Introduction
Seattle to Frankfurt
Frankfurt Fun Times
Lufthansa First Class Terminal
Frankfurt to Newark
Newark to Seattle
Conclusion
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Sunday 10th May 2015
After getting through immigration without even one question asked, I found my bag already on the carosel and walked through the non existent customs checkpoint. Seriously, could this be easier, even Australia is worse and it is easier than the USA. I had two things I wanted to get before going anywhere. First I wanted to get a Frankfurt Card which would give me access to the trains for the next two days. Secondly I wanted to get a sim card for my phone for Data. Specifically I wanted to get a Blau.de Sim card. They had a deal with Data for 10 Euro for 1GB of Data. Pretty decent because that is all I wanted it for. To be able to move around the city, find where I am going, find out information, tweet a bit now and then. The Frankfurt card was easy, I just had to walk up to the Welcome Center. Done and dusted super easy. The Sim Card I should have gotten from the Oracle store. However it didn’t seem to exist. There was 2 other mobile phone stores and they both did not sell that sim (and they wanted 40 Euro for their cheapest). Not Gonna Happen! Gave up and headed for the train.
Turns out as well that the day I arrive in Frankfurt is the day of a Train strike. *sigh*. Missed a train by seconds, next one in an hour… WTF. Go back to find sim card… still strike out, resign myself to try again in the city, not sure how I am going to get from Station to the hotel, as I was going to go by Uber. Yep, this could get interesting. I wait on the platform and funnily enough there is a train within 10 minutes of me sitting down, one not listed on the board. Heh typical. The Train to the city was easy and within 10-12 minutes I was at the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. I found the Tourist information desk at the station to help me get to the hotel (as i knew there was a tram stop near by, what I didn’t know was the number or stop name). They wrote down all I needed to know and also told me that sunday all shops are pretty much closed. However there might be an open Mobile phone store just near the tram stop. So down I went!.
The mobile phone store did sell Blau sim cards. Sadly though it did not have that particular sim card in stock as they had sold out. *sigh*. So off to the hotel in the hopes I can get some wifi and see what I can find out. The tram was easy and getting from the tram to the hotel was even easier as it was a simple process of just following the street around the corner towards the uniquely shaped building. Checking into the hotel was simple and I asked about shops and she confirmed that I will not have much choice at all of getting it today, everything is shut. I did have free wifi at the hotel, so that would have to do. I logged in as soon as I got up to my room and let my friend Clare know I was here.
The room wasn’t bad, very spacious but the room was really warm and so cranked the aircon to the lowest setting and grabbed a quick shower. By the time I was done and clean, Clare was there and we went off to explore and catch up. We walked all the way to the Train Station at Frankfurt West and then headed off to the touristy part of town to stroll around and see random things, get some cake and coffee (it was mid afternoon by this stage) and just take our time. We had cake in some little random alley cafe and it was really good. Not bad pricing either. The cake I had was a white cake that was so fluffy and had numerous different textures. Such a weird yet wonderful taste differential.
After a quick stop for nourishment we headed off to the Frankfurt Main tower. This is an observation deck on the 55th story of a building and it is all open air. This was quite a good idea as it gave a good chance to look down over the city and see where everything was. This allowed us to work out where to walk to, to check out. We snapped a few photos, talked more, relaxed, soaked in the afternoon sunshine and planned a walk back towards the station via the Opera House. The main thing I wanted that afternoon (other than a sim if i could swing it) was some water, since I didn’t have anything but the two little bottles I had stashed from the flight (thankfully). Sadly I could not find an open supermarket anywhere but did enjoy seeing the Opera House.
After the opera house we wandered back to the Hauptbahnhof figuring we could get something around there and to grab the tram back to the hotel for an afternoon drink (If i charged it back to the room, I could scam myself a 30,000 point refund). We had a drink sitting out on the patio by the fish pond at the hotel and chatted away. The vibe of Frankfurt on a Sunday felt surreal. Everything was so quiet, it was as if there was just no stress at all. Normally on a Sunday I would spend the day doing chores and even then all the stores would be busy with people doing the same. Yet this was totally the opposite, it was as though there was no one around.
We had picked out a place for dinner, something Clare and I both know each other for, Japanese food. Yep, I came to Germany to eat japanese food. Funny right? We ended up walking down there via Clare’s hotel so she could drop off some stuff, and we had a great dinner in the courtyard of what felt like someone’s garden. Like I said… surreal. After dinner we both walked back to our hotels (and I spent most of mine trying to stay awake and not get propositioned by hookers… but I failed on the latter).
By the time I got back to my hotel and did a little bit of catching up, it was close to 10pm and I practically passed out. Such a long day.
Monday 11th May 2015.
I woke up after passing out for the entire night. Damn did I sleep well, I did not wake at all. I got myself ready to go for a run and see where I would end up. However I got a message from home to tell me to call the wife before I went for a run so she could go to sleep. I was thinking to myself “really” but in reality it’s a fair request. Had a quick chat with Heidi and then went out for a run to see if I could find this “river” I had seen on google maps. River turned out to be a canal and the run was really nice. Again Frankfurt felt really sleepy.
After a run and a shower, I felt really human again and was looking to head down to breakfast. I booked the room for 2 people so Clare could scam a free breakfast as well, and since I was only going to have it on one day, was fine for me. Clare was going to leave her stuff at my hotel as well while we went out to explore. Breakfast was really tasty and I had a good bowl of porridge that was so tasty it wasn’t funny. We were both pretty happy and full of caffeine that we headed on out of the hotel for the day. I stopped to tell reception my TV wasn’t working in the hopes they would fix it.
We were going to head off down back to where we had been yesterday to start with, to get some better photos of the cathedral and also check out the Dialog museum. It also seemed to be where we were going to have lunch. Sadly the Dialog Museum was closed so we spent more time at the Cathedral instead. We decided to drop a few Euro and walk to the top of the tower. Not really realising that this meant a whole lot of stairs. A Lot of stairs 🙁
The view from the top of the tower was eventually worth it and we had a good time up there. The best part of the day was strolling along the riverbank with no reason at all other than to enjoy the sunshine and chat. It was still surreal as this was around 1030 to 11am on a Monday morning and the city felt sooo empty. This was something that felt so foreign to me, but I did enjoy it. We strolled and strolled and eventually ended up back in the city area and decided to head towards lunch. I had found a place online that had a good reputation for Schnitzel and was cheap. It also had something that Clare wanted to try which was Frankfurt’s Green Sauce. Green Sauce is essentially a lot of herbs with Eggs and Sour Cream and a few other bits and pieces. It was served with Potatos and more hard boiled eggs. The sauce was tasty.
After lunch we really didn’t have any idea of what to do, so wandered around some more, with no real plan and eventually headed back towards the station again for a tram. Picked up some goodies to take home to Heidi and for her mum’s mother’s day gift (since I copped out being overseas). We hopped on the tram back to the hotel to retrieve Clare’s stuff and for me to swap out to the camera bag. We were both going to head out to the airport so that I could get some plane spotting in.
By the time we got out to the airport, it was around 4pm and we headed up to Terminal 2 (which is also where Clare’s flight was departing from). Terminal 2 has the Visitor’s Terrace, which is a great and easy place to go plane spotting, even if it cost 3 Euro to enter. We spent a couple of hours out there until they were closing it around 6pm and even though Clare isn’t really a plane person, I could see she was interested in what got me going. I believe she even did some sketching of people watching planes.
After saying goodbye to Clare, I headed back to the city to get back to the hotel. Along the way stopping at the Supermarket about a 10 minute walk from the hotel to get some water and some snacks and candys for gifts and found a place close to the hotel to get some takeaway for dinner. Sadly no sausage or other german food, I ended up having Thai for dinner. Pretty tasty and I ended up in bed around 930pm. A long day and almost 30,000 steps!
Tuesday 12th May 2015
I tossed and turned all through the night as the room was just so hot, the aircon did not seem to work at all and rather than spend to much time dealing with it, I just got up around 5am. Thankfully Heidi wasn’t asleep at the time so I had a quick chat with her via skype and then went out for a run. Since I was up early and with nothing better to do. I decided to spent my last 10 Euro by getting the train to the airport (thinking I could get an ICE train and therefore claim I had been on a high speed rail outside of Japan, but that didn’t happen) and buying more candy for Heidi.
By the time I got out to the airport, I followed the directions I had downloaded and let the final piece of my puzzle and what was essentially the entire point of this trip begin.