Thanksgiving 2012

It's Thanksgiving - a time for family and food.  We had both.  This year it was all adults.  We had Mom and Dad, Ruth, Marina, Mom, Ed and Cheryl.  Everyone pitched in and made it a successful day.

Ruth on gravy duty.

Marina was like a whirling dervish.  As soon as something needed to be washed, she was on it. 

Our lovely turkey stuffed with cornbread dressing.  Every year, John and I cook the turkey, dressing and potatoes and everyone else brings a dish.  This year we had green bean casserole (Ruth), 2 pumpkin pies and an apple pie (Mom) and chocolate pie (Cheryl).  We also had those little cheese bread rolls that you get at Texas de Brazil (which can be found in the frozen bread section of Central Market!).

Mom and Cheryl.

Dad watching the Houston kick some Detroit butt.

Suppertime!  We serve dinner buffet style.

Everyone grabs a plate (courtesy of Mom), loads up and finds a place to sit.  Unfortunately, we don't have a table big enough for everyone to sit together so you just find a place to sit and get comfy. 

This year John & I sat with Ed, Cheryl and Marina.  Mom, Ruth and the Chaneys sat together in the kitchen.  Everything was delicious.  Every year I'm thankful for my family and friends.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Frankfurt Germany 2012

The second part of our German vacation was a trip to Frankfurt where we fell victim to one of the classic blunders.  The most famous of which is "Never get involvled in a land war in Asia" but only slightly less famous is "Always take the express train".  More on that later.

On Tuesday, we caught a flight from Berlin to Frankfurt and took a cab to our new home for the remainder of the week.  We stayed at the Steigenberger Frankfurterhof.  It was perfectly located right in the middle of the city and it was just beautiful.

The room was really nice.  We had a large walk in closet as well as a large bathroom.  All the European hotels have a bidet.  I've always been curious to try to use it but I can't quite figure out what to do.  Oh well.

The hallway of our hotel.  Can anyone say Redrum?

Our first night in Frankfurt, we walked down to the train station to pick up a German rail pass.  Train travel from Frankfurt to other cities is quite expensive if you purchase the tickets individually.  We bought a double pass that would allow us unlimited train travel on any train for three days within a thirty day period.

The Frankfurt Hauptbahnhoff.  According to Wikipedia, this is the busiest train station in Europe.

Our first excursion from Frankfurt was to Stuttgart to see the world's coolest museum.  We were only stopping here long enough to see the Porsche museum.  Now I'm no car enthusiast (I just want something that will get me from point A to point B) but this really was a cool museum and I would have happily accepted the keys to any of the cars here.  All the men in the museum had this childlike smile on their face.

This is John's dream car.  The museum was filled with Porsche's starting with the very first model.  Apparently, Porsche only made 200 of these babies.  I guess my baby will just have to keep on dreaming.

 This one would have been my choice.

After the museum, we were taking the train to Heidelberg where they had this cool castle along with many other notable sites.  We sat on the platform waiting for the train but it didn't show.  Two platforms over, we saw a train that said the final destination was Heidelberg.  Thinking we were on the wrong platform, we ran over to the other platform and hopped on the train.

 Stuttgart - the city.

What we didn't know was that we'd boarded a REGIONAL train.  That meant that the train stopped at every podunk town between Stuttgart and Heidelberg.  What would have been a 45 minute ride on the express was about an hour and a half.  After 45 minutes, I was afraid we'd taken the wrong train.  But we couldn't get off because I didn't know when the next train would come through the podunk town to pick us up.

 Charming!

Beautiful!

Wish you were here!

All the little German towns that we passed through were very quaint.  They all had churches with big steeples and lovely hillsides but after 45 minutes of quaintness, I was getting cranky.

By the time we got to Heidelberg, it was time to catch the train to go home.  It was very frustrating.  When checking the schedule to go back to Frankfurt, we made sure that we got the Express!

There's not much to do when you're waiting for the train...

The next day we stayed in Frankfurt.  The center part of the city was very compact and we were able to walk where we needed to go.  Romerberg Square is like the town hall or city center.  The center of the three buildings above is Romer.  It's been the city hall for over 600 years.  You can go in but we didn't.  They have rooms that you can rent for weddings, etc.

 Nikolaikirche.  (St. Nikolai Church).  The church was built in 1290.

This guy - we couldn't figure out how he was suspended.  He reminded me of Igor from Young Frankstein.

Lunch break!  We walked all over looking for a bratwurst.  We had pretty much given up and had almost settled for McDonalds.  As a last ditch effort, we walked out of the underground station and smelled this amazing aroma.  Right next to this entrance of the underground was a little hut where the vendors were grilling brats.  It was heaven on a bun!

Leonardskirche.  St. Leonard's Church is the oldest parish in Frankfurt - built in 1219.

Frankfurt skyline from across the river Main.

 

The Main river behind us.

Portikus is a gallery that has various art exhibitions.  The building was erected in 1825 but destroyed in WWII.  It was restored in 1987.

Dreikoenigskirche (Church of the Magi) is on the opposite side of the river from Frankfurt in Sachsenhausen.  The original structure was built in 1340 but torn down in 1875.  A newer structure was built in the same place.

Der Kaiserdom.   Cathedral of St. Bartholemew.  It's hard to get a good photo of this magnificent building because it's surrounded by other buildings.  You can see the spire from all over the city.  This is the church where the coronations were held for the German Emporers.

The Frankfurt Opera House.  Built in 1880, it was bombed out in 1944.  It wasn't restored until the '70's.

We decided to take a river cruise on the Main river.  Scene's from the boat.

Usually on these river cruises you get a lot of history.  The guides tell you what you're looking at - it's very interesting.  I guess these guys were bored because there wasn't much of a narrative.  So instead, we played with our phones.

 Some of the skyscrapers in Frankfurt.  The CommerzBank Tower, one of the taller buildings in Frankfurt.

Druckwasserwerk.  This used to be a pressure water plant.  Nice looking building!  It's now a restaurant.

 

When the cruise was over, John wanted to go back to the room and I wanted to walk around a little more.  John took this photo of me in case I ended up missing.  Lucky for all of us, this photo didn't end up on a milk carton.

 

This was the Romerberg Square (and Nikolaikirche) in the evening.  It was really pretty.

John in his fancy new sport coat.

Our last day we were feeling brave and we decided to hop on a train and visit Cologne.  

The city sits on the Rhine river.  The weather was very dreary.  It was cold and rainy but we didn't let that deter us.  The Cologne skyline from across the Rhine.

 

Cologne also had one of the most beautiful cathedrals we'd seen in Germany.  Kolner dom (or High Cathedral of St. Peter) is a Roman Catholic Church and is the seat of the Archbishop.  The church was started in 1248 and halted in 1478.  There are at least 12 gothic churches in Cologne.

St. Pantaleon's Church, Cologne.  I couldn't figure out how to get to the front of the church but it was beautiful.

We wanted to do a river cruise on the Rhine but the cruise boats didn't seem to be going since the weather was bad.  This is the Hohenzollern Bridge.  They had all these locks along the side - locks of love.  People would engrave these locks and attach them to the bridge. 

These we just random buildings.  I believe the colored buildings were restaurants.

We headed back to Frankfurt for a lovely dinner at Restaurant Francais, which was in our hotel.  It was awarded a Michelin Star.  The chef is Patrick Bittner.  We had a five course tasting menu.  Plus they kept bringing out 'gifts' from the chef.  By the time dessert came around, I was begging for mercy.  The food was really good.

Auf Wiedersehen, Frankfurt!  We'll be back....

Cecil B Demille junior (aka John) spent his time making movies with his phone.  Here's one of his feature films.  It's the skyline of Frankfurt from Sachsenhausen.

 

This next one is a glimpse of the coolest museum EVER!