Deutschland

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Josh and I (Paul) have decided to have a boys week (or so) in Europe. I recently bought a new car and the opportunity presented itself to pick it up at the Porsche factory in Stuttgart. It seemed like an ideal opportunity for a road trip. We plan to pick up the car and drive it on the roads it was built for - the german autobahn. We will ultimately hook up with a Porsche group on an organized driving tour of the south of Germany. Ever once and a while, I expect, we will stop to check out the local environs.

We started off our trip on an early evening flight from Toronto. An unexpected upgrade to business class had josh thrilled. This is the first time he has flown in the rarified air at the front of the cabin. He spent the first hour of the flight mastering the seat controls. We both made use of the extra room to get a few hours sleep on the plane.

We arrived in Frankfurt at just after 8:00 in the morning, local time. We took a train to the main station in Frankfurt and checked our luggage in a couple of lockers. We then spent a few hours on a quick overiew tour of Frankfurt. Much of the city was raised as a result of firebombing in the second world war. However, a handful of historic sites remain, including a few excellent examples of middle age Germanic architecture. We generally spent the day wandering the inner city. We took a city tour by bus. We walked through the red light district. Checked out the view from the top of a 200 m building. Wandered through the Occupy Frankfurt "camp", located just outside the European Central Bank. Spent a sort time in a musuem of jewish history. Unfortunately, all the signs were in german and our german consists of about 3 words. I sure the museum ws excellent, but for us, we will never truly know.

At 3:00 we headed from Frankfurt to Stuttgart by ICE train. Much to my dismay the train was 25 minutes late - so much for the much baleyhood punctuality of the german train system. We got to our hotel in Stuttgart at around 5:00 and had to be out about 20 minutes later. Peter, our group organizer had very kindly setup a dinner for us at the home of Ilse Nadele. Ilse is a retired Porsche marketing executive and President of the Porsche Club Deutschland (emeritus). We were joined by Peter (the gourp organizer) and another couple who arrived early. Isle made a fabulous dinner with enough food for an army. We started with champagne, moved to a very nice riesling then to a local red and finished off with german schnapps - nothing like the sugary versions in Canada.

We all piled back into a cab for the return trip to the hotel. Josh fell asleep immediately. I was not far behind him.

Tomorrow we pick up the new car at the factory ...

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Photos

Joshua in Frankfurt
Joshua on the 200 metre observation deck of the Main Tower in the financial district of Frankfurt.

Gaylords In Frankfurt
A sign which caused much amusement to the 15 year old.

Train Delays in Germany
Our train was delayed by 20 minutes by some retard. Odd that they would use such politically incorrect language on the sign