Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Doing the tourist thing in Frankfurt

Kurt had shown us where to buy a tram ticket and pointed out some things that tourists always see when they visit Frankfurt. Having done the Baha'i House of Worship, we decided to do the tourist thing. We purchased a day pass and headed to the center of Frankfurt for a little tourist action.



The central train station

Waiting for the train. It took us a little while, but we finally got going.

We decided to visit the Kinder Museum. It was cheap (€9 for the whole family). Their current exhibit was all about collections, or collecting. A lot of the exhibit info was in German, and the employees weren't very helpful (we think their English wasn't great, because they seemed very helpful to the German-speaking visitors). But we looked around and killed an hour. It wasn't very big, but what do you expect for 9 euros?

Examining a teacup collection

All three kids enjoyed plunking around on vintage typewriters. Too bad the ink ribbons didn't work better than they did.

Seems so long ago that Cristina got her tiffin (similar to this one) in Denmark. It's waiting for us in Nykøbing.

Kurt does not have wi-fi, and we were all wanting to check messages, update the blog, and look things up online. Especially Sofia, whose phone does not have data in Europe. The only time she can post anything or check her facebook notifications is when she has wi-fi. So the plan was to spend an hour or two at a cafe that had wi-fi. We wanted something with more local personality, so we avoided Starbucks. We scoped out a few places, got suggestions from the tourist info center. One of the places they recommended was closed. We finally found the other place, Bar Celona. Ha ha. See what they did there? We opted to sit inside, because we figured the wi-fi signal would be stronger. It was a warm day already, but it was HOT inside. The restaurant was attractive and the seats were comfortable, but we were hot and tired and the kids set a record for out-of-sorts crankiness.

The kids look okay in this picture, so you'd never suspect that this stay was kind of hellish. I got a coffee and Cristina got a chai latte.

We ordered three appetizers, and to me this one was the best. Very simple. Tender roasted potatoes with a couple of dipping sauces. So good!

Nothing in Frankfurt is truly old, because everything was destroyed in WWII. But this area with old-style architecture (mainly hotels and restaurants) is THE place you come to as a tourist. So we did.

A metal footbridge is covered with locks that couples write (or engrave) their names on and attach to the bridge to profess their love. We enjoyed browsing through the locks, and wondering if the dates on them were the dates they were put on the bridge, or the dates the couple got together. Hmm.


For dinner, we went to the Thai place in the first floor of Kurt's flat. We'd passed it every time we'd come and gone, and glancing at people's plates (it is always busy) the food looked good. And it was good. Mine wasn't quite as spicy as I hoped for, but the coconut milk was yummy.

Alex and Bella got to bed late (11:30) as has become the norm on this trip. Around midnight, Cristina, Sofia, Kurt, and I were sitting around the table having a nice conversation, about to go to bed, when Kurt informed us that he'd be getting up very early to go to work, so we wouldn't see him in the morning to say goodbye. The problem was we hadn't yet taken our group photo! I ran to the kids room and Bella and Alex weren't quite asleep yet, so I dragged them out of bed and we took our group photo on Kurt's couch. Whew! Close one! (Remember, I'm posting all the group photos from the summer in one post towards the end of the trip.)

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