Sept 11, 2008 – Frankfurt – Visit with Charlotte’s CISV Frankfurt Delegation (3)

The Main River, which starts in Bavaria and flows west, passes through Frankfurt before emptying into  the Rhine River; it is 326 mi (524 km) long. It is part of the Main-Danube Canal, which links the Rhine and Danube rivers to create a 2,200-mi (3,500-km) waterway from the North Sea to the Black Sea.  This vessel was typical of bulk ship and barge traffic we saw on German rivers.

We walked to a German restaurant and had a nice dinner with the group.

After dinner, as we were walking our hosts back to the train station to head home (except for Sophia who we were driving home because she had invited Charlotte to a sleep over and to attend her school the next day), we saw the ‘beer bus’ weaving its way along one of Frankfurt’s pedestrian streets.  There was a bartender and someone steering the bike and revelers around the outside, each of who is pedaling while imbibing some of Frankfurt’s finest.  A novelty we had to capture.

Sept 11, 2008 – Frankfurt – Visit with Charlotte’s CISV Frankfurt Delegation (2)

Up to a certain age, which Charlotte and Allister haven’t yet reached, playgrounds have a mysterious pull over them.  In Canada, its hard to pass one by without a quick stop to climb aboard.   Here in Europe, the features are a little different and its new, so not stopping is an impossibility.

Part of our Frankfurt walking tour took us past the financial district where we saw this interesting piece of art displayed outside one of the impressive new buildings in downtown Frankfurt.  Our new German friends told us that Frankfurt is one of the few German cities with tall buildings – most other German cities have some kind of building height bylaw or have just evolved differently.

  

The tallest building in Frankfurt is 54 stories and it offers an elevator to an observation deck.  Those who know me also know I’m not that enamored of heights but I went up to the top and stayed close to the entrance to the elevator.  While we were at the top a television crew assembled and then started their broadcast.

One of our German friends, told us that this was the evening weather broadcast from a local television station.  They were also amused to see the broadcast live after having watched it at home.

 

Sept 11, 2008 – Frankfurt – Visit with Charlotte’s CISV Frankfurt Delegation (1)

Both Charlotte and Allister attended international youth camps in Pennsylvania this past summer.  Charlotte’s camp was in Pittsburgh, PA and Allister’s was in Lancaster,PA.  The organization that sponsored these events, Children’s International Summer Village (see www.cisv.org) was established just after World War II and has chapters throughout the world.

CISV has different programs, but both Charlotte and Allister attended the 11 year old camp program.  The camps bring together delegations of four children, along with a leader, to one of these camps where they participate with other delegations in a range of activities, that include home stays weekends, over a 4 week period.

Charlotte’s camp included delegations from Egypt, USA, Jordan, Philippines, Denmark, Germany, India, Indonesia, Norway, Costa Rica, Brazil, and Canada.  Delegations to Allister’s camp came from France, Italy, Luxembourg, Germany, Norway, Poland, Costa Rica, Brazil, USA, Indonesia, India, and Canada.

As we travel through some of the cities where Charlotte and Allister have friends from camp, we are trying to make arrangements to meet up with them and spend a little time together. 

This picture shows Charlotte with the Frankfurt delegation to her camp sitting on the edge of fountain in front of the Frankfurt Opera House.  From left to right, Lisa (leader), Timothee, Sophia, Charlotte, Lea , and Jorg.

Lisa had assembled her delegation and organized a walking tour of downtown Frankfurt and dinner at a Frankfurt restaurant.

This is a picture of the Opera House and part of the large plaza that surrounds it.  It was a very nice public space.

 

As you can see from everyone’s short sleeved shirts, we had good weather, quite humid.  The posts following include some other sites and events of that day.

Sept 9 – 10, 2009 – Heppenheim, Germany

I had used some hotel points and booked a hotel for two nights in a place called Heppenheim, about 50 km south of Frankfurt, so we fired up our TomTom 920 GPS (more about this in a later post) and went a nearby gas station to top up the tank since a regulation prohibits shipping a car in Europe with its gas tank more than 1/4 full.  Shipping the car from somewhere in France (Peugeot factory?) to Frankfurt (or other European destinations) is part of the Auto Europe service for which we have paid a small surcharge.

This trip south was not without its events, most of which reflect poorly on us, but it was our first contact with a German autobahn.  Everyone who has visited Europe describes it but its still a new experience to be traveling at 120 km/hr and have a Porsche or Mercedes go by you at 200+ km/hr like you were standing still.  Or more startling, to be in the passing lane, checking your rear-view mirror regularly and not seeing any overtaking cars and then suddenly glancing up to have one of these vehicles flashing their high beams at you wanting to get past.

After a short drive made longer by some of the events mentioned above, we arrived at our hotel in Heppenheim and began the process of checking in and getting our car parked in the hotels garage.  Even then we were already starting to realize that we couldn’t take anything for granted and that some things are done differently in Germany.

Fortunately, one of the front desk staff at our hotel, the Park Inn, who spoke English very well (we learned the next day that she had visited Canada as part of a student exchange and had a home stay with a Maple Ridge, BC family!)

Heppenheim’s skyline as viewed from our hotel window.

  

Another view of Heppenheim from our hotel window, this time showing some of the streets of the old part of the city.

Sept 9, 2009 – Flight to Europe and Arrival in Frankfurt

Our story begins with our flight from Vancouver to Calgary and then Calgary to Frankfurt.  All told about 11 hours flying with the Calgary – Frankfurt leg taking about 9.5 hours.  None of us got much sleep – it was hard to get comfortable in the seats.  In Allister’s case, the ability to select his own movie was probably the key factor in his insomnia – he claims to have only watched only 3 movies but the rest of us think it was closer to 5 movies.  He was in heaven.

Frankfurt is a big airport, second only to Heathrow in the number of flights it handles.  It isn’t the largest city in Germany, Hamburg, Berlin, and probably Munich (and likely others) are all bigger but it is central and on most of the major transportation routes so maybe this accounts.

As some may know, we are traveling in Europe by car so the next task after recovering our bags was making contact with Auto Europe, the company that administers the Peugeot buy-repurchase program that is supplying us with a new Peugeot 407 Station Wagon for our trip.  Even though you worry that somehow we won’t figure out how to make contact we do and we’re picked up in a van and taken about 20 km away to where our car is parked.  We’ll include pictures of the Peugeot later but when we took delivery it had only 11 km on its speedometer – so this really was a new car.