviously never traveled abroad before, except to Korea (doesn’t count, it’s too close) and Thailand (uh… common tourist destination I suppose). She kept on comparing Frankfurt to Beijing and talking about how the latter was better. Well, she didn’t say that all the time, but I got that feeling from her. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t hitting on her. She was way older, and besides, any slight thoughts of that sort would be instantly dashed by that closed mind of hers. I found that strangely disgusting, although Beijing certainly sounded enticing. I should go there sometime, since I’m a Chinese after all.

Anyway that’s all I have for now. I suppose I’ll go check out Braunschweig and Iserlohn if they’re in Niedersachsen on my way back to Oldenburg (remember those two in Legend of the Galactic Heroes?).