Saying Goodbye in Frankfurt

We awakened early this morning and went down to breakfast. We wanted to have Matt at the airport in plenty of time--in case there was a problem. Ibis, even though it is only a 2 star hotel is really as nice or nicer than some of our 3 star accommodations have been. It is mostly a hotel chain that caters to tourists, tour buses and business people. Breakfast included the American classic (scrambled eggs), hard-boiled eggs, fruits, cheeses, meats, breads, cereal, yogurt, fruit and coffee.

I tried toasting a piece of bread -- things that seem so straightforward are so different. I dropped my toast into the toaster and set the number to 2 expecting this to indicate the darkness of the result. I am not sure what it meant since it only toasted the bread on one side! I was waiting for the toast to pop up, when a man next to me indicated I needed to lift an arm on the side to make the toast come up. There is Nutella on the table and rhubarb jam along with homemade warm bread to be sliced. After breakfast we headed to the Airport. The cab cost 21 Euro---and the airport was large. While Matt stood in line to check his bags, I went to reconnoiter and find an ATM machine, a post office, and a place to buy some coffee. Once we got a cup of coffee we sat until 9:30, walked to the security area and said our goodbyes and watched Matt disappear into the terminal.

Kathy and I stopped at a shop where I bought a magnifying glass, a converter to use in northern Europe -- the one Cathy had burned out my battery charger last night. I was really glad not to have the computer plugged into it! I also bought a smaller battery charger to replace the one that was burned up (this one only does 2 batteries at a time). Then we went to seek out a post office. In the afternoon I explored part of the city on the tram which was very near the hotel. A Tageskarte(day pass) cost 5.50 Euro.

It is a bit unnerving to ride a tram when you are really are not sure where you are going. The tram I took brought me to the HauptBanhoff (main train station). I began exploring outward from it. There were a variety of shops and eateries. There was an expensive Spanish tapas bar, but there was also a Starbucks and some stores that reminded me of Dollar stores, and lots of shops that are run by immigrants. There were men on the street in the afternoon drinking lots of beer and some were drinking harder liquor and were clearly under the influence. I decided that this would not be a good place to come to eat dinner in the evening.

Frankfurt in many ways feels like any American city with many skyscrapers and broad avenues. The city is ringed by Autobahn -- I assume it is autobahn because the cab drivers were driving at 120-130 kilometers when we went to the airport. Perhaps much of the city was destroyed in WWII, because much of what I have seen is modern construction. This is a vast change from the ancient buildings and narrow streets from the middle ages in Italy and the Mediterranean.

I went back to the Train station where I found a little grocery and bought some mustard in the tube for Kathy (It looks just like toothpaste) some Pringles, and some Leibniz (biscuits with chocolate on one side). On the way back to the Ibis there was a place that looked like a mall with several visible eateries so that may be an option. When I got back to the hotel, I cleared out my email box. At a little after 5:00 I went up to see if Kathy wanted to go out and grab a bite.

The only draw back to this hotel is that there is nowhere nearby to eat. There are businesses and a lot of apartments that are probably for middle class workers. These are not luxurious, but they are clean and neat and have very little graffiti. We took the tram in to see what we could find, but when we got off at the stop with the restaurants --things were closing. We got back on the tram and found an Irish Pub. We have had so much Italian food, Mediterranean food and German food, that I actually got a hamburger. It has been pretty cool all day, and a couple of times it spit rain. I imagine that the high was around 68 today. What a difference a day makes. Even Switzerland was very warm and humid, but I have warn my warm-up jacket all day.

The windows in this hotel (as with all of the hotels where we have stayed, open letting in the fresh-- cool air. I watched as the sun set and the lights of the city twinkled into existence one by one. There was a sports stadium very nearby, and there must have been a really exciting game going on, because I could hear the crowd roaring frequently--I crawled into the shower and finished packing up for tomorrows early start!