day 1 travel and day 2 in frankfurt

still trying to recover from this stupid jet lag...at 5 a.m. i decided to stop fighting it and just get up. what's a girl to do when the rest of the country is sleeping? blog of course! (sidenote: people here don't really blog. or know what blogs are. they also don't have DVR. very sad life.)

so let's start at the beginning of the trip!



we changed planes in chicago and all 251 of us loaded the new plane (which was delayed of course) and were busy getting settled in when they announced over the loudspeaker that our plane was now out of commission. groan. so we all got off, hung out in the terminal for another two hours, and then were on our way!

our 777 jet was the biggest plane i'd ever been on -- and they handed out free wall street journals. it's no warm towel, but i was excited. i was happy that even the economy seats were more roomy than a normal plane; not so happy to see a baby in the row across from us whose parents had forgotten to order baby food from united airlines. he screamed a lot. happily i had things like the comfy neck pillow (it actually worked!), "made of honor" starring patrick dempsey, and some ear plugs to help the flight go faster.

so weird to fly all through the night and not be tired, then arrive as the sun comes up but feel so sleepy. it was rainy and cold when we flew into frankfurt but so beautiful anyway -- everything is green and there are little red-roofed villages popping up all over. love it! we hopped the zug (train) to the main train station -- the hauptbanhof pictured below:



i LOVE how much history is everywhere. the hauptbanhoff is more than 100 years old. and i was quickly adding german words to my vocab, since most signs are in german and english. i became very observant very quickly, though, trying to figure out words i couldn't find a direct translation for. i spent most of the day walking around guessing what words meant and having brandon evaluate me.

our hotel room wasn't ready yet (it was only 9 a.m. at this point and i was ready for a nap!) so we dropped off our luggage and hit the town. first stop: the atm.



euros look like monopoly money.

we went shopping in the zeil, a big outdoor mall area with no less than four h&ms. i was surprised at how american everything is! burger king, t-mobile, nicole kidman's face in window ads. kind of sad actually. i also got a little bummed every time i heard someone speak english -- part of me feels like i'm strangely on another planet, but the rest of me feels like i'm just in some other part of the US.

then we headed over to the romerplatz, the cutest little city center i've ever seen.






it was still raining and our hotel still wasn't ready, so we hopped a train to friedrichsdorf to see the frankfurt temple. oddly enough it was on this train that we ran into one of brandon's friends from the mission, who was riding the train to her job. what are the odds of that??

we were wet greaseballs by the time we arrived (remember, we'd been up for almost 36 hours at this point, still in the same gross sweats) so we sat quietly in the visitor's center for a little while smiling at all the cute temple workers who walked by and listening to the legacy soundtrack. then we headed outside for a few photos and went back to frankfurt.





our room was finally ready at the colour hotel! pretty nice place, although it was definitely minimalist. kind of a funky oversized hostel, just across the street from the hauptbanhoff.





we showered (never felt SO good in my life) and took little naps. my goal was to stay up till a decent sleeping time to acclimate to the time change quickly, but it wasn't gonna happen. poor brandon had a cranky wife!

after we woke up we headed out for a delicious dinner of doner kebabs. brandon has raved about these things since i've known him, so i was excited to try it out. they're kind of like turkish gyros but with more garlic. DELICIOUS! (this one's for you, kersti :)



then we walked down by the main river and enjoyed the city skyline. apparently after frankfurt was bombed out in ww2 they opted to go modern instead of rebuilding some parts, so the city is a lot more like manhattan than a more traditional german city.







and then we headed home to sleep at 830 p.m. i was totally exhausted and fell right asleep... i was expecting to wake up early in the morning, but when my eyes popped open a little while later i was shocked to find out it was only 11 p.m.!!! seriously? i woke up about every two hours all night long (pretty much the same routine i'm still in) but just kept forcing myself back to sleep.

more to come soon!