A Weekend in My Homeland....GERMANY!!

Guten Tag!!

I just got back from one interesting weekend in Frankfurt, Germany.

We met up with everyone at the train station Friday morning at 6:40am. Our plane was supposed to leave at 9am...but they didn't even start boarding until 9am. Yet somehow we made it to Frankfurt 5 minutes earlier than our scheduled time. Not sure how that worked out. But our plane flew over the Alps. It was a gorgeous view...lots of snow.

After landing in Frankfurt, we had to find the train station to get to our hostel. Of course no one was willing to ask, so I went up and asked some guy at an information desk. While everyone stood about 30 feet away from me. I don't understand them sometimes. Once we finally found the station, we couldn't figure out how to get tickets from the machine. Everyone stood there for literally 10 minutes trying to figure it out. And I went up to a desk and asked a man...who gave me a ticket. :)  There is nothing wrong with asking directions! I didn't come to Germany to spend my time in an airport trying to get a ticket out of a machine.

Anyways, the train ride to the center of Frankfurt was short. We knew our hostel was going to be located in the Red Light District, but I guess I didn't realize what we were getting into. The Red Light District was several blocks long and several blocks wide. Every building was either a sex store or a stripper club. The streets were packed with men of all ages. People were doing drug deals on the street and one guy was even sniffing some sort of drug.

Eating lunch was the first thing on our "to-do" list. We had lunch at this lovely German restuarant. I got patatoe soup, a brat, and mashed patatoes. The food was amazing. It's so different then the type of food we get to eat in Rome.

Over lunch I was telling a story about something (I don't recall what it was). And I said "they are such Nazis about it." Tim looked at me like I was crazy. I was completely confused until Tim explained we were in Germany. And it is a sensitive subject for them. lol.

After lunch we headed back to the hostel to do some research on the area. The lady who worked at the hostel had no clue about anything in the area. She didn't even know where there was souvenir shopping. Tim asked her where he could get a pair of Birkenstocks....she was really confused. So she sent us in the direction of Frankfurts fifth avenue shopping. Which was definitely not what we were looking for. I didn't come to Frankfurt to go designer clothes shopping.

We ended up going to St. Bartholomew. It is the prettiest church in Frankfurt. :)

After we headed back to the hostel again to check into our room. Since we weren't allowed to until 4pm. When we got up to the room, there were already 4 beds taken. It was a 6 person room and there was for of us. We had to go back downstairs and explain that 8 people were booked in a 6 person room. They ended up upgrading us to an apartment for the night...otherwise they would have to had split us up. Which we weren't having, since we had booked the hostel 2 months ago!! The apartment had 2 double beds, a kitchen, private bathroom, and tv. We got lucky on that one.

We went to dinner in the pub area of Frankfurt. It was about a 25 minute walk across the river. I got porkloin, fried patatoes, and a mixed salad which had patatoes in it. I also got my first taste of German beer...Apple Wine. We ended up taking a taxi back to the hostel, because it was cheap and we didn't want to walk through the Red Light District when it was so active. I think the taxi cab driver was confused why 3 girls and 1 guy wanted to be dropped off in the center of the Red Light District!! lol

We were all in bed by about 10 pm. We are always really tired after the first day. Tim ended up talking in his sleep. It scared the crap out of me. I was waiting for him to smother me in my sleep or something.

Saturday we left the hostel at 10am for the flea market. We were hoping we would be able to get some souvenir shopping done here. I assumed it was going to be like the Porta Portese in Rome, but it wasn't. The Frankfurt flea market was basically a junk sale. So we decided to go to Old Town where we finally found a total of 5 souvenir shops. Let's just say that Frankfurt isn't much of a tourist location.

As we were walking, we came across a Subway. I about peed my pants in excitement and went running inside. Of course I was followed, and we ended up having lunch at Subway. I got to have ranch dressing and cheddar cheese for the first time since being abroad. It was absolutely amazing.

Then we went to play in a park. Tim and I played in the leaves, while Bliss took pictures of us. We went up Main Tower to see the gorgeous view of Frankfurt. Then headed to a box office to buy tickets for a play.

The play was at 6pm. We saw Who's Afraid of Virgina Wolf. It was interesting, funny, and really confusing. Not sure if I really cared for it or not. But it was at the English Theater.

After the play we had dinner. I got one beef sausage, one pork sausage, and one Frankfurter sausage with mashed patatoes.

When we were walking back to the hostel, Tim made a comment about having a nice butt. I laughed hysterically and he said I was jealous of him. And then he asked if I thought he had a nice butt. I told him I have never looked at it, so he did a little model walk down the sidewalk. I inform him that I can't look at it because my eyeballs will burn out of my head. :)

As we walked through the Red Light District, I was apparently the main attraction. I didn't even notice until Tim told me to keep walking blonda. That is his signal that I am being creeped on. Apparently he had to glare at every guy that we walked passed. Including a taxi driver who was talking on his cell phone and went, "OOOOO." I told Tim it didn't bother me...because at least the Germans just look and don't touch, unlike the Italians who are overly friendly.

Saturday night we got moved back into the hostel room we were supposed to originally stay in. It was for 6 people, so 2 others that we did not know stayed there as well. We got to the hostel around 11pm and one of our roommates was already sleeping. She ended up getting up at 7am and was extremely noisy on her way out. Our 2nd roommate didn't come home until 4:30am and was still sleeping when we left at noon.

After we checked out of our hostel Sunday, we walked to get some breakfast. There ended up being a huge Frankfurt running marathon. So we had to run with the runners to cross the street. Which was definitely a site to see with me in my heels. I think Tim, Tynisha, and Bliss almost died laughing as they watched me run across the street.

We to take a 100 minute boat tour after grabbing some breakfast. We had lunch on the boat as well, which was yummy. Then we headed to pick up our baggage so we could go to the airport. That's when we realized that it was daylight savings, so we had an extra hour. But everyone wanted to go to the airport anyways.

We ended up having to wait over 30 minutes for the ticket line to open up. Then once we finally made it to security, things starting getting interesting. I set off the beeper when I went through. So a security lady made me come over into this little booth, where she padded me down. I was wearing jeggings (jean colored tights), but she felt up and down my legs numerous times. Even though there was obviously no room for me to hide anything. After I felt completely violated, she made me take off my boots and she sent them through the xray thing, and finally gave them back. I thought I was all clear...but I wasn't. The security guy was holding onto my carry-on. I went over there and asked what was wrong. He made me open it and he grabbed a box that was in there. He asked what was in it, but I couldn't remember, since everything I bought was put in some kind of wrapping. So he made me open it. It ended up being a musical ballerina I had boughten in Old Town. He handed it to me and told me to open it. I tried to tell him that it didn't open, that it played music. So I turned it so that it would play music. He flinched, maybe because he tought it was going to blow up? Well he took it from me and put it to his ear...then went to consult with a fellow security person. I thought they were going to take it away, but he finally gave it back. Apparently they thought my musical ballerina was a homemade explosive device.

To add to everything, my eye starting hurting on Saturday. I think there was a rip in my contact, but silly me didn't bring an extra pair nor did I bring my glasses. So I suffered through it until we were on the boat tour. I finally decided I rather be blind then go through the pain, so I took it out. And my eye felt 10 times worse. It would not stop watering and was turning more red by the minute. My only thought is that I scratched my eyeball.

As I thought about things, I came to the conclusion that the security person probably thought I looked like a psycho since my one eye was swollen, red, and watery. That's why they were so suspicious.

Our flight didn't leave Germany until 6:45pm. I am happy to be back in my bed here in Rome, but I definitely miss the weather in Germany. It reminded me so much of home.