This weekend two of my friends and I headed off to Germany for our first trip outside of France. Overall, we had an amazing weekend! Friday night, we left Paris at about 10:30 pm on a bus. This was an hour later than the actual scheduled time, but we didn't mind, because we were having so much fun just being excited for our trip. We got settled on the bus and stayed up for a while talking to our new French friend from Brittany; eventually, though, we all fell asleep and woke up in Germany a few hours later! We arrived in Frankfurt at about 7:00 am and headed to the train station. Earlier in the week, we made plans to couch surf at a guy's house right outside of Frankfurt. However, our phones didn't work when we got to Germany so we couldn't get in touch with him...after slightly freaking out for a few seconds, we went to the nearest McDonald's to attempt to get wifi. When this plan failed, we asked a guy for help with our phones, and he informed us that we actually have to dial the plus sign before the number...oh, of course! Anyway, long story short, we got in contact with our couch surfer, and in no time we were on our way to his apartment in the suburbs of Frankfurt, specifically Darmstadt. The train (metro) system in Frankfurt is actually really clean and smooth. We had no problems using it, and easily found our way around. When we got to Darmstadt, our couch surfer was waiting for us! Turns out we weren't going to get a true German experience because he was actually Portuguese, and didn't speak any German...ohhhhhhh. It was a serious MDR (LOL) moment!! Anyway, he ended up being super nice and took us to the grocery store to get us food, because we hadn't eaten yet. The grocery store was like a smaller version of Stop and Shop. From there, we headed to his apartment, which was in a small, quiet neighborhood. There was ivy growing all along the walls of the apartments, and the cars were parked on elevators so they could be stacked on top of one another; it was very amusing. After we settled in, we explored the town. It was a perfect, sunny day, and the town was great. We found a huge area of markets and lots of shopping! We tried finding a lake that was supposedly pretty nice, but we never actually found it...this infamous lake quickly became an inside joke throughout the remainder of the trip. Anyway, we spent a few hours exploring the town, and then headed back to the apartment. Our host and his friend drove us into Frankfurt, but we went via the autobahn. It was probably the scariest moment of my life. I'm pretty sure he was driving well over 100 mph, but looking back, I can say it was pretty cool, because I'm still alive, and we didn't crash. When we got to Frankfurt, we spent the afternoon sightseeing. The city was crowded, but not annoyingly so. It was super clean, and was one of the wealthiest places I've ever been with streets full of brand name stores. The city had a vibrant, young, energetic atmosphere, and the skyscrapers were so futuristic looking! We went to the top of one to look out over the entire city and went to the old square that looks like traditional Germany. We had a beautiful view of the sunset on a famous bridge in the area, and had a delicious dinner on the roof of a skyscraper overlooking the city. We had our pretzels and apfelweine (basically apple-flavored wine), delicacies of the area. It was a wonderful day. We were exhausted when we got back to the apartment, but our host insisted that we experience the nightlife of the area. So we followed him to a bar in his town and met up with some of his friends. We didn't stay for very long because we were extremely tired, but we enjoyed some German beer and great conversations with his friends, who were very interested about life in the states. After a long day, we passed out back at his apartment.
P.S. Dad, check out my facebook via mom's to look at the pictures! There are too many to post on the blog. See you Friday!!
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