European Vacation 2014, Part 3

(in which we actually get to Germany)

The flight was lovely and uneventfull. I overindulged by watching  documentaries about Shep Gordon and Bert Stern back to back. Rich white guy stuff.

Our hotel is so beautiful and it seems a waste to be here one day. Thanks, Lufthansa pilots! 

It was super nice to take a shower and get out of Monday's clothes on Wednesday. We hosed off, so to speak, and headed out to see the sights. Over the footbridge from the hotel is a beautiful neighborhood, very much like the Lower East Side. 

Frankfurt is known for its Applewein, which is a tart unsweet cider. We wandered around the neighborhood, finding a restaurant / bar that specialized in it. The exterior ornamentation on this place was unreal.

Just to be clear, that was an apple-shaped doorknob.

We sat in what was an outdoor beer garden in warmer months, and ordered the local tipple. In addition, we looked at the menu for a bit and ordered "smashed" Camembert with onions and butter. In my mind I pictured a composed plate with those ingredients. Turned out to be a schmoo of all of those ingredients. Somehow I don't usually get the impression that my Camembert lacks butter. My Lipitor is going to get a workout this trip.

Later we hooked up with a German friend from Minneapolis, mrpiston. He and his wife, ardent fans of all things American, had trees in the back yard that they had named after the starting lineup of the Detroit Pistons. Anyway, mrpiston is back in Frankfurt, with a professorship at the university. We met up with him in Frankfurt at a Turkish fish restaurant where we ate more unexpected pastes: one was a mix of tomato, cucumber and peppers, and the other was a pink smoothie made of fish, beets and something else.

We asked mrpiston about the Minnesota State Fair, one of his favorite events of the year. His obsession with butter sculpture (Princess Kay of the Milky Way) is legendary. Not only did he serve as our docent for the fair a number of years ago, but he is *also* the person who took us to the amazing Prince concert at Paisley Park a few years back. So excited to catch up with him and hear about Frankfurt.

I asked about the fair, since this is the first year he hasn't gone. He replied "there you have put the finger in the wound". Such is his sense of loss. He told us he considered flying back to MN for the fair.

Later at a bar, I brought up the subject of music, knowing that mrpiston is a big music fan. Turns out that mrguy and mrpiston have many essential fave albums in common. Those two could just GO ON. It was so much fun to see them talk about stuff. At one point I piped up and mentioned a personal project that a friend is working on, which is a subject on which mrpiston has written, causing him to say "So you are telling me that you sit at the center of all which is important."

Not really, but it was so fun to have things in common.

We saw this one last cool Frankfurtian thing as we headed back to the hotel. This poster seems to say that if you don't come to this thing they're promoting, in the future you won't be able to say you were there. Heady stuff:

And here we are. It's 6am German time. My colon decided that it was observing the home clock, so I've been up for 2 hours and the alarm is going to go off in 10 minutes.

Today --Cologne. I'll sleep on the train.