My first travels here... and my first death metal concert

So Cori's with us right now, and will be for a little while longer, before she goes home to get settled back in for her sophomore year of college. When we were planning the move, she was looking around for things to do and found that some of her favorite bands were scheduled to play in Berlin the second week that we'd be here. Once we landed, figuring out how to get tickets and get over there was really high on her list of priorities.

She and I left Tuesday morning, taking our normal bus down to a metro station, then metro-ing over to the main train station. We rode the train to downtown Berlin, then metro'd to the stop nearest our hotel. We checked into the hotel and relaxed for a couple of hours, then took the metro to the Wuldheide station and followed the throng to the outdoor amphitheater. The walk felt like close to a mile on the way there, but it was a nice walk on a cool summer evening through the woods. Really neat location for the venue. The theater is generally shaped like a horseshoe, with benches leading down to a large standing room only general admission section. I didn't feel like dealing with the crowds, and Cori was happy just being there, so we stood up on the pathway that encircled the venue. Over time, she pushed and wriggled her way up to the railing, so she was immediately behind the top bench; I moved back to the far side of the pathway (about 20-30 feet behind her), and just tried to stay out of everyone's way.

The opening band was one I'd never heard of, Mercyful Fate. They're a Danish death metal band that's evidently been around since the 80's. They didn't do anything for me... many, many moons ago, I listened to metal, so I didn't find the music offensive or intolerable, it was just a band that didn't do much for me. 

The second band was also one I'd never heard of, Volbeat. After the first band, I was truly expecting another metal band of some sort, especially taking into account the dress of the fans around. I was surprised that they were more of a rock band - they had a few harder songs, but I was quite impressed with them overall. Reminded me of a cross between a huge arena type rock band like Bon Jovi with someone a little harder, like Queensrÿche. 10/10 would see again.

After the show, we walked back to the metro with the rest of the throng - it didn't feel like a mile coming back, but it was still a ways. We rode it to our stop and went back to the hotel, eventually going to sleep.

Woke up the next morning with nothing on our plate until the concert. We had breakfast at the buffet downstairs - really impressive spread for a hotel breakfast. Hotels in Italy usually didn't offer breakfasts at all; if they did, it was croissants and juice. This one had normal breakfast foods - scrambled eggs, (real) bacon, pancakes, a waffle iron, all kinds of breads to toast, bunches of kinds of cereals... very good breakfast fare, all things considered.

I was looking around for things to do until the concert. I happened to think of the Berlin Wall, and was looking to see where it was, finding a map on a web site that was devoted to the wall. The map didn't have streets on it, more just the layout of the city, and where the wall ran through it. I knew where the hotel was, and was tracing the line of the wall on my phone - evidently, the wall was quite near our hotel, and I'd probably be able to go see it. I was standing outside while looking at the map, and while orienting myself, decided that the wall was probably in a specific direction... turns out, our hotel was on one side of a street (Muhlenstrasse), and the wall was immediately on the other side of that street. Standing out front of our hotel, I could literally see the wall from where I was standing. D'oh!

Later that day, I dragged Cori over there and took a couple of pics, then stopped in a tourist shop and bought one of those little shards of the wall... there's a Certificate of Authenticity on the back that says it's actually from the wall, but in truth it's probably just construction debris - as many of those little shards have been sold over the years, the wall would have had to be tens of thousands of miles long, I figure.

Growing up in the Cold War, the wall just occupies a weird place in my head - I can't really explain it. If you're in that same head space, you'll get it... if not, just chalk it up to me being a little odd, and we'll move on.

That night's concert was originally supposed to be at the same venue as the previous night, but it had been moved to the local arena... which just happened to be around the corner from our hotel. Yeah... total accident on my part, what with me picking the hotel and all, and knowing about the venue change before we booked everything. 

Since the concert was supposed to be at the other venue, all of the seats were GA. When we headed in (on the floor level), the lady checking tickets asked if we wanted to stand or sit. We chose to sit, so she sent us up the escalator to the concourse, where we could pick seats in the bowl (rather than standing the whole time). We ended up sitting in one of the corners, on an aisle, about 20 rows up from GA. Cori was glad that she had a straight sightline, and didn't have to stand the whole time.

There were three bands that night... the opening band was a rap metal band from Austin called Fire from the Gods. Rap metal wasn't a thing back when I was into metal. Honestly, didn't do much for me. Cori had only heard one of their songs, they did play that song, so she was happy.

Megadeth was the second band - one of two bands (at these concerts) that I'd heard of, and the only one with songs I was familiar with. They were my favorite this night - I've heard a lot of their music, but only really know two songs, and they played both of them. Never seen them live before, really enjoyed it. Cori had seen them with a friend in Nashville a few weeks before we headed over here, so she's got bragging rights over her friends.

Five Finger Death Punch was the third band, the headliner. I'd heard of them, but wasn't familiar with any of their music. The music was fine, the combination of the lighting and the volume had a weird effect on me, and I had to go out to the concourse, as I started feeling a little ill. I guess I'm getting a little old for this stuff. This was Cori's favorite act (I think... might be close between them and Volbeat, but I'll have to ask her for clarification if anyone really wants to know).

After the concert, we walked back over to the hotel (right across the street, remember?) and were in for the night.

The next day, we took our time getting up and out, and left the hotel around 10, for a 2:30 train. I've got the train app installed on my phone, and according to the app, the train was going to be very full, and they recommended that we get reserved seats. We didn't get reserved seats, and had to figure out how to find seats on the fly. We ended up finding available seats in the "quiet" section; there were entire train cars which were open, with 2 seats on each side - those are the normal seats. Then, there were train cars that were about half open seating, and about half with little glass enclosed rooms, with 6 seats inside, 2 rows of 3 (facing each other), with the aisle running along the side, rather than in the middle. I saw in the app that most of the seats that were available to be reserved were in the 3 wide sections, so we found two adjacent seats that weren't marked as being reserved in one of the little aquarium rooms. We rode the 4 hours in (mostly) silence back to Frankfurt, playing on our phones and reading most of the time.

Getting home from the train station was quite an adventure, when it was supposed to simply be the opposite of our trip in. 

We pulled into the main train station and went down to the subway to catch a train to the station where we'd get the bus. Got onto the subway... and it skipped our stop. We got off at the next stop, and rather than just getting onto a train headed in the opposite direction, we decided to walk - I wasn't sure why the train hadn't stopped, but I had no guarantee that a train in the other direction would stop there either. I was (and continue to be) positive that we were on the right train line, so there was some reason the train didn't stop.

Took a little while to walk to the station we needed to be at, where we would be able to catch the bus home. We got there, and saw that the next bus should be there in a few minutes. 

SPOILER ALERT: It didn't come in a few minutes.

We waited for 30 minutes for the bus - it never showed. We saw several trams go by, including the tram number that goes right in front of Becca's office. If we could just get to Becca's office, I know the bus goes right in front of there. So, we got onto a tram (which should travel the same main street as the bus).

As an aside, the tram area in front of Becca's office is under construction, so while buses can still drive in the normal lanes of traffic, the trams can't go up there. We had hoped to get closer to Becca's office, then jump off the tram and onto the bus that takes us to our town - from the station we got on at, that tram and our normal bus take the same main road all the way up to Becca's office.

ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT: It didn't take the same road that night.

The tram turned right and started going in a different direction. I immediately noticed, but thought it had been rerouted due to the construction. I looked at the map posted above the door and saw which direction it was going, and that it didn't look like it was going to end up in the right spot, so we got off. Not being close to a metro stop, we decided to walk back to the main road, where I knew the right bus should be. Took a while to walk back over there, but we eventually got back to the bus stop we'd turned right at. We checked the bus stop, and saw that our bus was supposed to come every 10 minutes. We waited there for 20 minutes, with me teaching Cori new curse words every few moments.

Finally gave up on waiting and flagged down a cab. He took us right to our front door... had to pay €25 rather than being able to use the bus passes we've been using the whole time we've been here, but we finally got home. Rather than the simple (and boring) train -> metro -> bus route, we'd used the much more adventurous train -> metro -> walk -> wait -> tram -> walk -> wait -> taxi route home instead.

When we got home, we were talking with Becca, and she was telling us about her day. She'd gone into the office, even though it was a German holiday. What German holiday? I have no idea, but as near as I can tell it's a special holiday where the bus drivers are off and random metro stations are closed, but the tram drivers have to work.

So... there's the big update I was promising. It was a big adventure for Cori and me, and now we've learned valuable stuff about the public transportation system: to wit, sometimes, it's better just to give up and take a cab, rather than dealing with all the BS.

The trials and tribulations of an American in a small town in Germany...

I don't know what I did in a previous life to piss off whomever's in charge of technology, but whatever it was, I'm sorry, and I promise to be a better person next time around. A warning: this post will be full of bitching and moaning - sorry 'bout it, I just need to vent. Just skip to the jump toward the bottom if you don't feel like listening to me whine.

More daily life...

Well, nothing groundbreaking has been happening here. Last couple of days... 

Thursday evening, Becca and I took a walk down through the town - I can't think of a way to describe it that doesn't sound trite. It's just a little old town of about 35,000 people. Normal, everyday stuff. Pharmacies, grocery stores, boutiques, dance studios... quite picturesque though. You'll just have to come and see it, because I can't take decent pictures; I accept my limitations.

Friday we had appointments at Becca's office to get our passes to the compound. Cori and I went to the store to get stuff for dinner before getting on the bus, then rode the bus home.

Becca got a ride home from her boss, and texted me while on the way, that he and his wife would like to take us out to dinner. The stuff that I'd gotten was for salads, so it'd keep. Cori didn't fell like "peopling" (her word), so she stayed at home while Becca and I went out. Went to a local Greek restaurant with them - I ended up have a really good salad anyway. Becca had a gyro plate (gyro meat, french fries, tzatziki sauce), I had a Greek farmer salad. One of the best salads I've had, but I honestly may have just been in the mood for salad.

Saturday, we decided to venture into Frankfurt proper, and do some good old-fashioned sightseeing. Frankfurt has a very well developed public transit station, linking several different kinds of transportation. There's the S-Bahn, which is for longer distance area transport - think taking the train in from the suburbs. There's the U-Bahn, which is the actual subway system itself. There are trams, for moving around (generally) within sections of the city, then there are standard city busses, which seem to run just about everywhere. There's a city bus that runs on the street in front of Becca's office which comes straight to our town, and drops us off at the end of our street, about three or four blocks from our apartment - that's the bus we've been riding when we've been coming back from Becca's office.

There's a station for the S-Bahn right behind our closest grocery store. Unfortunately, that line will be closing for a month (for construction) starting next week, but for yesterday, it worked fine. We took the it downtown... but the train broke down midway there. We had to exit the train and follow the throng of people to get onto another train. We ended up eventually getting off at the same stop that we were planning on getting off at, which was a big shopping center downtown.

The main reason we wanted to get off at that stop was to go the physical office of the transit system, so I could get some paper maps to study and familiarize myself with the system; alas, they're only open during the week. C'est la vie, huh? We walked through the streets to a little area called Römer, that needs a bit of explanation:

In WWII, Frankfurt was a big target for Allied bombing. When reconstructing the city after the war, the Germans made a conscious decision to modernize the city; as a result, the Frankfurt skyline is rather unique when compared to other European cities. There are more skyscrapers here, more taller buildings in general (as befits Europe's financial hub). As a nod to the city's rich history, they developed one section of town to look more like an older hamlet, with traditional style buildings.

While the area looks charming, when we walked through, to me it felt like "Euro Disney" - wall to wall tourists visiting wall to wall souvenir shops. Your mileage may vary though - we'll take you through there when you come visit, and you can give me your impression of it.

One of two interactions that I was quite proud of... I used to speak German quite well... way back in high school (over 30 years ago). I've used it minimally since then, honestly only when we vacationed in Bavaria while living in Rome, and even then, only a couple of times. Yesterday, I went to a tourist information booth, and was able to ask for a map of the transit system in German... the only screwup I made was that I technically used the wrong word for "map" - I used the word "mappen" rather than the word "karte." While both are grammatically correct, I believe "karte" would be the right word to use there. Regardless, the guy knew what I meant (he probably was fluent in English, and was just humoring me - but you can't take this away from me, dammit!). Frau Sanders (my German teacher my senior year) would be proud of me.... I hope.

We wandered around a bit more, and (purposefully) found a specific market, the Kleinemarkthalle. It's the biggest market in Frankfurt, with bakeries, and vegetable and meat vendors - that kind of stuff. Becca had seen it on a Rick Steves show. We decided to get a bite to eat there in one of the quieter restaurants. We sat down, and got menus. Becca and I decided what we wanted - Cori didn't want anything to eat (that's important in a minute). The lady came over to take our order, and I was able to order exactly what we wanted - two waters, a radler (beer/lemonade mix - don't knock it until you've tried it!), an appetizer for me, and an entrée for Becca. I had to explain to her in pidgin German that Cori didn't want anything to eat, since the number of people didn't add up with the number of things we were ordering. All went well, and I'm counting that as a win... now stop trying to take these away from me!

We were thinking of taking a tram to Becca's office and bussing home from there (like we'll do for a month, while our S-Bahn station is closed down), but we ended up wimping out and taking the S-Bahn home.

Didn't do much last night - used the salad ingredients from the previous day and everyone had salads for dinner. We had picked up what looked to be Italian dressing from the store, but it didn't have the normal Italian palate of herbs & seasonings. I can't identify it, it's edible, but not my favorite. Cori liked it, Becca used something called Grüne Soße ("green sauce" - the squiggly looking capital B is the German way to write two consecutive s's.). That's a Frankfurt specialty; it has to be made with certain ingredients, and every place has their own special green sauce. We picked up a container of it a few days ago, and we've had it on a few different types of veggies and meats that we've had.

Becca went for a walk with her boss and his wife this morning - I wimped out. She was gone for about two and a half hours, and came home all sweaty and sunburned. Glad I missed it!

So - that's about it... strange things are afoot next week, I might have an update before, but by the end of next week, I'll have a fun post for ya!

Getting our feet wet...

We're nowhere near our normal routine, and won't truly be up to speed for a few weeks. I've found in the past that putting some of this random stuff down helps me "process it," for lack of a better term. No huge revelations in this post; sorry to disappoint!

Housing came by yesterday morning to show us how to use all the appliances, how (and what) to recycle, that kind of stuff.

Our oven is tiny. We knew about that coming in (since Becca had done a temp assignment over here), but I think the biggest thing we'll be able to get into it will be a quarter sheet pan. Our 11x14 casserole dishes might barely fit, won't know until they arrive though.

We have two refrigerators. Right next to each other. Haven't figured out why, not gonna complain. We have a German refrigerator that's a little bit smaller than a "standard" refrigerator. It's got panels on the front that look like the cabinets - if you didn't know it was there, you'd think it was just a big cabinet. Next to it is a "standard" American refrigerator - it sticks out about 8 inches further than the German one, and is a little bit taller as well. We're still working on a system to know what goes in which fridge - for now, we don't have enough stuff that it's an issue.

Our washer and dryer are standard European ones, front loading, stacked one on top of the other. The dryer has a bin that fills with the water it removes from the clothes, and must be manually emptied occasionally. Don't know how often... I guess we'll all just have to be a bit surprised.

We don't have central A/C. I don't know how much of an issue this will be in the heat of the summer, but it's been mostly bearable thus far. Periods of heat... but right now (for instance), it's nice and cool. We have a couple of air conditioners that we can put into individual rooms as needed, but then you have to set the vent up, and that can be a bit challenging when you take the windows into account. The windows are a bit odd... may have to post pictures, as a description I was trying to write turned into a novel, and nobody wants to read that!

The garage. You know in the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog (or any other catalog filled with random crap that you can't imagine that anyone needs) you'll sometimes see a double-decker machine that only takes up the space of one car, but holds two cars in a stack in a single garage? There are three of those in our garage side by side. Evidently, we're assigned one of the floors in one of the machines, but our car won't fit - it's a little too tall. So, when our car gets here, we'll have to park it on the street. The previous tenant had the same issue - she drove a jeep that was just a little too big. She had an arrangement with one of the neighbors - since our predecessor wasn't using the garage, the neighbor could use it. Well, we bumped into that neighbor outside this evening, and after introducing herself, she quickly steered the conversation over to whether we have a car. We assured her that we knew all about the arrangement, and that our car wouldn't fit either - she would be more than welcome to continue using that spot. Not hurting our feelings, and spreading goodwill around the building!

We had appointments down at Becca's office this morning (ID's and access, stuff like that), so we rode down there with one of her coworkers who would be able to walk us around to where we needed to go. Afterwards, Cori and I left, planning on running to Aldi and then catching a bus home. We walked out, weren't able to find what we wanted at Aldi, and went to a store across the street. We poked around in there for a little while, then came out to catch the bus. We rode the bus all the way to the stop at the end of our street, and started walking up to the light to cross over. On the way up there, we ran into Becca. She and her coworker had done all that they could for the day, so she'd walked out front to catch the bus, and gotten on at the next stop after we did. She got off at the stop at the top of the hill, while we had waited one more, to get closer to home. A little amusing, that the three of us were on different ends of the same bus, and it didn't even occur to us that the others might be on there.

Like I said - nothing big happened today. Just day to day stuff, but we're not down to a real schedule yet.

We're here!

 Well, we arrived in Frankfurt mostly in one piece.

The flight over was brutal. We left Knoxville at around 2:00, and flew to Dulles International in Northern Virginia. Our flight out was delayed by an hour, so our layover was a little longer than we planned, but not too bad overall.

Let me mention a humorous part.... well, it's humorous now, but my wife was a little freaked out at the time. When we were packing our suitcases we each were packing our own stuff. Rebecca took charge of all of the important papers, and put them into the carry-on suitcase that she would take on the plane. The planes that fly out of Knoxville are the little planes, and most carry-on suitcases end up getting "gate checked," and you get it back when you get off the plane.

An important aside (I'll circle back around momentarily): Over the past few years, we've accumulated quite a collection of those TSA approved luggage locks, but unfortunately, the keys between different sets don't match, even though they look identical. This becomes quite important later in our story. We ended up getting a huge set of locks with matching keys, so that we could just carry one or two sets of keys and be able to secure all of our luggage.

When Rebecca was locking up all of the luggage, she used locks from the huge set of locks that we had, including a lock on her carry-on with all of the important papers (since we were pretty sure that piece would be gate checked). All was well until our slightly extended layover at Dulles, when she tried to get into her carry-on. Turns out, she had used a lock that wasn't from the set to lock that suitcase, and we only had access to keys from the set with us (one set of keys each, to be safe). That was the only carry-on that had a lock on it - all the rest of the locks were on the checked luggage, so we wouldn't know the extent of the "damage" until we got to the apartment in Frankfurt.

Turns out, the keys we were each carrying opened every other lock, on every other piece of luggage - just not that one particular one. Her boss happened to have a set of bolt cutters at his house, so we stopped by before we came to the apartment and were able to get into the most important of the bags. A little funny now, but at the time, Rebecca was quite perturbed. We didn't know that we'd be making these kinds of memories on day one, but here we are.

The flight over.... took what seemed like forever. This felt like one of the largest planes I've been on (including when we flew back and forth to Rome). In our section alone, there were over 110 seats; according to seatguru.com, there were 350 seats, and the flight was 100% filled. Our section had three seats outboard on each side, with four across the middle - ten seats per row. We'd paid a little extra to all sit together, me on the aisle, Cori in the middle, and Rebecca on the window. The seats were just as cramped as you'd imagine, and none of us got much sleep. The flight was around 8 hours long, and we arrived here first thing in the morning (local time), so it's been a rather long day, especially with no sleep last night!

Our apartment is a little north-northeast of Frankfurt, in a little burg called Bad Vilbel. The community seems like a sleepy little suburb, mostly walkable - which will be handy, as our car won't be here for a few months. Our apartment is a good size, three bedrooms and two baths, all on one floor. Seems like plenty of room for (right now) the three of us, should be quite spacious for just the two of us when Cori returns to the states.

Housing assignments are made based on full time residents, and Cori isn't considered a full time resident - she's just here accompanying us for a month or so. As a result, the housing department only gave us supplies for two people. We brought sheets with us because we knew the sheets that they would be providing would be "Government Issue," 250 thread count or less... lucky we did, or we wouldn't have enough sheets for the three of us! As it is, we had to borrow a set of towels from Rebecca's boss until our fast shipment arrives, hopefully next week.

Becca's office is in Frankfurt proper, and transportation shouldn't be too bad - there's a bus stop at the end of our street where we can catch a bus that takes us directly there, with no transfers. Her check in isn't for a couple of days, but at some point we'll probably venture out and take the bus into town.

I think I want to get a "granny cart." The stores around the apartment are all relatively close, but carrying groceries back and forth will be much easier if I can just drag them.

That's all for now, but I expect that there will be a continuing flurry of posts over the next week or so. Until then, auf wiedersehen!

Departure day!

 Well, today's the day. Three quarters of the Shores family are heading across the Atlantic. The shipments are well on their way there, the luggage is all packed, and we're waiting for our departure time. We're taking a metric crap-ton of luggage - I think 2 suitcases per person, and 1 or 2 carry-ons each.

We'll leave Knoxville early this afternoon, and arrive in Frankfurt early tomorrow morning.

Someone from Becca's office will meet us at the airport and drive us to the apartment - hope their car is big enough for all of our damn luggage! Most stores in Germany are closed on Sunday, and tomorrow is a German holiday, so we're not expecting many local places to be open the day we get there. We're planning on just hanging around the apartment tomorrow, trying to get our bodies acclimated to the time difference. The rest of the week will probably be pretty full, going through in-processing (getting our local ID's, etc.).

Start planning your trip over - we'll be ready for you to visit before you know it!