Euro_Adventure - Frankfurt

Our last night with Yves and Oscar was spent with spaghetti and wine, as I said in my last blog. Our train to Frankfurt was at 10:43 the next morning. We waited until about 10 to get Yves up how had a separate part of the house. Evidentially he had stayed up until 6 am working on some projects on the second floor (his part of the house) and had slept through his alarm. Rather hurriedly he got his stuff together and we got out of the house. Thankfully, the train station was only a few minutes down the road so we were at our train in plenty of time. We said our goodbyes to Yves and thanked him again heartily for being our host. When the train arrived we jumped on and were off.

The train from Luxembourg to Frankfurt is amazing. It is a a private tour of the Rhine/Mainz river valley, littered with tiny picturesque towns and castle spotted mountain sides. Igor and I were like kinds in a candy shop staring out of the big windows at the doors of the train. Every minute or to one of us would say to the other “Hey come here look at this castle!,” faces pressed up against the glass, fogging it up with our breath.

Who said being an adult had to be different than being a kid? Whoever says that and who ever came up with that doesn't know how to have fun.

The total journey took us about 4 hours since our German train decided to break down right outside of Mainz, a suburb of Frankfurt. We had sorted out two places to stay in Frankfurt and when it came time to decide which we would use it was obvious that being closer to the city was best. Ulrike (pronounced Ul-Reka) or Julie/Uli as we called her was just on the West side of Frankfurt and staying with her was such a great idea. I had put out the couch surfing request this time and so gave her a call. Originally we were just going to stay with her Thursday night but as we wanted to be in Frankfurt, I asked if she would be ok with us staying the three nights. She was.

We met her after she got off work at her place dropped our bags. Uli said that she was going to go to the gym and if we would like we could come with her. More precisely I believe Igor said, “we'll come with you.” and thus we spent our first night hanging out in a gym in Frankfurt. It wasn't what you would think of as a “proper gym” meaning that it didn't have any real free-weightlifting equipment. Just a bunch of machines, one pull up bar (much to Igor's dismay) and one dip bar, so the selection of things to do was rather limited. We had fun all the same though.

After the gym we stopped by the grocery store and Igor had fun asking Uli what all the different food items were. It was the first place in Europe that we found Kefir (Igor's favorite, which I enjoy as well). In the morning Igor and I set out to walk the earth, which is exactly what we did. We walked pretty much the whole southern half of Frankfurt. We went to a park, walked through an indoor market place, found some coffee, had some yummy food and, just had an amazing day of it.

By the time we got home we were a bit spent on walking. Uli got home a bit late and we had intended on meeting her in Frankfurt for dinner but since we were already back at her place we thought it best to just meet there.

Uli had an American co-worker who lives in Bohn a few hours away and was staying in Frankfurt for the night. So we were out for some Mediterranean food and some drinks. Notably a couple of Frankfurt specific ones (Apel-wein and some sort of brandy/whiskey like liquor). I didn't like the liquor (big surprise) but the apel-wein was ok. It had a strange after-taste of olives which I found funny.

Uli, Kevin & Igor

Me, Uli & Kevin

Frankfurt by Night

Igor showing off. He also seriously considered jumping off this bridge onto a barge that was going underneath

The next day Igor and I intended on going to the Zoo (the oldest in mainland Europe) and the film/cinema museum. The walk to the zoo took a bit longer than intended as we stopped off the various open air markets that were out and about on Thursday, apparently. Once at the zoo we had a fantastic time. There were thousands of animals to see and it was one of the nicest zoo's I think I have ever been to. It reminded me a bit of how Marine World was when it was a zoo. We read on-line that the San Diego zoo is considered the best zoo in the world...Both Igor and I disagree with this, Frankfurt might not be the best zoo in the world (since we have a limited reference pool) but it is certainly nicer and less expensive than the San Diego zoo.

this poor guy was dancing for her for ages

We ended up spending so much time at the zoo that we didn't have time to make it to the cinema museum as planned, since it was on the other side of the city. So we walked about a bit more and missed the University that we were going to walk through on our way home as well. Igor wanted to do something nice for Uli since she was our last, host, had been really amazing to us and made her home feel very much like our own. We got back and I jumped in the shower and Igor headed out to the store. Uli home home around 7:30 and Igor made us a very yummy dinner. And that is how we spent out 3 nights in Frankfurt.

Katie, Igor & Uli

The next morning we boarded the tram, got to the train, and caught a train to the airport. Igor had asked me to figure how to get us the airport the night before and Uli had simple said you just catch the tram to the train station and then take the subway there. So I left it. We did make to the airport, in plenty of time with no mishaps, just had to ask which platform and trolley/train a couple times.

Thus was the random portion of our adventure completed.