Day Two In Germany

First thing this morning we got a ticket for an all-day pass to a double decker bus that tours the city. 

Us on the TOP of the bus

The bus took us through a lot of the town including the street with most of the thirty-two museums in Frankfurt, over the Main River, and past many of the major buildings in Frankfurt. Because Frankfurt is in the middle of Germany and Germany is in the middle of Europe, Frankfurt serves as one of the biggest business cities in the world. Hence the many big business towers.

It was also interesting to hear that over 85% of the Frankfurt population lives in apartment buildings. No one has an actual house. Which makes sense when you consider that the population of Germany is 83 million and it is less than half the size of Texas!

Apartment building

We took the bus to the main shopping center of Frankfurt and spent quite a bit of time there. First things first we stopped for lunch (at Burger King since we were craving a little America). Its different here because 1. they never add ice to your drinks. 2. If you order water, you get bottled water and you pay for it and 3. You get ONE ketchup packet with your fries and THAT'S IT! And it didn't even taste the same. The ketchup here is much sweeter that in America. There was a beautiful cathedral that we saw in the bus tour in the center of town that was built in the 15th century and is one of the only things that was saved from destruction during the world war.

Our bus dropped us off back in front of the main train station which we took from the airport to our hotel the first day. It is HUGE. More that 1000 trains come and go from this station every day. It takes trips to all of the nine countries that surround Germany. As the tour guide is describing how fortunate that Germany is to have nine countries that surround it he explains to us that the United States is only lucky enough to have three countries to boarder it....we all look at each other like "did we all skip the same day of Geography class or what?"....he continues to name the countries that boarder the US: Canada, Mexico, and Texas. Ummm, excuse me?! Nope, he wasn't joking. I really think they think Texas is its own country. I couldn't even back up enough to include the whole front of the train station in my picture (and I was over a block away) but there are still two more arched portions that come off either side yet. At the very top of the center arch there is a sculpture of Atlas holding the world up. The whole top of the building is glass panels which makes it look even bigger from the inside.Underground, below the train station, there is an even bigger shopping mall. Look closely at the picture and you'll notice the escalators that are coming out from the underground shopping center. So it goes all around under the trains clear out to under that main street that runs in front of the station.

So after the bus tour we came back to the hotel to drop off our shopping purchases and then went back out to do some local wandering. We walked down the street a few blocks and there was some sort of festival going on with food and merchandise vendors.

This was a building front we walked by while we were at the little festival

When we finally got done sight seeing, we came back to the hotel and decided to take Mario up on his offer. Let me explain. The first night we got here we walked down the street a ways and walked into the first bar we found. It was this little tiny bar with one person inside. We pointed to all nine of us and said "beer?" We received beer :) We sat there for quite a while and got to know the bartender named Mario. When we finally left he said that if we came back some night he would cook us an AUTHENTIC meal. So we got down there tonight and he made us a "salad" which consisted of tomatoes and cucumbers covered in the most AMAZING cheese ever! Then he followed that with schnitzel (like a deep fat fired pork chop) and french fries. He finished the meal with a real German bratwurst. It was all absolutely amazing!! So now comes the really awesome part...we are finishing up and we ask for the bill and he waves and shakes his head "No, no...this my gift to you". So we sit around and talk a bit more and finally again ask how much for the food. He AGAIN waves us off and says its his gift. As we are getting ready to leave Chris says we will pay something for the dinner. So we all pull out some money and had about 120 euro out when NOW Mario decides that we can pay the bill. He pulls up a chair and sets the bill down and across the table I read 214 euros and know for a fact that my jaw ACTUALLY dropped. He repeats the total and everyone else looked as wide eyed as I did. Whoops! We sat there for about ten minutes digging and digging for every last euro that we had in pockets and purses and could still only reach about 190 euro. Keep in mind all of us are leaving tomorrow morning and didn't to have much euro left to convert back to dollars so we definitively didn't have enough money! So while we sat there and counted the money we didn't have a few people made a mad dash to the ATM. In the end we all payed our portion and enjoyed an amazing authentic German meal, but it was one still one of the most expensive things I've done in Germany.

Chris counting the not-enough-money and Mario (striped shirt in the background) just watching....

On our way back to the hotel we stopped to enjoy one last German beer with each other. I had a Schoffer Hofer Grapefruit beer which was quite amazing! We are now back at the hotel all trying to figure out how the suitcase that we brought full are going to fit the many things we bought today :/