Frankfurt for Some Old Farts

For those who read my blog on a regular basis, I am fortunate enough to be able to see one of my best friends from college, Erin, on a pretty regular basis and the two of us have managed to take some of the craziest European vacations, including Istanbul, Paris, Amsterdam and numerous nights in Zurich. However, in the past 2 years I had not made it to see her in Frankfurt, the headquarters of the company she works for, which requires her frequent trips to Europe. So with little less than 2 months to go before I moved home, I thought it was time to check out what the city had to offer. Due to my busy work schedule, I had to limit my visit to Saturday night, less than 16 hours to be exact. But with our resourcefulness and traveling skills, we were able to make the most of the few hours. And in fact, we some how managed to do more damage in those few hours than our weekends in Amsterdam and Paris combined.

The night started off in the normal fashion, a bottle of wine in the hotel room, followed by a late night dinner some place fun. That evening we chose an Apfelwein restaurant on the south side of the river. Come to find out Apfelwein isn't that good, but thankfully the food was tasty and the crowd was lively. After a few beers, we managed to get a recommendation for a bar nearby which promised rock music. However we quickly realized that the promise was either false, or the question was misunderstood as we walked into the 60-70s soul music bar, asked to hear Bon Jovi and were quickly turned down....Suddenly on a mission to hear Bon Jovi, we pounded our drinks, headed back outside, asked the bouncer where we might have more luck…we were pointed in the direction of left.

We found ourselves in a more promising neighborhood with plenty of loud bars and made our way into the most crowded one. The bar became even more promising after we took two free shots of some fruity concoction that screamed hang over and a round of jaeger purchased by some friendlyGermans. But that was where our luck ended. We were again turned down for the Bon Jovi request and finally gave up the play list fight, settling for bad 80s German pop. We called it quits around 3:30 and found our way back to the hotel to pass out with thoughts of brunch the next morning.

Unfortunately for us, we are no longer as resilient as we once used to be...Things were not as pretty in the morning and brunch was the furthest thing from our minds. With a slight, but increasing head ache, the beginning of the shakes and Erin in the bathroom puking, we both had a dose of hard cold reality...apparently we are not that young any more and can't keep doing this to our bodies, because, come to find out the bodies will fight back... I spent the 4 hour train ride home and the rest of the evening trying to recover. Not fun, but so worth it.

Easter Coffee and Cakes

I just recently wrote about how European I was turning and how I had officially embraced the culture and lifestyle over here... enjoying afternoon coffees with cake, loving sparkling water and even dressing the European part…In reality, it took me less than a weekend with a true European family to realize that I was in fact mistaken... I am not European, but rather just more European than my American counterparts, which doesn't say a lot.

With our crazy schedules and remaining days numbers, Martin and I decided to forgo an Easter holiday in a random destination and instead spend the weekend relaxing with his family in Germany. In hind sight, I think a weekend in Egypt would have been less stressful than meeting the German parents, grandma, aunt, uncles, cousins and family cats for the first time.

The weekend started out great with tennis on Friday with his sister and her boyfriend, followed by afternoon coffee with the parents and grandma. The mom even served two homemade cakes and brought out the porcelain tea set and silver for the occasion, which I thought was the sweetest thing as it reminded me of the tea parties I used to throw as a child. I, of course, dressed the part in a cardigan and ballerina flats. The conversations and my energy level began to drop by the time dinner rolled around, and with my limited conversational German skills exhausted, I reverted to sitting quietly, enjoying my food, smiling on occasion and finding an ally in Grandma, whose limited hearing prevented her from participating in the conversations as well.

On Saturday I got a small break from the action as Martin and I borrowed the family car, a BMW of course, hit the autobahn, and drove to Weimar, an old East Germany town where Martin study architecture. The quaint town, with its famous architecture and historical sites was a nice reprieve from the weekend and surprisingly reminded me of a European version of my own college town.

However, after Easter brunch in Weimar, we headed back to Dortmund for Easter dinner with the extended family and my anxiety was back at high alert… But before the arrival of the whole family, we enjoyed another afternoon coffee with the parents and sister, again served in the porcelain tea set and with yet another home made cake and me again in another cardigan and flats. Not wanting to be rude I enjoyed both the cake and coffee, however, the overload of sugar was starting to give me the shakes, and wired with coffee, my child hood tea party was quickly turning against me. Two days of the true European lifestyle and I was slowly falling apart...my fabulous European haircut was starting to look less chic and more shaggy dog, my feet were starting to stink from the cheap leather shoes, I desperately wanted a glass of still water, a bowl of fruit and something salty and all I could think about was the comforts of a plain white wife beater and elastic waist pants, rather than the cardigan and jeans I was stuck with. I clearly did not fit in...

Despite all of my short-comings, Easter dinner turned out great, and I was able to meet most of his extended family and hear some great stories about Martin. And in case I hadn't already gotten my fill of the European life, we wrapped up the weekend on Monday, not with lunch as most people do before heading on their way, but with more cake and coffee Thankfully Martin’s mom packed us salami sandwiches and sticks of sausage for the train ride home.

London, A Fine Old Chap!

Until last weekend, I had officially been to London three times, and surprisingly I had never really seen the city. With most of my days there filled with work and the pub, there was hardly time to see Big Ben (viewed only from the distance) let alone any of the other sites London has to offer (I would name a few, but again, my visits have been so focused that I didn't even know what sites London has to offer). So when Martin suggested a trip up there to show me "his London", did Imention that my German boyfriend used to live in London, I thought it was a fantastic idea. We found a cheap flight, I booked a hotel using Marriot reward points, and before I knew it we were walking out of the tube and into the city.

From the quiet calm of Zurich to the craziness of London, Martin and I took the ultimate tour of the great city: beginning with a full English breakfast, followed by the champagne "flight" on the London Eye, and a walk past Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abbey ( I drew the line at paying GBP12 to see the inside, although I did stand outside and got teary eyed thinking about the famous wedding, my Princess Di doll and childhood dreams of becoming a princess, but settling for accounting). Lacking the royal escort, Martin and I hopped on the bus for a quick trip up to his old neighborhood of Hampstead, and after a quick stroll through the gardens we settled down for a beer and Pimms in Martin's favorite beer garden, The Freemasons Arm. Feeling refreshed from the beer and sub, we spent the afternoon wandering through the eclectic Camden Market, stopping in at every pub to use the toilet and grab another beer (my favorite being the one filled with a group of rowdy guys, guys with pink mohawks, a 70 year old man sitting at the bar and one girl, who might have been a hooker…Talk about a sharp contrast to the suits and blonds in a typical Zurich bar). The afternoon was perfectly complimented when, fully charged with Guinness, Martin and I found a great vintage store, where I proceeded to buy three of the most ridiculous vintage dresses I have ever seen and Martin purchased a classic 70s style pink button down shirt, complete with pink and purple flowers.

With our purchases in hand, and slightly buzzed from all of the excitement of the day, we decided to head directly to dinner at Crazy Hommies, the Mexican restaurant Martin had promised me for the past three weeks. We hopped back on to the tube for the quick 15 minute ride, ready for some chips and salsa. Unfortunately for us, the tube line we needed was closed, turning the 15 minutes into a 1.5 hour quest, involving buses, getting lost, more buses, walking, and finally flagging down a taxi. We arrived at Crazy Hommies slightly annoyed and completely starving (we hadn’t eaten since breakfast) only to find a 2 hour wait ahead of us. With my stomach empty, Crazy Hommies quickly turned into Crazy Lisa…I had a slight meltdown. Thankfully Martin handled the situation perfectly and we were able to save the evening.

With the slight misstep of Saturday night, the weekend still remained in tact with breakfast and shopping on Covent Gardens on Sunday and one final Guinness before our flight home.