Well, Gentle Reader, I am back in the land of interweb access and full sized blankets. I had a wonderful time in Germany where they seem quite fascinated with good Italian coffee and gelatto, amazing cheese, and marvelous pastries. A girl can live on such things.
Don’t know what to do with tea, those Germans. You should have seen me trying to convince them to bring me milk (NOT cream, thank you very much), and when they did it was warm and frothy. Luckily the tasty breakfast buffet came with an ubiquitous cereal bar and so I merely snagged milk from there for my morning pot and drank delicious lattes the rest of the time.
The AB and I landed in Frankfurt but skirted quickly out of town to Wiesbaden, one of the spa towns and made post haste for the hot water. After 11 hours on a flight who doesn’t want a nice bath and a sauna? Kaiser-Friedrich-Therme
After that we went to Frankfurt for the Book Fair it was . . . an experience. It’s like BEA only bigger and requires a map and at least 30 minutes to get around, the fair, mind you not Frankfurt. I met with many of my foreign editors and publishers ~ from Russia to Japan to Sweden to Italy to Germany and beyond ~ although not all of them, as it was so crazy a few of them didn’t make the meetings.
One of my favorite things to happen in Frankfurt was visiting my fans. A small but excitable group meet me at the Horse and Hour British pub and sat outside in the cold drinking bear and chattering away. I was a little jet lagged so not quite up to snuff but I learned all sorts of interesting things about the Germany steampunk movement and Clockworker which left me well armed with information for my meeting with my German publisher (the very aptly named Urban) the following day.
The AB and I escaped before the fair really got crazy and went to spend five days off grid on the Rhine. It was stunning. We used Koblenz as our base and from there did totally touristy things like Riesling tasting, visiting
–> medieval towns and castles, boat tours, and an unexpected flower show (the Buga).
–>
I did find one new fruit I wanted to try, Physalis but I had never heard of it and didn’t have the courage. From the wiki article I probably would have enjoyed it.
Book News:
Paranormal Wastelands enjoyed Soulless!
Quote of the Day:
“Plain buns are really one of the most harmless styles of refreshment (though the spirit quails at the thought of the ordinary station bun, which resembles nothing in life so much as a geological fragment), or sandwiches may be eaten, provided they are not of ham.”
~ Lillias Campbell Davidson, Hints to Lady Travellers 1889
Physalis are interesting, quite sweet and far from inoffensive. Also known as the chinese lantern fruit.