Change In Plans For Easter - Visiting Cologne

Last year, we spent the Easter in France by driving though the Alsace wine region. We had planned to visit the area again this Easter, but...

First of all, Fräulein had a bit fever. Secondly, the weather wasn't very nice. And as a combination of these two reasons, we decided not to travel too far from home.

We spent the holiday visiting some local attractions, like eating lunch at Schloss Biebrich and Ikea (yes, meatballs) and feeding animals at Fasanerie. But on Sunday, we drove a bit further.

Cologne is located about 170km north-west from Wiesbaden. The ride took about 1 hour and 45 minutes. So, it is quite conveniently located for a one day visit.

So, here are a couple of photos from our visit.

The park along the river had attracted quite many tourists.

A lot of shopping opportunities. If it hadn't been Sunday...

You should always show a photo of the local church, right?

Fräulein met the Easter Bunny

Last but not least: the Finnish hamburger restaurant chain Hesburger
 will open a restaurant also in Cologne!

My Worst Online Shopping Experience

I must say that I have done quite a bit of shopping online. Expect for the hideous website of Ryanair, I haven't really had bad experiences. Until a couple of weeks ago.

Photo by Fräulein

I came across this nice bodysuit for babies with "My mom is blogging this" print. As our goddaughter, who's mother also writes a blog, was to turn 18 months old, I thought I would buy her one.

The bodysuit was by CafePress. I first went to their English web site, but as I was browsing there, I was suddenly thrown to their German page, loosing all product details I had found so far.

The web page didn't look very user friendly. Most of the links were marked with a question mark. And as I was trying to make the purchase, there was no link for me to go forward...

I have now realized that I should have just gone directly to address cafepress.de instead of the www.cafepress.de/totrocket, where I was thrown to. At the time, I thought these usability issues were due to Safari browser and used Firefox instead.

As the delivery costs were very high (8 euros!) I decided to buy two bodysuits, one for Fräulein, too. They had a size chart to help choosing the right size of clothing, but the measures were, well...

2 * 26cm = ... 64cm ?

Well, I decided to buy two with the size 18-24months. The cost of my purchase was stated to be 40 euros. I payed with PayPal, but after clicking 'OK', the sum was suddenly 41€! Well, one euro is not much, but I don't think it is a very good practice to increase the cost after you have made the purchase.

To their credit, the products were delivered within the time they had promised and the quality seemed to be OK. Although the size 18-24months is a bit short for 17-months-old Fräulein...

But yes, her mom is definitely blogging this!

Frau Welle's Blog Post #100

Five months has passed and this in my blog post number 100!
What an earth I have been writing about...

Nature in Wiesbaden five months ago...

...and today.

During this time, there has been quite many visitors in my blog, more than I could have ever imagined! I have already collected 57 flags to the map at the bottom of this page. And no, they are not all countries Herr Welle has visited... ;)

Some of you have become regular visitors, some of you just end up here once when you were searching something from the internet.

In Blogger, you can see what kind of key words people have used in Google when they have ended up to your blog.
Mostly the searches that lead to my blog are related to the attractions in Wiesbaden, expat life or some brand I have mentioned.

From all the photos in my blog,
this picture has received most hits in the Google Image search.

But there has also been some funny Google searches...

Like during the Finnish presidential election, quite many people ended up in *here*. I guess those who googled "sauli niinisto profile" or "finnish presidential election 2012" weren't actually looking for something like my review...

Some of the key words, which people have googled, have made me wonder what they were actually looking for:
   cayenne pram - Are you looking for a pram that fits into your Cayenne or a pram that matches well with the style?
   things found in handbag - Sorry, my handbag was probably a bit boring, but what did you expect to find?
   take a father welle baby - Okay...
   klaus welle daughter - No, I'm not related to Klaus Welle, in case you were wondering
   faru way 2011 - And this search led *here*
   german for i'm having a baby - I hope that wasn't an urgent search, because one could not find the answer from my blog
   i could use another reason - For what? I'm curious!

Fräulein's hair five months ago...

...and today.

But no matter how you have ended up in here, it is great that you have taken the time to check my blog - please, come to visit me again!

And I hope I'll keep you entertained for at least another 100 posts!

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,Frau Welle

From Late Winter To Blooming Spring

During our two weeks in Finland, it really started to feel like spring there, too.

Although it was barely plus degrees,
there wasn't much snow left on Friday.

But then the winter came back overnight.

The same garden on Saturday morning.

Luckily, we had our flight scheduled for Sunday afternoon. So here we are, back home in Wiesbaden!
While we were away, the spring has really sprung here!

Magnolia and tulips in bloom.

And what is even better, my grandmother is staying with us for a few days!