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Guten tag again,
I woke the other morning to the sound of luggage wheels passing over cobblestones. What as pleasant sound I thought as I slowly stirred from my slumber. It was interesting that there were so many people up so early and prepared to hop on the bus. Especially considering it was before 6am as my alarm had yet to go off. However, it seemed a little bright for 6am so I thought I'd check my watch just to be sure. 651am it said!?!?!? I haven't jumped up quite so quickly in a while. I threw on a suit, and dragged my bags downstairs in time to eat breakfast and hopped on the bus for the 730 departure. I wasn't even the last one on it!!!
We arrived in Frankfurt, and it was quite a site to see it rising out of the German plains. It is one of the most modern cities in Germany architecturally, with towering skyscrapers throughout the city. The Commerzbank building is particularly interesting as it looks a bit like three flying saucers having a pow-wow. We got off at the European Central Bank and I went through one of the most comprehensive patdowns
I've ever had. I was wondering if I'd have to tip him afterwards! We went upstairs and we got to sit in the press room where the President of the ECB gives all his speeches and press conferences.
The lectures on the Euro and ECB policies were quite interesting, but the highlight of the day was the lunch. This is not a slight against the presentation, but the lunch was something else. Before I had left Vancouver, Kurt Hubner had told me one thing about the trip before I had left. It was not about how good the lecture from so and so would be, not that one city was more beautiful than the other, but that the lunch at the ECB would be fantastic! He was right. Everything was great. The bread, the pasta, the pad thai, the shrimp in coconut and lemongrass sauce, the croquettes and the tirimasu were all sublime. Everyone was doing multiple trips to the buffet table, moths to a flame came to mind.
We left the ECB and frantically ran around trying to snap photos of whatever was closeby. The massive Euro sign was particularly interesting. A had a long discussion with Cloude, I think it was Cloude at least, about whether it would be plausible to flip the euro sign because the photo we took of it was from the wrong side. Then one of us had the bright idea to simply walk to the other side of it. Genious! I almost got run over by a tram crossing the street on the way to the bus, but it was a Bombardier tram so it would have been like being hit by a giant maple leaf!
Next up, France!
Bye for now,
Peter
Things I learned in Frankfurt:
-I like shrimp pad thai. No, three trips for plate refills of the stuff is not excessive.
-I was wrong, spitacid is actually hand sanitizer.
-The art selection in the ECB has to be some of the oddest I've ever seen. A fox and a goose fighting over a hand in mid-air; I don't get it!!?!?!?!
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