First off--- what a beautiful autumn weekend getaway I
just had. Fall is my absolute favorite
season. I love just taking a stroll
through the woods in my sweater, scarf, and jeans, feeling the cool breeze through
my hair, kicking my boots through the leaves on the ground, and admiring the
beautiful changing colors of the leaves around me.
A good friend of mine lives in Frankfurt,
Germany, so I had the privilege of gaining yet another cultural experience by
staying with him and his family. I am
beginning to get into the "Christmasy" mood, so seeing both the
London and Frankfurt airports all decked out in Christmas decorations just put
a smile on my face. Of course on my short
one hour flight they passed out these gigantic croissants filled with chocolate
inside. It is moments like these that
make me sad to not be able to eat gluten, but I survived and found myself
content sitting there sipping my morning coffee, looking out the window of the plane. Felix picked me up from the airport and drove
me around Frankfurt, through his neighborhood, and back to his parents’ house. Again
my expectations of what I assumed Germany to look like were far off. I think I should just stop guessing and
painting a picture in my head because I have been completely wrong every time
now. I was shocked at how similar I
found it to be like what I call home back in the states; the twin cities. Felix and I then took me on a brief walk
around his neighborhood where I admired the beautiful colored houses, which looked
like what we would think of as stacked together apartments. Their houses here though are like, so they
can fit more people in the towns. I got
to see a beautiful distance view of Frankfurt and on the other side were the mountains.
I remember saying multiple times "I can
feel the sun", which is something that I hardly feel in London. Not that it is dreary and cold all of the
time there at all. You can just feel the
sun in a completely different way in an open field vs. the downtown city life
of London. We then went to the largest
outdoor shopping mall here. Right up my alley!
We also stopped to get some groceries, which was simply odd to me. First you had to pay to get your cart, they
can buy their milk in big bins of powder (GROSS), there was so much meat hanging
around everywhere… full animal and all (Olivia would have died), and then when
we got to the checkout the receipt was printed on a gigantic piece of computer
paper. You had no bags available to bag
your groceries, ah okay, so you are saving paper by not giving out bags, but
yet you using an unnecessary amount of paper to print a receipt... gotcha...
haha. They also drive really crazy
here, which I guess would be expected if there are not speed limit signs and
they build in spaces to create connecting roads for people to make U-turns all
over the place.
The next day we went into Frankfurt and explored the city
a bit. Even though it was raining it was
still beautiful! Highlight: I got to ride
up the largest escalator in Europe.
Frankfurt is known for their gummy bears, which is one of my favorite
things that Felix always brought with him when he came to the states, so I was
excited to get to go to a store for myself!
For lunch that day his mom made a German meal called raclette, which was
basically a make your own feast. There was a huge variety of meat, cheese, and vegetables
that you put in your own personal fryer, bake, and eat on top of potatoes. YUM! That
night for dinner his family took me out to eat at their favorite restaurant, Hofgut
Kronenhof, which is a brewery out in a horse ranch. Unfortunately I could not try the gluten
filled beer, but his dad told me all about it and how people come from all over
just to have the beer and take it big bottles of it back home with them. For diner I tried a dish that Frankfurt is
known for: eggs and potatoes in green sauce.
I have absolutely no idea how to even describe what the sauce was, but
it was delicious! I also tried some of Felix's
favorite meal schweinshaxe, or the hip bone of a pig. It was actually really good as well! Kind of tasted like ham, but different. Something I began to notice today was that they
drink sparkling water here like there is no tomorrow, which I am not a fan of
at all. It is weird if you drink water
that is not sparkling.
The next day was relaxing. We went for a walk through a different part
of the town and of course I admired the beautiful autumn scenery around me
again.
I attempted to play games with
Felix and his family and socialize with them, but it was a bit difficult. His parents only know a bit of English and with
my lack of German knowledge we turned to Felix as the translator. I had to resist myself for giggling at the
sentences his parents were attempting to form to speak to me. It was so adorable! They of course weren’t really saying anything
right at all, but I could still make out what they were trying to get across
and come up with a simple few word response for them to understand. For dinner his mom made kartoffelgratin,
which was a delicious potato loaf bake with cream and cheese. It was so good!
Germany was a bit different than England and Spain that’s
for sure. Even though I took German for
a year in school, I am ashamed to say that I honestly can only say and
understand about 5 words and that is probably all from knowing Felix. One thing that this whole adventure is really
making me aware of is how absolutely ridiculous it is that majority of
Americans can only fluently speak one language.
Everyone that I have meet so far at least speaks two, but more like
three, four, or even more! I feel so “not
culturally competent” and embarrassed that I can't even form a single sentence
in a language besides English! I think
that is something I would like to work towards changing when I return to the states.
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!
-Brittany
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