The train ride from Frankfurt to Köln was quite interesting. First off it was a good 35 degrees Celsius so we were all lethargic and feeling too hot to move and the second reason was that there was a party going on on the train… It seems a group of youthful men were celebrating something and were getting in the spirit by drinking copious amounts of alcohol.
A highlight was when we were all sitting in the stuffy lower cabin and one of the young men came up to us with a thong stretched over his shorts and up to his shoulders. He was a ridiculous sight in and of himself but what made it really funny was that Forest was asleep like he so often is in the chair and the guy was facing straight at him and a few of the girls, so I tapped him and he woke, saw what was in front of him, started and then had a look of mingled horror and disillusionment. It was great!
So the train slowly wound on through the landscape, Kimberly and I talked for a good portion of the journey under the scorching sun while people shouted and hooted on the floor above us. Then as we neared Köln a voice came on over the loudspeakers in the train car to tell us that there was a fire on the tracks up ahead so we would have to take a different set of tracks and delay the trip about half an hour.
As the sun started sinking behind the mountains and buildings the day cooled off and we arrived in Köln in very pleasant weather conditions. We went with the girls to their hostel where we checked to see if there was any openings. There was none so Forest and I were hobos left to wander where we might… or find a place to stay. We checked around at several hostels but many seemed filled so we tried the Marriott hotel. They had openings… however, we decided not to take a room as the cost was 168 Euros per night ha ha ha.
Eventually we found a room to stay at; the station on the other side of the train station from the girls and behind the rolex building was a fine place… that is until we looked at the bathrooms which were how should I say… less than par. But we set up our stuff used out Pac-Safe TM and locked up our stuff, then met the girls for dinner.
We went to a nice little Turkish styled restaurant where I ordered two sandwiches, one filled with falafel and veggies and one with feta and veggies. They were tasty and only cost 7.60 Euro. Then we set off to look at the cathedral and sights of the city. The cathedral was amazing and intricate nearly to a fault. Amanda wanted to go a karaoke bar she had been to last time she was in Köln and she directed us to an area in the southeast portion of town. We wandered that way following the layout of a shopping district.
Well, we had no luck finding any bars in that area so we turned around and headed back towards the center of town and the cathedral and Rhine river. Turns out that is exactly where we should have gone in the first place because the area was littered with restaurants and pubs and bars. We sat down at one and looked at their drink menu which was minimal, then decided as the waiter was taking a long time and the drink menu was minimalist (a strange thing for Germany) we turned around and sat at the table behind us that was another restaurant’s. We ordered a drink or two and relaxed there talking and enjoying the atmosphere taking pictures.
Poor Forest has been hung up on whiskey sours and no where has them so when the waitress asked him what he wanted and he responded with a whiskey sour, she said that she could bring him whiskey on the rocks which he agreed to. When it came in its little glass with ice he looked forlornly at it. Again hilarious, I feel bad for laughing at his pain but just seeing him with this little glass of ice and brown liquid was classic.
After the restaurant bar, we went to a kiosk and got beer as it is so so much cheaper then wandered towards the bridge. On the bridge we stood and looked out over the flowing river and its pitch black depths as cars passed their headlights illuminating the world intermittently. It was truly a beautiful moment.
Then we wandered over to the green swarth near the river bank and sat and relaxed. Amanda and Sarah wandered off in search of a kiosk, 45 minutes later with their lack of return we began to be concerned and Kimberly and I went to look for them trough the streets of pub area, while Forest (who had previously fallen asleep in on the retaining wall where we were sitting) and Sam stayed and chatted. After an unsuccessful search we returned to Forest and Sam and just as we returned Amanda and Sarah showed up giddy with alcohol and their bubbly personalities.
We all walked back towards the cathedral which was resplendent in beautifully illuminated golden tones flowering in the night sky. We found a hopping club, the irony being that it was located right next to the train station and cathedral, but decided not to go in it as we were tired. We said goodbye and Forest and I tricked a little on the way back to the hostel then I took a shower and fell asleep.
The next day we checked out carried our bags to a McDonald’s where we met up with the girls, then I and Forest got falafels across the street at a small store and then walked with the girls to the cathedral where we took some pictures and went inside. There was a service as it was Sunday and the acoustics in the cathedral were just amazing. The light and the Latin and the German of the service created an ethereal realm. As I came to the center of the back of the church I froze and just stood there listening to the singing and the service not wanting to break the spell that I had fallen under.
As the rest of my party finished their examination of the building and filed out I returned to a conscious control of my body and followed after them leaving the exceptional experience behind as no more than a memory and written words here recorded.
After the cathedral and a little shopping by Amanda, Sam, and Sarah, we walked to the EL-DE-Haus. The EL-DE-Haus was an SS holding and interrogation prison, famous for its cruelty, inhuman conditions, imprisoning of foreign nationals, and unsanitary conditions. Today it stands as a memorial to these things and the other atrocities committed by the SS and people within the Nazi party.
In the walls of the prison cells are carved many poems, last words, impressions of the place, and defiant remarks made by its prisoners. There were some truly horrible stories that we all were exposed to and it touches a deep chord within the human spirit that some people suffered so much.
After the EL-DE-Haus museum Kimberly, Forest, and I took the tram and walked to a large park in Köln while Sam, Sarah, and Amanda went shopping. Unfortunately, Kimberly had to leave only a few minutes after we reached the park because she had dropped her ticket for the train and would not be able to utilize it to get back (good news though she found it on her way back so at least she didn’t have to buy a new one.)
At the park it was amazing to see so many people out sitting enjoying the weather and relaxing in the sun, playing games, meeting friends. And it wasn’t just college aged people either; people of all ages from children with their parents an large groups of families cooking food for dozens of people, and college aged people meeting friends and talking as they walked their bikes to spots in the sun and especially nice to see were hundreds of old people walking or biking or walking with canes or arm braces but getting out and see the world that exists around them.
When it was time to go we wandered a little through the park, I climbed a tree that hung over a small lake and we found a beautiful little waterfall flowing beside a cave under a path. Then Forest and I took our leave of the park and started walking back orienting ourselves on the cathedral spires. We walked through small residential neighborhoods finding gems in the landscapes and passing interesting persons engaged in their various activities. We stopped once at a grocery store and bought some supplies for our train trip later that night.
After a long and pleasant walk we arrived at the cathedral and train station. We looked for a train to München and chilled at the train station. We were going to get on one but it was already packed so we jumped off and waited for the next one. During the waiting I found a grocery within the train station and bought a few things for the trip and Forest a Banane Milch. As you can imagine he was thrilled when I brought it to him as he had been searching for one and was unable to find them. We got on the train to München around 7 pm and sat on the floor or stood for at least two-thirds of the trip. We arrived in München and walked off the platform giddy with who-knows-what; we sang Lady GaGa and walked into the heart of München as rain fell from the heavens.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Frankfurt
The 3rd of June started off nicely with Forest and I meeting a really cool guy named Logan. Logan is from New Zealand so he and I talked a little bit about that... the highlight of that conversation was probably when he told us he and his mother had tried out for parts in Lord of the Rings movies. His mother plays an orc in a couple of the movies. Ha ha ha so awesome.
After breakfast and getting ready, Forest and Logan and I went out for a stroll in an attempt to find the PalmenGartens which currently has an exhibit on European Landscape Architecture, I was excited... however the day did not exactly turn out as we had planned.
Rather than finding the correct path to the PalmenGarten we took a side road, Hamburger Allee, that led us to a great adventure in miscommunication, random meetings, beers on a hot day, and good food.
After walking a significant ways we came upon a kiosk which was open, and as it was Corpus Christi and most of the restaurants and kiosks and all the stores were closed we decided to stop at this few and far between oasis. As it turned out this Kiosk had another patron, a Spaniard who had lived for about a year in the USA, in New York. Well, let me tell you he was the man to find!
Our Spanish friend, although living in the USA had never learned English and as our Deutsch is less than what some might call 'gut' we had difficulties understanding him. As I was the most proficient at German I was used as a primary translator of the Deutsch that was spilling forth from this slightly intoxicated mans lips.
From what we determined utilizing our skills at Deutsch and Spanish we gathered that he was telling a very long drunken joke, this is it simplified from a 15 minute conversation: a friend of his died due to alcohol (drank himself to death,) then his friend went to heaven and asked St. Peter to let him in. Well, St. Peter said yeah okay, but drinking isn't allowed up here so you have had your last drink. Well, this didn't sit too well with the guy so he drank in heaven and god and st. peter kicked him out the door (this little bit he mimed out to help us get the gist of the story.) So now his friend is down in hell and couldn't be happier because he can drink.
Good joke, huh? Well although the joke isn't too much fun the entire trying to break the language barrier that accompanied this was a riot. Logan and I were confused and cracking p while Forest fell asleep on the bench. After we finished our beers from the Kiosk we said goodbye the Spaniard and walked on down the road.
Well, we were still slightly lost and now we were hungry as our bellies were full of only beer, so we stopped to eat at one of the few restaurants we had seen open and ordered food and drinks. We sat outside under the shade of a giant umbrella, or at least we did after the waiter had been yelled at by a German customer for opening an umbrella. Poor waiter.
So at the restaurant I had a plate of fries and a curry sauce with fried cheese dish. It was excellent!
We stayed there till around 5 pm and then wandered back towards the central part of the city were our hostel in located but we did make a stop at a massive tower in Frankfurt that had several sculptures and a water fountain outside of it, quite interesting.
After returning to the hostel Logan crashed and slept for a while, Forest and I just read and worked on journals and looked at photos. A pub crawl was about to start but we opted not to go on it since the people were all noisy Americans and other english speaking men and it seemed less than an exciting time.
As it turned out we were able to witness a couple of fights (from our window in the hostel we narrated it, more fun than you can imagine) that took place around the hostel many crack deals and even Forest being “attacked” by a woman who wanted him to come into one of the peepshows. It was great see the look of torment on his face and his mingled anxiety and horror as the woman wrapped her arms around his head in something like a chokehold and shuffled towards the door of the bordello. He suffered all that for his addiction to Banane Milch, ha ha ha.
The next day, the 4th we went to the Palmengarten. It was really beautiful and they had many enclosed exhibits simulating different biomes. Forest and I took lots of photos and videos in the tropical exhibit then we wandered into the European Landscape Architecture Exhibit. It was really cool and I gained lots of ideas and critiqued the featured works. Took a lot of pictures too. Then, Forest and I sat and chatted a bit about landscape architecture and photography. It was really nice to have a quite chat about the things we are invested in.
After the exhibit we walked around a bit more found the rosen garten which was quite lovely and found a gift shop. Forest went in and bought postcards, stamps, and alcohol… ahhh my little brother. The best part though was the alcohol he chose. One was a bottle of Apfelwein the local specialty of the Frankfurt area and the other was a sparkling wine of 15% alcohol with those always classy screw off tops. Well Forest drank the drinks and we wandered some more, finding some really cool places like a desert exhibit, an open field area that looked like it was filled with local varieties.
We then found a cave area that had iron gratings covering several side passages and tricked in there some, doing superman, side crow, flag, and the like. Well, by this time it was getting late and we had to go meet up with Logan for dinner so we left the Palmengarten and walked back to the hostel where we ran into Logan and then left for dinner across the Main (the river flowing through Frankfurt.) We had a nice walk and went through the old town area with its old impressive structures then across on of the multiple bridges along the main and found an area that had several restaurants and pubs along it.
The restaurant we went to had only a few vegetarisch, vegetarian, choices so I got a really tasty though expensive meal of herbs blended into a “grün sauce” and a hard boiled egg and a pitcher of apfelwein. The meal was good and we talked and relaxed and just enjoyed the outdoor atmosphere that the city really does an excellent job at offering. Then after we had settled the charges we walked to a Kiosk and got a beer and right next door was this little pizza place that I got a pizza at for cheap and forest got a tuna salad. We walked to a park that was diagonally located from the pizza place and sat there in the park with the beers and pizza and tuna-fishy-Forest.
The park was the location of a couple of interesting occurrences. 1) Forest tried to have another gumball out of a street side vending machine, but the gods interceded and stole his money as the machine jammed. 2) A strange guy rather effeminate and maybe in his 70’s walking his little white dog came over to us and needed to get by us into the park. We had been sitting on the step to the park and as it was a raised park with a fence all around it except at its three entrances we happily obliged in moving… however the man did not rather he said something in Germany to us… something along the lines of your pizza box is in the way of my dog, move it. Well I understood his meaning and moved the pizza box, while Logan and Forest just stared slightly mystified. You can be sure that this made us crack up laughing once the guy was out of earshot and we were heading back to the hostel.
We stopped once more that night, this time at another Kiosk near our hostel and with a small seating area outside of it. Logan and I got bier and Forest went to find a Banane Milch. We sat and drank and talked then headed back to the hostel. Logan & I went out again for a few minutes simply to get some pictures of the great area we were in. Then it was bed time.
A cool man from Switzerland was in our dormer room and he and I chatted some and he wrote a few cool words in Romanian as his fiance is Romanian and he was headed to see her and bust her out of her country finally after going through much paperwork.
Our final day in Frankfurt dawned and I woke up to meet up with Kimberly and her friends from the military base. I met them at the train station and oriented them a bit in the Frankfurt area. Then we separated so they could go look around the city for a bit with plans to meet up again later and I to go finish packing up our stuff in the hostel and check out.
The packing all went of without a hitch and we put our luggage in a storage cell for later when we came to pick it up before the train to Köln. Forest and I then went down to the Main and sat next to the river till 12ish when we met up with the girls near the cathedral in the old town. We walked through the cathedral and a roman ruins. In the the cathedral candles were available for purchase so I bought one for Kimberly and myself.
The girls had already eaten so Forest and I split up from them again and went to find something to eat while they explored more. We found an indian supermarket with home-made samosas for sale and bought 8 of them along with a bunch of other little treats, of special note is the Jamaican Ginger Beer.
The girls met us at a small park in near the Frankfurt Oper, where Forest and I had come our first day in Frankfurt and goofed off in. We walked with the girls to the hostel in the red light district and got our stuff then hurried over to the train station which fortunately is only a block and a half away from the hostel and boarded the train.
After breakfast and getting ready, Forest and Logan and I went out for a stroll in an attempt to find the PalmenGartens which currently has an exhibit on European Landscape Architecture, I was excited... however the day did not exactly turn out as we had planned.
Rather than finding the correct path to the PalmenGarten we took a side road, Hamburger Allee, that led us to a great adventure in miscommunication, random meetings, beers on a hot day, and good food.
After walking a significant ways we came upon a kiosk which was open, and as it was Corpus Christi and most of the restaurants and kiosks and all the stores were closed we decided to stop at this few and far between oasis. As it turned out this Kiosk had another patron, a Spaniard who had lived for about a year in the USA, in New York. Well, let me tell you he was the man to find!
Our Spanish friend, although living in the USA had never learned English and as our Deutsch is less than what some might call 'gut' we had difficulties understanding him. As I was the most proficient at German I was used as a primary translator of the Deutsch that was spilling forth from this slightly intoxicated mans lips.
From what we determined utilizing our skills at Deutsch and Spanish we gathered that he was telling a very long drunken joke, this is it simplified from a 15 minute conversation: a friend of his died due to alcohol (drank himself to death,) then his friend went to heaven and asked St. Peter to let him in. Well, St. Peter said yeah okay, but drinking isn't allowed up here so you have had your last drink. Well, this didn't sit too well with the guy so he drank in heaven and god and st. peter kicked him out the door (this little bit he mimed out to help us get the gist of the story.) So now his friend is down in hell and couldn't be happier because he can drink.
Good joke, huh? Well although the joke isn't too much fun the entire trying to break the language barrier that accompanied this was a riot. Logan and I were confused and cracking p while Forest fell asleep on the bench. After we finished our beers from the Kiosk we said goodbye the Spaniard and walked on down the road.
Well, we were still slightly lost and now we were hungry as our bellies were full of only beer, so we stopped to eat at one of the few restaurants we had seen open and ordered food and drinks. We sat outside under the shade of a giant umbrella, or at least we did after the waiter had been yelled at by a German customer for opening an umbrella. Poor waiter.
So at the restaurant I had a plate of fries and a curry sauce with fried cheese dish. It was excellent!
We stayed there till around 5 pm and then wandered back towards the central part of the city were our hostel in located but we did make a stop at a massive tower in Frankfurt that had several sculptures and a water fountain outside of it, quite interesting.
After returning to the hostel Logan crashed and slept for a while, Forest and I just read and worked on journals and looked at photos. A pub crawl was about to start but we opted not to go on it since the people were all noisy Americans and other english speaking men and it seemed less than an exciting time.
As it turned out we were able to witness a couple of fights (from our window in the hostel we narrated it, more fun than you can imagine) that took place around the hostel many crack deals and even Forest being “attacked” by a woman who wanted him to come into one of the peepshows. It was great see the look of torment on his face and his mingled anxiety and horror as the woman wrapped her arms around his head in something like a chokehold and shuffled towards the door of the bordello. He suffered all that for his addiction to Banane Milch, ha ha ha.
The next day, the 4th we went to the Palmengarten. It was really beautiful and they had many enclosed exhibits simulating different biomes. Forest and I took lots of photos and videos in the tropical exhibit then we wandered into the European Landscape Architecture Exhibit. It was really cool and I gained lots of ideas and critiqued the featured works. Took a lot of pictures too. Then, Forest and I sat and chatted a bit about landscape architecture and photography. It was really nice to have a quite chat about the things we are invested in.
After the exhibit we walked around a bit more found the rosen garten which was quite lovely and found a gift shop. Forest went in and bought postcards, stamps, and alcohol… ahhh my little brother. The best part though was the alcohol he chose. One was a bottle of Apfelwein the local specialty of the Frankfurt area and the other was a sparkling wine of 15% alcohol with those always classy screw off tops. Well Forest drank the drinks and we wandered some more, finding some really cool places like a desert exhibit, an open field area that looked like it was filled with local varieties.
We then found a cave area that had iron gratings covering several side passages and tricked in there some, doing superman, side crow, flag, and the like. Well, by this time it was getting late and we had to go meet up with Logan for dinner so we left the Palmengarten and walked back to the hostel where we ran into Logan and then left for dinner across the Main (the river flowing through Frankfurt.) We had a nice walk and went through the old town area with its old impressive structures then across on of the multiple bridges along the main and found an area that had several restaurants and pubs along it.
The restaurant we went to had only a few vegetarisch, vegetarian, choices so I got a really tasty though expensive meal of herbs blended into a “grün sauce” and a hard boiled egg and a pitcher of apfelwein. The meal was good and we talked and relaxed and just enjoyed the outdoor atmosphere that the city really does an excellent job at offering. Then after we had settled the charges we walked to a Kiosk and got a beer and right next door was this little pizza place that I got a pizza at for cheap and forest got a tuna salad. We walked to a park that was diagonally located from the pizza place and sat there in the park with the beers and pizza and tuna-fishy-Forest.
The park was the location of a couple of interesting occurrences. 1) Forest tried to have another gumball out of a street side vending machine, but the gods interceded and stole his money as the machine jammed. 2) A strange guy rather effeminate and maybe in his 70’s walking his little white dog came over to us and needed to get by us into the park. We had been sitting on the step to the park and as it was a raised park with a fence all around it except at its three entrances we happily obliged in moving… however the man did not rather he said something in Germany to us… something along the lines of your pizza box is in the way of my dog, move it. Well I understood his meaning and moved the pizza box, while Logan and Forest just stared slightly mystified. You can be sure that this made us crack up laughing once the guy was out of earshot and we were heading back to the hostel.
We stopped once more that night, this time at another Kiosk near our hostel and with a small seating area outside of it. Logan and I got bier and Forest went to find a Banane Milch. We sat and drank and talked then headed back to the hostel. Logan & I went out again for a few minutes simply to get some pictures of the great area we were in. Then it was bed time.
A cool man from Switzerland was in our dormer room and he and I chatted some and he wrote a few cool words in Romanian as his fiance is Romanian and he was headed to see her and bust her out of her country finally after going through much paperwork.
Our final day in Frankfurt dawned and I woke up to meet up with Kimberly and her friends from the military base. I met them at the train station and oriented them a bit in the Frankfurt area. Then we separated so they could go look around the city for a bit with plans to meet up again later and I to go finish packing up our stuff in the hostel and check out.
The packing all went of without a hitch and we put our luggage in a storage cell for later when we came to pick it up before the train to Köln. Forest and I then went down to the Main and sat next to the river till 12ish when we met up with the girls near the cathedral in the old town. We walked through the cathedral and a roman ruins. In the the cathedral candles were available for purchase so I bought one for Kimberly and myself.
The girls had already eaten so Forest and I split up from them again and went to find something to eat while they explored more. We found an indian supermarket with home-made samosas for sale and bought 8 of them along with a bunch of other little treats, of special note is the Jamaican Ginger Beer.
The girls met us at a small park in near the Frankfurt Oper, where Forest and I had come our first day in Frankfurt and goofed off in. We walked with the girls to the hostel in the red light district and got our stuff then hurried over to the train station which fortunately is only a block and a half away from the hostel and boarded the train.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Travel and Arrival
Traveling:
The morning of our drive down to Boston, we slept the night prior at my father's place in Searsport, Maine, we raced about doing a few last minute packing of items... this was primarily Forest as I was finished... several times Forest nearly hyper ventilated because he couldn't find his clear, clamshell contacts case... turns out it was in his toiletries bag, ha! Suzanne drove us down to Boston a fairly straight forward drive as Logan Airport route is much better marked than it used to be.So Forest and I got through everything without a hitch and we waited for multiple hours for our flight but it left on time without any real delays and we were airborne.
Aer Lingus is a decent carrier I would say. I think we flew on an Airbus 332 should anyone be curious. They are minimalist in their serving but for the price we paid for the tickets it is understandable. I had a nice meal of rice, steamed veggies, braised tofu, cheddar cheese, crackers, a roll, black tea with milk, and "cheese cake". The tofu was unseasoned, so it was rather odd but I ate it and didn't really mind.
I stayed awake during the flight as it was only a 5 and a half hour journey to our layover and watched: an episode of "The History of Football, Brazil," Invictus, Daybreakers, and Youth in Revolt. All okay, Invictus definitely the best of them, but little surprise there.
The Dublin layover was kind of fun because things were ultra relaxed, we walked through a couple of areas to get to our next flight that looked as though they were private offices or the inner bowels of an factory :)
The second flight was short and we were in an Airbus 221 flight was decent but a little turbulence sent the drink and snack serving to an abrupt end.
Frankfurt: Day 1:
Upon arrival at the Frankfurt International Airport we went through the usual rigamarole, however we didn't have any customs stuff to deal with or visas so that was nice. We grabbed the check luggage and proceeded to the Bahnhof, train.
We rode the train it was here that I could really tell that my German language skills are not sufficient for the task of communicating anywhere near fluently with people as a nice gentleman offered to have us put our packs on the seat next to him. I spoke with him a little and it was obvious we would have had a friendly conversation if either of us were skilled in the others language to do so.
Looking out the train window we flew by stands of trees, Cedar was prolific enough for me to pick out from the forested groves and also some spruce. Little community gardens boardering tiny houses in small common styled areas dotted the landscape occasionally and large glass towers reared above the landscape.
As we were both tired we weren't paying attention and missed the main station stop, but we simply got off at the subsequent one and went back the previous way. In the main station Forest being extremely hungry bought a wrap, shocking me as there were many giant wieners right next to it, then we walked from the main station about 4 blocks to the hostel.
Our hostel is the Five Elements Hostel in the Red Light district. The erotica and casinos scattered about sets a humorous and colorful backdrop for our wanderings. However, this red light district is not what one might expect, while yes there is junkies getting their fix of both the chemical and physical varieties, there is also high end living establishments, turkish restaurants, vodafone shops, jewelry stores, and hostels/hotels all within the area, some even being neighbors to places like "Eros' Den" and "Erotika Shoppe".
Also little more that a block away is a series of plaza open spaces, corporate buildings and the green swaths of parks.
Forest and I, after buying beds in the hostel and locking our stuff up in safe-boxes, wandered around this lively area. Forest took his camera and I took my video camera and we both chronicled our wanderings. We found a small grocery store were we bought some food items and then found our way to a plaza were we sat out in the sunlight and ate the dense and absolutely amazing Ankorn bread we had bought with bree.
We made our way back to the hostel after wandering some more and stashed our groceries. I went up to speak with the woman at the front desk so that I might find a few things and she pointed them out on a map. I decided we had better buy the stuff we need today as tomorrow, Thursday the third, is a national holiday and all stores will be closed such as a phone (01520 8429392, give me a call) and converter for our electronics.
We went out again and by this time it is 2 o'clock, three maybe, and we wandered to the park system that rings the water front area. Forest and I goofed off doing handstands and the like on the walls and seating of the plaza spaces. Then wandering on found our way to the Frankfurt Opera house, unfortunately they won't be doing a Faust opera till later in the month by which time we will have travelled on.
After the parks we found the Main that flows through Frankfurt. It has nice pathways and seating areas along it promoting lots of use by people of all ages. I sat there for probably an hour enjoying the atmosphere, taking the occasional photo, and resisting the sweet embrace of sleep, Forest succumbed and I let him sleep for a good 45 minutes.
We walked back towards the hostel taking a different path and chanced upon a pakistani restaurant where we both ate our fill, I had a channa masala and 2 naans and a mango lassi, all for only 7e. After getting back to the hostel we both crashed and I awoke to do some work, such as this, around the midnight hour.
I am now getting famished as I write this so I will stop here so that I may eat then read then again sleep, tschuss!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Preparations, 2 days to go!
2010-05-30
I have opted to include this section Preparations, so that I will have a relief in which you, the reader, may ground your understanding of me; a comparison of the world I will inhabit and intrinsic changes that I experience... that is if any occur, time will tell.
A large portion of my day has consisted of organizing for the trip, moving things from room to room, in boxes and out. Today, I went through my stack of books that I brought back from college... it was large to say the least, yielding to me several interesting papers that I had not know their whereabouts.
I took a break and played a little tennis with Tom (step-father), while Alice and my mother played nearby. Good game had funn and quite a few laughs. Returned for more packing, finished watching the Diarios de Motocicleta (very much enjoyed and would recommend), then drove my grandmother to a party.
A little later, I went out with my mother, step-father, grandmother, and sister (Kim) to the Thai restaurant on Main Street in Bangor. Wonderful food, I ordered a Tom Kha (coconut soup) with tofu, fresh Thai rolls with tofu, and the Penang curry with... can you guess? Yep, also with tofu. Its a good thing I like tofu otherwise this might not have been an ideal meal.
Afterwords, I did a little more in preparation for the trip including organizing with Forest, via the phone, on transportation to Boston for our flight out.
Then, mother and I sat down and did the crossword puzzle... my only issue is that there are some incredibly obscure people, television show star often that I have never heard of and were long before my time. *sigh* Oh well, c'est la vie, no?
Tomorrow:
I have plans for packing from the early morning till ultimate in the afternoon then return home finish packing and head down to my father's where I will spend the night, where Suzanne has graciously offered to drive Forest and myself to Logan Airport for our rendezvous with Aer Lingus.
Auf wiedersehen my friends and country when you hear from me again, I will be in Deutschland.
I have opted to include this section Preparations, so that I will have a relief in which you, the reader, may ground your understanding of me; a comparison of the world I will inhabit and intrinsic changes that I experience... that is if any occur, time will tell.
A large portion of my day has consisted of organizing for the trip, moving things from room to room, in boxes and out. Today, I went through my stack of books that I brought back from college... it was large to say the least, yielding to me several interesting papers that I had not know their whereabouts.
I took a break and played a little tennis with Tom (step-father), while Alice and my mother played nearby. Good game had funn and quite a few laughs. Returned for more packing, finished watching the Diarios de Motocicleta (very much enjoyed and would recommend), then drove my grandmother to a party.
A little later, I went out with my mother, step-father, grandmother, and sister (Kim) to the Thai restaurant on Main Street in Bangor. Wonderful food, I ordered a Tom Kha (coconut soup) with tofu, fresh Thai rolls with tofu, and the Penang curry with... can you guess? Yep, also with tofu. Its a good thing I like tofu otherwise this might not have been an ideal meal.
Afterwords, I did a little more in preparation for the trip including organizing with Forest, via the phone, on transportation to Boston for our flight out.
Then, mother and I sat down and did the crossword puzzle... my only issue is that there are some incredibly obscure people, television show star often that I have never heard of and were long before my time. *sigh* Oh well, c'est la vie, no?
Tomorrow:
I have plans for packing from the early morning till ultimate in the afternoon then return home finish packing and head down to my father's where I will spend the night, where Suzanne has graciously offered to drive Forest and myself to Logan Airport for our rendezvous with Aer Lingus.
Auf wiedersehen my friends and country when you hear from me again, I will be in Deutschland.
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