Unfrei is a term used in the German postal system.  If something is sent unfrei it means that the recipient pays for the postage.

This is often indicated on the envelope as “Gebühr bezahlt Empfänger”.  Some companies pre-print their envelopes with “Bitte freimachen, falls Briefmarke zur Hand” requesting that you put a stamp on the envelope, but that they will pay the postage anyway if you do not.

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The White Tower in Bad Homburg

Our last visit to a tower in this summer took us to Bad Homburg where we visited the White Tower (Weißer Turm). The tower is located in the middle of the castle, and it took us a while to find the right entrance and then where to get the key from.

Once we had the key, we had the tower almost to ourselves. The tower contains a museum so that rather than just climb to the top, you can read about its history at different levels on the way up.

Currently the tower costs 1EUR for adults and 50 cents for children to enter. The car park “Schloß” near the entrance and most of the buses that go through the town stop nearby.

To find out more, listen to the podcast:

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Größere Kartenansicht

A Kurbelinduktor is a hand-operated dynamo, similar to a crank.  By turning it, an electrical current is generated.

The first telephones required the user to turn the handle to create the current that opened the flap on the Klappenschrank.

These days the Kurbelinduktor technology can be found in wind-up mobile phone chargers and torches.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

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