1. The Public Transportation - We haven´t owned a car since we moved here! It is wonderful, being able to sit and read a book and arrive at work unstressed. I laugh when we drive over an overpass to the autobahn and see all the cars sitting in a stau. In the winter it is fun, cause I never have to shovel the snow, scrape my windows, pray that the car will start and then drive thru chaos. I also never have to look for a parking spot.
2. Health Insurance - Though I complain sometimes, it is a pretty good deal. America could learn from this system.
3. Vacation - This actually holds me back from moving back to the US. I literally cannot imagine going back to only having 2 weeks off a year.
4. Seasonal Produce - I love going to the market and seeing the mountains of seasonal produce. When it is cherry season, or strawberry season, and especially "spargel" season, it not only makes you hungry for this item, it also seems to ust make good sense. Plus, because it is local, the taste is not only more intense, but fruit tastes like it supposed to, carrots taste like carrots instead of orange cardboard tasting things.
5. The Markets - Bornheim has a market on Wed. and Sat. It is a full sensory experience when you walk thru the stands, all the colors, the smells, the sound of the sellers as they yell, offering their bargains at the end of the day. It all makes me smile.
6. FKK - I like it that the Germans don´t really care about nudity. It makes Americans look silly with their strange prudishness that is all out of whack. The Bild newpaper could take the naked girl off the front page though, maybe put it on the 2nd page? It seems a bit tasteless.
7. Downtown - It is so nice to have a vital, lively downtown, whether it is 2 in the morning or a Sunday, there are always people there and something going on. When I go home to Columbus, it just looks sad and dead.
8. Ease of travel - Living in Frankfurt makes it sooooo easy to travel to anywhere due to the central location. Even going thru security here isn´t that bad and the flights are almost always on time.
9. Multi-culti Frankfurt - It is great living in a city that has so many foreigners in it. Over 30%! It not only makes me feel safe (no neo-nazis) but all the restaurants, the languages you hear, the different clothing, makes for an interesting daily life. Hate to admit it, but before I moved here, I had only met 3 people from other countries
10. The German language - It is amazing that I learned this language at the age of 31. It is simply fun being able to express myself in another language, especially when mad. Ranting in German sounds so forcefull!
11. The Trains - It is so cool, getting on a train and whizzing thru the countryside at 300 km an hours. Being able to get up, walk around, or go have a coffee, makes taking a train much more enjoyable than taking a flight or riding in a car. Basically, I love the trains! I remember my first train ride, from Hanau to Frankfurt. I was so excited, you would have thought I was a little kid.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
D-Day and Normandy
Last summer, we took a 4 day vacation in Bayeaux, Normandy. Ever since I moved to Germany, I had wanted to see the D-Day beaches. We checked out the Rick Steves website where we found BattleBus Tours. This looked like just what we wanted, and it turned out to be absolutely the best tour we could have taken. After a 6 hour train ride from Frankfurt, with a train change in Paris, we arrived in Bayeaux. This is a charming little town that for whatever reason was not bombed during the war. It has a beautiful cathedral and lots of little streets to wander around in. We checked into our B&B, the Hotel STe. Croix and were pleasantly surprised. Our room was perfect, everything that you could have dreamed of in a French B&B. Huge, king size bed, giant bathroom, hot water maker, and beautiful antique furniture. More was to await us at breakfast. Everything home made and so yummy. The chocolate tart was to die for, as was the french version of french toast. It was like custard, it was so soft and creamy. I can highly recommend this B&B as the price was really reasonable and our hostess was very friendly.
Our BattleBus tour was for 2 days, from 0800 to 1700. We had Sean as our guide and he did a wonderful job of making D-Day come alive for us. Two other American couples were in our mini-van and Sean did an admirable job of answering each and every question we had. If you have watched "Band of Brothers" or seen the movies, "Private Ryan" or "The Longest Day", you will already have an appreciation for what this invasion meant. As we got to the beaches, I was so surprised to still see all of the bomb craters there, some of them as big and deep as a house. The German embankments and bunkers are permanent monuments that reveal how easy it was for the Germans to repel our attack. It is just amazing to stand there and view this beach. I cannot imagine what it would have been like to try and cross this beach while being shot at and having everyone around me being killed. The courage to do this just astounds me. BattleBus tours also offer a British experience, a Canadian experience and a Band of Brothers tour. We would like to go back and take each of these tours as ours was so fascinating.
We not only visited several museums, but also several churches. The most moving was a small chapel, where 2 medics cared for 80 civilians over several days of constant bombing. You can still see the blood stains on the pews. It was a surprise to see stained glass windows with paratroopers on them or dedications to the 101st Airborne. As we drove around the Normandy countryside, you could tell how the hedgerows were an awful hindrance to our troops. One of the more moving things that we saw were the little monuments dotting the countryside. All of them neat and with flowers and all of them erected by the grateful, local French population. At one spot where we stopped, you could look out over the countryside for miles. This was flatland, where the Germans had opened floodgates, covering the land with water. Hundreds of our paratroopers drowned here.
I really recommend this trip to any American, Canadian, or British citizen. Just visiting the cemetary or standing on the beaches can bring tears to your eyes, thinking of the sacrifices made.
Our BattleBus tour was for 2 days, from 0800 to 1700. We had Sean as our guide and he did a wonderful job of making D-Day come alive for us. Two other American couples were in our mini-van and Sean did an admirable job of answering each and every question we had. If you have watched "Band of Brothers" or seen the movies, "Private Ryan" or "The Longest Day", you will already have an appreciation for what this invasion meant. As we got to the beaches, I was so surprised to still see all of the bomb craters there, some of them as big and deep as a house. The German embankments and bunkers are permanent monuments that reveal how easy it was for the Germans to repel our attack. It is just amazing to stand there and view this beach. I cannot imagine what it would have been like to try and cross this beach while being shot at and having everyone around me being killed. The courage to do this just astounds me. BattleBus tours also offer a British experience, a Canadian experience and a Band of Brothers tour. We would like to go back and take each of these tours as ours was so fascinating.
We not only visited several museums, but also several churches. The most moving was a small chapel, where 2 medics cared for 80 civilians over several days of constant bombing. You can still see the blood stains on the pews. It was a surprise to see stained glass windows with paratroopers on them or dedications to the 101st Airborne. As we drove around the Normandy countryside, you could tell how the hedgerows were an awful hindrance to our troops. One of the more moving things that we saw were the little monuments dotting the countryside. All of them neat and with flowers and all of them erected by the grateful, local French population. At one spot where we stopped, you could look out over the countryside for miles. This was flatland, where the Germans had opened floodgates, covering the land with water. Hundreds of our paratroopers drowned here.
I really recommend this trip to any American, Canadian, or British citizen. Just visiting the cemetary or standing on the beaches can bring tears to your eyes, thinking of the sacrifices made.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Something New
Yep, I´m finally catching up with the rest of the world and starting a blog. I surely wish it had another name though, as the word blog sounds kind of yucky. But, since I didn´t invent it, I just have to go along with it.
I hope you will check back here often and see what develops. I have lots of opinions (who doesn´t?) and I will want to hear yours too. Hopefully, I will manage to post something here every day. It might be a weird experience I had on the bus, or one of my bizarre dreams, or just a pet peeve. It might even be an open letter to Hilary, or Oprah, or the grocery shoppers in Frankfurt (that might need an entire article!)
I hope you will check back here often and see what develops. I have lots of opinions (who doesn´t?) and I will want to hear yours too. Hopefully, I will manage to post something here every day. It might be a weird experience I had on the bus, or one of my bizarre dreams, or just a pet peeve. It might even be an open letter to Hilary, or Oprah, or the grocery shoppers in Frankfurt (that might need an entire article!)
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