Love ya Frankfurt!

9/25/2009

We are so excited to leave Munich today it was unreal. We got up, took our time getting ready and all packed up. I woke up naturally at 7, which I thought was bizarre because we had the opportunity to sleep in and I couldn’t. I’m thinking that maybe I am doing ok with getting 6-7 hours of sleep a night as long as I can close my eyes for 5-10 min once or twice a day. Well see how long that lasts before I crash, but for now its working out ok. I was moving really slow this morning, but that was ok because I did get up earlier. Katherine and I then went down to breakfast with all of our stuff, had breakfast, then checked out. All we had to do then was get to the train station, figure out the train situation, I wanted to buy a traditional German outfit, and then get on the train.

We got down to the station and figured out (by asking a train help representative) that we did not have to pay any additional fees for the high-speed train we were taking to Frankfurt and did not need to book a reservation for seats. Then we walked across the street from the station to a German clothing store and I bought an outfit! Im pretty psyched about this because then I never have to worry about figuring out another Halloween outfit again. For those of you who do not know, I hate Halloween because I always feel so much pressure with coming up with a good costume and it really is just not my cup of tea in general. Maybe this outfit will change that around for me.

A random fact….we were using the computers that the hostel provided to check our mail real quick in the morning and realize the keyboards are different. I don’t know why this never occurred to me but it was kinda weird to type on. The “z” and “y” are reversed.

We got on the train and sat down. I have never been on an Amtrack train, but Katherine said that 2^nd class on this train puts Amtrack trains to shame. It was really nice, much nicer that the Eurail train we took to the mountain so in every way it exceeded our expectations and made us feel much more at ease about traveling around Europe using the Eurail. We were a bit skeptical after our experience the day before. I mean we could even sleep on these trains (granted not laying down like you would on a sleeper train, but it would be without the sleeper train fee) and be good with that. It took me a while to get settled in so I wasn’t paying attention, but Katherine noticed that people were looking at the seat numbers and kinda giving us dirty looks. It never occurred to me that a train would have assigned seat like an airplane does. A lady plopped herself down next to me and was totally cramping my style. I thought it was really weird that she chose to sit in a seat next to me when I had everything scattered about.

There was a nice guy sitting across the aisle from us who started talking to us. Turns out, he works in NYC but is from Germany and is back to renew his working visa and visit his family (all expenses paid by his firm). He asked us if we wanted to get a drink in the restaurant car, which we absolutely accepted because it would be free. He and Katherine ordered coca cola lights and I got a wheat beer because I was feeling kinda hungry and knew it would fill me up a bit. This guy turned out to be extremely nice and was a wealth of valuable information. For example, he told us that the seats we were sitting in were reserved, that’s when we figured out we were probably getting dirty looks from the people who had reserved them but didn’t want to bother with making us move because we were “stupid Americans” and if they didn’t know English we would have a serious problem figuring our exactly what the problem was because we definitely don’t know German. He filled us in on a bunch of stuff like that. He also told us that paying for the Eurail individual trips is very expensive and we definitely got a great deal with our pass. I enjoyed talking to him and was grateful for the knowledge.

When we got to Frankfurt, we found our hotel pretty easy because it is really close to the train station. We decided to stay in a hotel because it was cheaper than the hostel, which was just a win situation in life. We checked in and the room ended up being pretty nice for 25 euro. The lady at the front desk asked us why we were in Frankfurt, like what are you here to see because there isn’t that much going on here, so that gave us a kinda bad feeling.

It was the afternoon, so we decided to walk to the botanical gardens and then go to a traditional German restaurant and get some applewine (what Frankfurt is known for) at a restaurant we had read about in a book. The walk to the botanical gardens was highly enjoyable, in addition to walking around the gardens. They were very pretty and it was a nice was to unwind. There were some great reclining chairs in a field that I took a little time to rest my eyes in. I took a picture of these chairs, they would be great to lie out on. Then we took the subway to the restaurant, Adolf Wagner’s. We do a pretty good job navigating cities, but the subway was pretty difficult to figure out, but we made it no problem.

At dinner we got a cheese, onion, and bread plate for an appetizer. I am not kidding that the cheese tasted like barn. That is the what popped into my head, with the manure smell and everything when I put the cheese into my mouth. Luckily dinner was much better. It came with a salad that had a dill dressing, which was funny because Katherine and I had literally been talking about dill right before the salad came. Then for our main course we split pork schnitzel that was served with onions and potatoes. It was very good, but heavy and fried. Im glad we ate it and tried it, but I wouldn’t go out to order it again. The applewine was not what I expected. I kinda wanted more apple flavor and it was more white wine flavor.

We were trying to figure out what to do with the rest of our night on the walk home, when we passed a coffee shop that smelled really good. We stopped in there for some hot chocolate and talked. Our waiter was a huge prick thought. We then walked home to the hotel and realized that Frankfurt is a very easy city to walk around in. We passed their red light district on the way home making sure to stay a safe distance away because it was night. Did you know that there are blue light buildings in the red light district and that means they are for gay men. Just a fun fact for yall. We got back to the hotel and it is just so nice to be able to sprawl out and not have to worry about your stuff, took a Nyquil to ensure a good night sleep, and hit the hay.