good and bad omens in Frankfurt

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We landed yesterday in Frankfurt at 5:45 (earlier than it was supposed to come - a good omen). We made our way to the central train station with very little trouble and found an internet cafe open in the station (a very good omen - we found an email from our couchsurfing host telling us how to get to his place). As we left the station, though, we realized that Jan had forgotten the nice new black jacket his mother had gotten him, essential to staying warm on this trip, and we had to go back to the airport and wait around for an hour to get it back. We decided this was a pretty bad omen. Having no idea what to expect or what the future holds, we are giving undue importance to everyday mishaps. Anytime something goes wrong we are a little devestated - but luckily everything has gone wonderfully since.

We took the train to Offenbach, the smaller city outside Frankfurt where our couchsurfing host Nurlan lives. It was 11, 5 hours after we landed in Frankfurt. We stopped and got breakfast and coffee first (I had to convince the man at the shop I really wanted black coffee, both of us overemphasizing the word "strong"). I had a croissant with "pig" in it, Jan had a real German breakfast of salami, cheese, jam, nutella, butter, croissant and a roll. After being somewhat revived by kaffee milch and strong coffee, we made our entrance to Nurlan's apartment, where his boyfriend had very sweetly been waiting for us all morning.

The apartment is beautiful and fairly spacious with lots of light. It's very nicely decorated (everytime I complement something Markus tells us it's IKEA, I think they have a nicer line here). Markus is a flight attendant for Lufthansa (a major employer in Frankfurt) and has the whole month of September off, in addition to the regular 6 weeks all Germans get for vacation. We chatted with him and he showed us around the apartment, including the 6 locations for different kinds of waste, our bed in the living room, and the balcony. We had a very nice talk and he made us coffee and shared their homemade grape juice with us. After about 2 hours of hanging out, he got prepared for a jog and we all walked over to the Main, the river that runs through Frankfurt. Jan and I took a stroll and visited the PennyMarkt, where we were very confused by the prices. We bought a jar of stuffed grape leaves, labeled as €.79, which ended up costing €1.59 (still not a bad deal). We walked along the main street to the center of Offenbach, which is really charming, then returned to the apartment (Markus gave us our own key). Around 3, we left with Markus for Frankfurt, about 5 subway (S-bahn) stops away.

First we stopped for some more coffee while Markus drank a beer. Markus treated us despite our protests, so we told him we would get dinner. We have great conversations with him, he is very generous and interesting, and does everything he can to be helpful. After treating us to drinks, for example, he explained to us about tipping (generally, it's included in the price) and walked us over to the tourist-y area while pointing out the relevant train stations and saying the names over and over again so we would have a chance of remembering them.
We walked all over Frankfurt, to the posh areas and the old part of town. We stopped at a shop that only sells instant food, and even has a cafeteria-style dining area serving pre-made instant food. We saw tons of bakeries and an unusual number of pharmacies. We looked at the very grand old opera house and the dozens of skyscrapers being built. We've heard many negative things about Frankfurt but it seems to us a nice, livable city, not terribly touristed, especially the residential and quaint Offenbach, where everqone assumed we were German and spoke to us in German. We asked Markus to teach us "Ich spreiche kein Deutch," I don't speak German, and keep trying to remember the word for sorry (something like entschuldigung, or literally, I unload my guilt).

Around 6 we stopped at a small traditional restaurant for dinner. He knew the waitress and told us about how a friend had rented a beer bike, which has ten seats on a platform and comes with a driver and a server who serves everyone except the driver beer as the peddle around town. They had picked up our waitress as they zoomed around - it sounds like quite a picture. The only thinig she understood in English was "I love you" so we said that to her several times, and she said it back.

The food, of course, was unbelievable. We started out with the traditional drink of the area, apple wine, which is a bit like cider. It came in half-liter glasses and had more alchohol content than (though apparently 1/4 the calories of) beer, and you could get it "sour" (with seltzer), "sweet" (with lemonade), or regular. Then Jan and I split an order of handekase mit musik, or hand cheese with music (music means served with vinegar and somewhat-raw onions). The cheese was a little sour, locally made. According to Markus you eat it with just your knife (we discussed how upset our mothers would be with us sticking our knives in our mouths) and then follow with bread. Our instinct of course was to make a sandwich of it, which was also good.

Next we had liebekase, or "livercheese" which had neither liver or cheese in it. It was translated as pan sausage on the English menu, and it looked a bit like a piece of bread or French toast, but it was a big piece of delicious sausage. It came with potatoes and more bread, and I only got halfway through mine. I asked for the rest to go, which is apparently very unusual. I called it a doggy bag, which Markus misheard as "dolly bag". Jan finished his off, and another big glass of sour apfelwein. He makes a good German.

We walked around for a bit more (after retrieving Jan's jacket, which he forgot at the restaurant, but Markus is the most wonderful omen we could ask for). Then we met Nurlan and Markus' friends at a kiosk, a little stand which serves beer among other things. We stood around on the street and drank bottles, which they very sweetly described as an activity usually for "workless" people, but one which they had decided to adopt for the summer months. It is not at all looked down upon to drink on the street here, and we had a nice time hanging out with their friends and finally meeting Nurlan, the couchsurfer, originally from Kazakhstan, who has lived in Germany for ten years now. One of their friends, Stephen, went on the s-bahn home with us (we retired a bit earlier than Markus and Nurlan) and invited us to the dinner he and Oliver (his boyfriend, I think) are having on Saturday.


We woke up at noon today! Markus made us coffee, ran out to stock up on two cases of beer, and headed out to Wall-E. He buys one case of nonalchoholic to drink after running (whenever I comment on his beer drinking, he protests that he is from Bavaria and that is what they do - it is even part of the traditional breakfast with white sausage) and one case of regular. We showered and are going to head out now to the museum area (museumsufer).


Jan's paragraph:

Rudy, one of Markus and Nurlan's friends whom we met last night at the kiosk -- along with the feeling that since we were joining this particular clique of young/middle-aged Germans in a Thursday night drinking party they would have engaged in despite us anyway we were receiving a sudden zoom-in view across the Atlantic to some streetcorner of a city of 600,000 -- said when he tells "young people" he has traveled the world they do not share the same ambition. "You know, they've been to parties on the coast of Spain and that's all, and they don't even care!" American youth stood there wondering what's possibly wrong with German youth (more stress on computer games in internet cafes?). Finishing "University" (Germans learn British English in school), he traveled all over Europe and to South America. He'd make his money for the week in Rio walking into a bank in his swimming trunks teaching English to bankers. "Do that twice a week for an hour and then you are on the beach the rest of the time, yah?" His amused twinkling blue eyes belie a young spirit still, though the lines on his forehead and spare graying hair suggest he indeed has experienced the world. He is glad we are doing the same. Today he and Markus are at the movie theater which specializes in English-language movies (as you might guess, and as the streetposters, radios at the cafe, as well as Nurlan's iTunes show, Germany's contemporary culture is Anglo-centric), watching Wall-E, and Rudy said it is 'such a good movie' -- though he was yet to see it.

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