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!